Make Life Beautiful

Product Information

Martha Stewart dominated the home and lifestyle industry in the Nineties, until she lost her foothold in the market after she was convicted in 2004 of insider trading. Personalities and brands such as Chip and Joanna Gaines and Property Brothers’ Drew and Jonathan Scott have rushed to fill the void. The former’s Hearth and Hand With Magnolia collection, a rough-hewn brand with a farmhouse aesthetic, is also sold at Target, while home improvement’s Drew and Jonathan Scott, known as the Property Brothers, sell products on HGTV. There is a Style Guide chapter at the end of the book (as Shea mentioned before the book came out). This is where she delves into pros and cons of fabrics, rugs, countertop materials, kitchen styling, etc. Again, succinctly but I think it’s useful nonetheless. Scroll through for some inspiration from some of our favorite reading nooks we’ve designed and styled over the years. Plus, at the bottom, a step-by-step guide to creating your own cozy reading nook at home. Interior design superstar, bestselling author, and host of the EMMY-nominated Netflix’sseries Dream Home Makeover, Shea McGee will release her highly anticipated design book, The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home on September 12, 2023 with Harper Horizon.

The photos are sooo detailed that you can almost feel like you’re physically in the room looking at things. They really paid attention to the quality of the images. Art and design coffee table books are some of our favorite sources of inspiration. Plus, they make great conversation starters and decor accents to bring dimension, personality, or even height to a vignette. We partnered with Kohler for all the plumbing throughout our home, and we actually partnered with Kohler’s sister brand Kallista on this faucet so we could get that perfect unlacquered brass finish. I love that it will patina over time and that it ties in with our interior door hardware.The long-awaited design book from Shea McGee, beautifully showcasing all that is possible for every room of your home. under the stairs, behind the sofa, you name it. No matter how insignificant that area by the window of your bedroom or opening in the hallway may seem, sometimes giving those spaces a little lift can ignite design magic.

Some of the info about their life was interesting and new to me but a majority of the book was things you already learned and knew about them if you watched their show on Netflix. Make Life Beautiful is raw, honest and motivating. A captivating read as Shea & Syd navigate us through the early days of their relationship, family and growing business. A form of a modern day romance success story. I enjoyed reading about their compelling journey that shaped their design empire we know as Studio McGee. Truly inspiring in every way.” - Monika Hibbs, Founder and Creative Director of Monika Hibbs and author of Gather at Home

Praise for Make Life Beautiful

The long-awaited design book from the New York Times bestselling author showcases the beautiful spaces behind Studio McGee and the tools needed for crafting them on your own. The book switches every paragraph between Shea and her husband Syd's perspective. Personally, this made it very choppy and repetitive for me and would have loved if the book was all in one person's perspective. Even switching from chapter to chapter would have flowed a lot better.

Shea McGee founded her design firm, Studio McGee, with her husband Syd in 2014 and together with their team, she has designed hundreds of homes across the country. As their design portfolio and following grew, it paved the way for the launch of their e-commerce brand, McGee & Co., two years later. Their popular Netflix series,Dream Home Makeover,is entering its third season. With a vision that beautiful design can be approachable, they have become one of the leading innovators in the interior design industry. Their firm has become a premiere online retail destination and continues to share their light-filled aesthetic with millions. Whether it’s through her thriving design business, Studio McGee, or her online community of over five million followers, Shea has shown the world how the principles of high-end design can be applied to any home on any budget. In her first-ever design book,Shea takes us through every room of the house, starting with an explanation of process and then guiding the way to a cohesive design for our entryways, living rooms, kitchens, offices, kids’ rooms, and even our utility rooms, balancing her signature aesthetic of sophisticated design and livable functionality. In 2020, Shea and her husband Syd McGee released Make Life Beautiful, their New York Times bestselling autobiography which offered fans an insider and intimate look into how they built their business. For the one million-plus followers who turn to Syd and Shea McGee for advice on building a beautiful home and life, Make Life Beautiful is a behind-the-scenes look into how the couple transformed Shea’s small room of fabric samples and big dream of becoming a designer into one of the most successful and fastest-growing interior design businesses in the country.Our mission to Make Life Beautiful has taken on various meanings since we started this journey,” Shea notes, “but our goal from the beginning has been to inspire people to make their homes a more beautiful place, and it remains the same. We want to continue to inspire people to create beauty around them and believe that good design has the power to draw us in and spend more time with the people we love. It all starts with love at home.” We incorporate coffee table books in nearly every project we design, and they can be a great source for learning more about your favorite artists or designers. Here, we’re sharing a few of our favorites and a few tips for styling them. No. 1: Architectural Digest at 100

The husband-and-wife pair in 2016 introducedMcGee& Co., the brand’s e-commerce division with a handful of pillow and decor items. McGee& Co. last year served more than 83,000 customers, 51% of which were repeat buyers. and finding imagery that speaks to you and how you want your space to feel is a crucial part of the process, whether you’re designing one room or an entire home.

Syd was working with his oldest brother and decided to leave that business,” Shea McGee said. “As he was deciding what his next step would be, I asked him to help me on the side. We made a very good team. He and I have very different skill sets and very differentiated roles. It worked once we got over inserting ourselves into each other’s goals and started to trust each other. We sold our home in Utah and invested that money as a launch pad to start our business.” Shea is a designer’s designer. Whether you are a professional designer or just a weekend aficionado looking for new ideas, this is the book for you. I can’t recommend it highly enough,” said Matt Baugher, SVP and Publisher of Harper Horizon. From the beginning, I always wanted putty-colored cabinetry, meaning a creamy, off-white color on the surround. But we have this 13-foot island, and I felt like if I was to do the same color on everything, it would fall a little flat. I really wanted a big farmhouse sink in our kitchen, so we did the White Haven from Kohler. I love a drip-edge detail; this is something that we’ll do in wood often underneath a farmhouse sink. It catches any spillage that happens when you’re doing dishes and protects your cabinetry. I wanted to do this differently, so I actually did a marble drip-edge across the bottom, and I love how this turned out.