If, like me, you’re not a DIY expert but always wished that when visitors call at your house they would be amazed at your seemingly laid-back and very with-it décor – buy Annemarie Meintjes and Karen Roos’s Fast Décor published by Struik.

With instructions that are quick-to-assimilate and not too dense, the authors explain very easy and non-expensive ways to create an individual décor accompanied by excellent photography by Massimo Cecconi.

Now contributing to the interior magazine Visi, Annemarie Meintjes is the former Johannesburg bureau chief for House & Leisure and Karen Roos who developed her sense of style as fashion editor at Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazines in the USA. Their first book Short-cuts to Storage was also published by Struik and had Massimo Cecconi on the production team.

Fast Décor contains clever decorating tricks of their own plus others that have been picked up over the years while photographing homes for magazines. The chapters are divided into sections such as Rethink, Colour, Nature or Tea Lights and invites the home decorator to revisit the meanings of the words, ie Rethink vb. To think again about something (a plan, idea or system) in order to change or improve it or the section on Colour which describes it as n. a substance, such as dye or paint, that imparts colour as opposed to colouring n. a false or misleading appearance.

Fill any discarded object with fairy lights or place strings of them on a glass-paned wooden door. Place a dead thorn tree branch on a wall. Stick a bunch of white ostrich feathers on a bar stool. Dress a window with Post-it Notes and line up bottles of clear water underneath. Stuff a discarded Krrepy Krauly pipe with a rope light. And what happens? You’ve created magical and inexpensive artworks that are guaranteed to be vibrant conversation pieces.

Buy the book and get the whole family to chip in and make your home a special experience, good enough for inclusion in a top décor magazine.

Fast Décor is a 128-page softcover publication with 100 full colour photographs. It retails at R119.95 and includes a database of suppliers.- Peter Warren