Modern maven

He's designed housewares for Target. He has his own line of chairs and ottomans for La-Z-Boy. He's provided dorm decorating tips in Seventeen Magazine. He just had his own five-part special on HGTV. He's cute as a button, and he's handy with tools and a sewing machine.
If only you could get Todd Oldham to come in and redo your living room. Or your bedroom, or your office, or whatever room you make sure you close the door to when company comes over.
Now you can – or at least you can do it yourself using the power of Oldham's decorating and design expertise. The first step: pick up "Handmade Modern: Mid-Century Inspired Projects for Your Home" (ReganBooks, $19.95), Oldham's do-it-yourself guide for hipsters.
"Handmade Modern" contains over 50 projects to help turn your home into a modern day palace without a palatial price tag.
"I've always admired the modern aesthetic in design," Oldham writes in the book's introduction. "But it's interesting to me how design has strayed so far away from the roots of true modernism, which always combined hand-kissed sensibilities with technology and automation. Sadly, most people have come to think of modernism as cold or sterile or antiseptic or wildly uncomfortable – or all of the above. But it's really not that way at all."
Indeed, the rooms Oldham depicts in "Handmade Modern" – a bedroom, living room and reading room – are anything but sterile. Oldham's designs are warm and fun, and the end result is a room that welcomes you to stay awhile.
Take the living room in "Handmade Modern," for example. Oldham calls it "the perfect example of a 'hodge-podge lodge.'" It's cozy, yet not cluttered. Oldham's focus on maximizing space makes this 200-square foot room seem much larger than it is. And though the elements in the room are unique and not intended to match perfectly, everything fits together in its own way.
"We're not out to create a radical new aesthetic here," Oldham writes, "we're merely commemorating tried-and-true principles that have guided designers for some eighty years."
Oldham features background information about several of the designers who have influenced him in the book, including Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and Eva Zeisel.
Oldham has his share of admirers, too. Martha Stewart even plugs the book on the back cover. "Although Todd Oldham's style could not be more different from my own," she writes, "I greatly appreciate his clarity of vision, his playfulness, his easy how-to instructions and the terrific results. This is a good book for do-it-yourselfers – a group that is growing in size every day as homemakers of all ages find comfort and joy in the handmade."
Each project in "Handmade Modern" includes step-by-step instructions as well as photographs and a designated skill level. However, those who don't have experience with things like jigsaws or can't use a hammer without breaking a thumb might find "Handmade Modern" more frustrating than fulfilling.
But whoever said having what you want was easy? One of the joys of having your own place is the ability to mark each room with your distinctive taste to reflect your personality. As any new homeowner will tell you, when it comes to home repair and renovation, it's amazing how skillful you get to be when you don't have the money to buy everything you want and can't afford to hire someone every time something goes wrong. Besides, no home is complete without a jigsaw – and someone who isn't afraid to use it. Why not get your practice in making that ottoman on page 20 or that planter bench on page 198? Just make sure to wear protective goggles and watch those fingers.