Books — Home Design

Home Design

The Organized Kitchen: Keep Your Kitchen Clean, Organized, and Full of Good Foodand Save Time, Money, (and Your Sanity) Every Day!

List price: $16.95
Lowest new price: $10.28
Lowest used price: $10.18
Author: Brette Sember

An organized kitchen is the salvation every busy cook needs! You'll save yourself time, money, and stress—all while whipping up delicious, healthy meals your family and friends will love.

From aprons to zesters, this book provides an A-Z of simple shortcuts that will make all the difference, including:

Shelf and storage strategies
Five-minute kitchen feng shui
When to clean what—with what
The right tools for the right tasks
The truth about freezing food
Meal plans that really work
Ten foolproof, must-know recipes—with endless variations
The good-enough stocked pantry
Leftovers you'll really want to eat

With tips and tricks from master chefs (think Julia Child's pegboard) and real-life home chefs (think Grandma's ingenious pasta pots), this is the only kitchen/food/life organizer you need to streamline your kitchen—once and for all!

The Organized Kitchen: Because you can minimize cooking time and maximize good taste!

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At Home: A Short History of Private Life

List price: $15.95
Lowest new price: $9.52
Lowest used price: $5.50
Author: Bill Bryson

With his signature wit, charm, and seemingly limitless knowledge, Bill Bryson takes us on a room-by-room tour through his own house, using each room as a jumping off point into the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and his sheer prose fluency makes At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) turns his attention from science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short History of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong

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Make It Mine!

Author: Alexa Keating

'Make It Mine' creates an awareness of how our state of mind affects the world we live in, confirming the old adage that while “You may never reach the summit and for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line you will always regret it!”
This book delves into the psyche so subtly that one barely notices they have been given a ‘checkup from the neck up’ about why we live the way we do in our own homes!
The book is filled with funny stories, sad stories and a million tips, tricks and ideas to help you navigate from a house to a home!
It is full of ideas and solutions for everyone from the college student to retirees. The ideas are bold, not old stuff.
For motivating, inspiring ideas that teach you how to prevent becoming a victim as you locate and improve your home in today’s economy; this is a must read! This book is funny and happy, and is a worthwhile, down to earth endeavor that will bear wonderful fruit.
It is filled with profound thoughts, inspiration and practical ideas for successful living.

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Domino: The Book of Decorating: A Room-by-Room Guide to Creating a Home That Makes You Happy

List price: $32.00
Lowest new price: $18.93
Lowest used price: $15.83
Author: Deborah Needleman

Domino: The Book of Decorating cracks the code to creating a beautiful home, bringing together inspiring rooms, how-to advice and insiders' secrets from today's premier tastemakers in an indispensable style manual. The editors take readers room by room, tapping the best ideas from domino magazine and culling insights from their own experiences. With an eye to making design accessible and exciting, this book demystifies the decorating process and provides the tools for making spaces that are personal, functional and fabulous.

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Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter

List price: $26.95
Lowest new price: $16.71
Lowest used price: $16.90
Author: Lloyd Kahn

There's a grassroots movement in tiny homes these days. The real estate collapse, the economic downturn, burning out on 12-hour workdays -- many people are rethinking their ideas about shelter -- seeking an alternative to high rents, or a lifelong mortgage debt to a bank on an overpriced home.

In this book are some 150 builders who have taken things into their own hands, creating tiny homes (under 500 sq. ft.). Homes on land, homes on wheels, homes on the road, homes on water, even homes in the trees. There are also studios, saunas, garden sheds, and greenhouses.

There are 1,300 photos, showing a rich variety of small homemade shelters, and there are stories (and thoughts and inspirations) of the owner-builders who are on the forefront of this new trend in downsizing and self-sufficiency.

At the heart of our 1973 book Shelter were drawings of 5 small buildings, which we recommended as a starting point in providing one's own home. Now, almost 40 years later, there's a growing tiny house movement all over the world -- which we've been tracking over the past two years.

Many people have decided to scale back, to get by with less stuff, to live in smaller homes. You can buy a ready-made tiny home, build your own, get a kit or pre-fab, or live in a bus, houseboat, or other movable shelter. Some cities have special ordinances for building "inlaw" or "granny flats" in the back yard. There are innovative solutions in cities, such as the "capsules" in Tokyo. There are numerous blogs and websites with news, photos, and/or plans for tiny homes, documented here.

If you're thinking of scaling back, you'll find plenty of inspiration here. Here's a different approach, a 180º turn from increasing consumption. Here are builders, designers, architects (no less), dreamers, artists, road gypsies, and water dwellers who've achieved a measure of freedom and independence by taking shelter into their own hands.

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Making a Fireplace

List price: $0.00
Author: Henry H. (Henry Hodgman) Saylor

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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Marrakesh by Design

List price: $29.95
Lowest new price: $19.10
Lowest used price: $19.58
Author: Maryam Montague

Moroccan design, from the tiled floors to the colored walls, sculpted ceilings, embroidered fabrics, Berber tents, fountains, gardens, and more

In a world filled with beige interiors, Morocco is the perfect antidote: a refuge for addicts of saturated color, a haven for devotees of intricate pattern, a destination for admirers of striking architecture. For anyone who wants to add Morocco's spicy design mix into their own home, Maryam Montague, the personality behind the award-winning blog My Marrakesh, explains how to do so with the building blocks of Moroccan design—from the colors, patterns, and textiles to the archways, fountains, gardens, and so much more. With illustrative text and gorgeous photographs, Maryam shows how Moroccan design comes to life in real villas and riads and in her own magnificent home and guesthouse. Eager DIYers will love the ideas presented in sidebars and in how-to projects that can be applied to homes anywhere. Filled with all the richness of Morocco,Marrakesh by Design will transport readers straight to the souks and salons of this exotic city while showing them the multitude of ways to live with the enticing elements of Moroccan design.

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Compact Cabins: Simple Living in 1000 Square Feet or Less

List price: $19.95
Lowest new price: $11.30
Lowest used price: $11.30
Author: Gerald Rowan

The setting might be a sparkling lakefront, a cool clearing in the woods, a breathtaking mountaintop, or an expansive beach, but the dream of a modest retreat from everyday life often includes a simple little cabin. In cabin getaways of the imagination, the cares of the world recede, time slows down, and the day’s pace is set by leisure and quiet activities.

Compact Cabins presents 62 design interpretations of the getaway dream, with something to please every taste. Best of all, these small footprint designs are affordable and energy efficient without skimping on comfort and style. The cabins range in size from a cozy 100 square feet to a more spacious but still economical 1,000 square feet, and all include sleeping accommodations, kitchen and bath facilities, and a heat source. Complete chapters on low-maintenance building materials, utilities and appliances, and alternative energy sources supply readers with the options for living efficiently in small spaces.

For every design, readers will find floor plans with detailed suggestions for designing the space for optimal use. These plans are flexible; many feature modular elements that can be mixed and matched to accommodate a particular owner’s needs or hobbies. Features such as an outdoor fireplace, covered porch, or external storage locker might work nicely in several cabin designs. It’s all about enhancing and maximizing small spaces to suit individual needs and preferences.

Build small. In this time of uncertain energy costs, global warming, and tighter budgets, building small is a theme that resonates with second-home owners. Gerald Rowan shows readers how to achieve their cabin dreams on a small footprint.

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What Your Contractor Can't Tell You: The Essential Guide to Building and Renovating

List price: $24.95
Lowest new price: $16.39
Lowest used price: $15.49
Author: Amy Johnston

What Your Contractor Can't Tell You is a comprehensive guide to getting the best results while building or renovating a home. Most homeowners spend about 20% of their time on the plan and 80% of their time on a messy, traumatic, expensive construction phase. Pros spend 80% of their time on the plan and 20% on a smooth construction phase. But the homeowners can't know what goes into a solid plan unless someone tells them. This book is based on a simple premise...if homeowners knew even 10% of what the professionals in the construction field know, they could avoid 90% of the problems. Creating a dream home shouldn't be a nightmare. Hiring a contractor is an enormous investment and a high-risk endeavor involving decisions that will last forever. This book equips homeowners with the information and strategies needed to turn their vision into a home or a renovation that can be built on time and within budget. Chapters give detailed coverage of critical topics: design; selecting and supervising the architect and contractor; cost estimates; budget; plan specifications; contracts; dealing with town officials; and keeping track of everything along the way. For each stage of the project, there is detailed information on common pitfalls and how to avoid them, as well as insiders' tips which reveal what most contractors can't tell you. This book was previously published by Warner Books (2004) and titled What the "Experts" May Not Tell You About Building or Renovating Your Home.

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Build Your Own underground Root Cellar

List price: $3.95
Lowest new price: $0.81
Lowest used price: $1.22
Author: Phyllis Hobson

Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

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