The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming


Sally Clarkson - 2016
    . . all year long.Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for "home" to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn't you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can't wait to be?There is good news waiting for you in the pages of The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family's life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you'll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions. You'll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish. (Don't miss the companion piece, The Lifegiving Home Experience.)

Clean My Space: The Secret to Cleaning Better, Faster--And Loving Your Home Every Day


Melissa Maker - 2017
    As the dynamic new authority on home and living, Melissa knows that to invest any of our precious time in cleaning, we need to see big, long-lasting results. So, she developed her method to help us get the most out of our effort and keep our homes fresh and welcoming every day. In her long-awaited debut book, she shares her revolutionary 3-step solution:- Identify the most important areas (MIAs) in your home that need attention- Select the proper products, tools, and techniques (PTT) for the job- Implement these new cleaning routines so that they stickClean My Space takes the chore out of cleaning with Melissa's incredible tips and cleaning hacks (the power of pretreating!), her lightning fast 5-10 minute "express clean" routines for every room when time is tightest, and her techniques for cleaning even the most daunting places and spaces. And a big bonus: Melissa gives guidance on the best non-toxic, eco-conscious cleaning products and offers natural cleaning solution recipes you can make at home using essential oils to soothe and refresh. With Melissa's simple, groundbreaking method you can truly live in a cleaner, more cheerful, and calming home all the time.

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills


Abigail R. Gehring - 2007
    Created to both inspire and instruct, it returns readers to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants so they can rediscover the pleasures and challenges of a more self-sufficient, economical, and healthy lifestyle. Packed with hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, charts, tables, diagrams, and illustrations, it explains how to dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees for propagation, raise chickens, create a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will learn how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

Destination: Simple - Rituals and Rhythms for a Simpler Daily Life


Brooke McAlary - 2012
    You don't know HOW to begin.

The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life


Robin Zasio - 2011
    But sometimes, this emotional attachment to our belongings can spiral out of control and culminate into a condition called compulsive hoarding. From hobbyists and collectors to pack rats and compulsive shoppers—it is close to impossible for hoarders to relinquish their precious objects, even if it means that stuff takes over their lives and their homes. According to psychologist Dr. Robin Zasio, our fascination with hoarding stems from the fact that most of us fall somewhere on the hoarding continuum. Even though it may not regularly interfere with our everyday lives, to some degree or another, many of us hoard. The Hoarder In You provides practical advice for decluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on clutter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety. Dr. Zasio also shares some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she’s encountered, and explains how we can learn from these extreme examples—no matter where we are on the hoarding continuum.

How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew


Erin Bried - 2009
    Food is instant, ready-made, and processed with unhealthy additives. Dry cleaners press shirts, delivery guys bring pizza, gardeners tend flowers, and, yes, tailors sew on those pesky buttons. But life can be much simpler, sweeter, and richer–and a lot more fun, too! As your grandmother might say, now is not the time to be careless with your money, and it actually pays to learn how to do things yourself!Practical and empowering, How to Sew a Button collects the treasured wisdom of nanas, bubbies, and grandmas from all across the country–as well as modern-day experts–and shares more than one hundred step-by-step essential tips for cooking, cleaning, gardening, and entertaining, including how to• polish your image by shining your own shoes• grow your own vegetables (and stash your bounty for the winter)• sweeten your day by making your own jam• use baking soda and vinegar to clean your house without toxic chemicals• feel beautiful by perfecting your posture• roll your own piecrust and find a slice of heaven• fold a fitted sheet to crisp perfection• waltz without stepping on any toesComplete with helpful illustrations and brimming with nostalgic charm, How to Sew a Button provides calm and comfort in uncertain times. By doing things yourself, with care and attention, you and your loved ones will feel the pleasing rewards of a job well done.

30 Days to a Clean and Organized House: A complete guide to transform your home on your schedule, and a monthly plan to KEEP it clean!


Katie Berry - 2014
     - The daily cleaning routine will have your home company-ready in just minutes a day - Easy-to-follow cleaning plans guide you through purging clutter and deep-cleaning every room in your home - Work at your own pace and fit a deep-cleaning and thorough organizing into YOUR schedule - Step-by-step instructions and helpful flowcharts will show you how PLUS you'll get recipes for 10 of my homemade cleaning mixes so you can make your own cleansers using ingredients you may already have in your kitchen. Here are just a few: - Bathroom disinfectant spray - Soft scrubbing cleanser - Glass and window cleaner - Furniture polish AND MORE! When you're finished the Monthly Cleaning Routine will show you how to keep your home just as clean and organized in less time than you're probably spending now!

The Minimalist Way: Minimalism Strategies to Declutter Your Life and Make Room for Joy


Erica Layne - 2019
    The Minimalist Way will help you take it one step at a time with simple exercises and activities. Ease into minimalism at your own pace and learn how to let go.Filled with practical philosophy and easy-to-use strategies for removing unnecessary distractions and stress, this is the essential guidebook for anyone looking to clear out their physical, mental, and emotional clutter.The Minimalist Way includes: MINIMALIST PHILOSOPHY—outlines the principles of minimalism and shows you how to define the practice to fit your life. THE MINIMALIST LIFESTYLE—teaches you how to apply minimalism to your spending, food, clothing, family, leisure time, work, and more. REAL SOLUTIONS—that help you spend time and energy wisely, including checklists, activities, and troubleshooting tips. Live simpler. Live better. Live minimalism.

Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home


Lauren Rosenfeld - 2014
    Find peace, repair your past, and live a more fulfilled life with this uplifting guide to the spiritual practice of decluttering.Bless your clutter. Yes, you heard right: Bless it. Bless everything in your life that is superfluous, broken, burdensome, and overwhelming—because it is all here to teach you an important lesson, perhaps the most important lesson there is: what really matters. Everyone’s lives could use some serious decluttering. But decluttering isn’t just about sorting junk into piles and tossing things in the trash. Decluttering can inform us of our burdens, help us to understand our attachments, and aid us in identifying what is truly valuable in our lives. Written by a medical doctor and a spiritual intuitive, with case studies of people just like you, Breathing Room takes you on an enlightening room-by-room tour where each room in your home corresponds to a “room” in your heart, and where declutter­ing will not just make space but improve the spirit. So, if it’s weighing you down, if it’s become an obstacle, if it’s making it near impossible for you to find the things you really love—it’s time for you to let it go and find a little breathing room.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide


John Seymour - 1973
    Author John Seymour, the father of the back-to-basics movement, shares his singular vision to transform lives and create communities. More relevant than ever in our hi-tech world, The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the ultimate practical guide for realists and dreamers alike.

Simple Matters: Living with Less and Ending Up with More


Erin Boyle - 2015
    At once pragmatic and philosophical, Simple Matters is a nod to the growing consensus that living simply and purposefully is more sustainable not only for the environment, but for our own happiness and well-being, too. Boyle embraces the notion that “living small” is beneficial and accessible to us all—whether we’re renting a tiny apartment or purchasing a three-story house.   Filled with personal essays, projects, and helpful advice on how to be inventive and resourceful in a tight space, Simple Matters shows that living simply is about making do with less and ending up with more: more free time, more time with loved ones, more savings, and more things of beauty.

Stuffocation


James Wallman - 2013
    On the way, he goes down the halls of the Elysée Palace with Nicolas Sarkozy, up in a helicopter above Barbra Streisand's house on the California coast, and into the world of the original Mad Men.Through fascinating characters and brilliantly told stories, Wallman introduces the innovators whose lifestyles provide clues to how we will all be living tomorrow, and he makes some of the world's most counterintuitive, radical, and worldchanging ideas feel inspiring – and possible for us all.

Getting Rid Of It: Eliminate the Clutter in Your Life


Betsy Talbot - 2011
    You have not seen your kitchen counters in months. Your junk drawer has exploded into an entire room of things you don't use. How can we say that when we don't even know you? Well, because most people do and we were just like you. In 2008 we put our decluttering and downsizing skills to the ultimate test: Get Rid of Everything we owned in order to follow our dream and travel around the world. From that experience we documented every step in the process to provide you with the comprehensive guide to decluttering your home and putting some extra cash in your packet.How do you think your life could change if you got rid of some of the stuff tying you down? You don't have to go as far as we did, but you'll benefit from our extreme experience no matter big or small your decluttering project may be. We know decluttering inside and out, and you can take advantage of our experience to create your own clutter-free zone for relaxing, socializing, and spending time with family and friends.

The Lost Art of House Cleaning: A Clean House is a Happy Home


Jan M. Dougherty - 2011
    Until now.Jan Dougherty has owned a residential cleaning company for six years and has come to the conclusion that the art of housecleaning has all but been lost. “I believe I may be the only survivor who knows how to clean and therefore I have a duty and responsibility to pass on my wisdom (and share the pain) before it’s too late. Most people don’t like cleaning their house because they simply don’t know how.” Jan will show you that with three inexpensive products and a few tools how you too can clean your house and everything in it. She will explain “The PATH”, which is a method to get in, get it clean and get out of a room. Whether you’re doing maintenance cleaning or deep cleaning; “The PATH” is always the same.Her style is funny and entertaining. So even if you don’t want to clean your house you’ll have a good laugh.This is not a book of helpful hints. There are enough books out there that will explain how to clean puke or coffee or puked up coffee. This is a book on how to clean the house and everything in it. After you’ve finished cleaning a room it will sparkle, after you’ve finished cleaning the whole house the shine will be seen from the space station. Moms send copies to your children, if they read it you may not have to spend your next visit cleaning, like you always do. Kids send a copy to your mom, maybe on her next visit she’ll get more done before she leaves. Read it for entertainment! Read it for inspiration! Read it because it really solves the mystery of “How to clean”. “Follow me my child and I will show you The PATH”. Jan Dougherty “The Head Rag Dragger”

Rightsizing Your Life: Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most


Ciji Ware - 2007
    This simplification of surroundings and "stuff" will liberate people in mid-life to pursue their passions such as travel or hobbies without the responsibilities of a big house weighing them down. Rightsizing will be more than a handbook about the process of planning a new environment, jettisoning a lifetime's worth fo surplus household items, and moving painlessly into a more suitable space. It will also be the first comprehensive guide to the emotional passage that this winnowing process entails, providing a prescription for the internal hurdles that can easily sabotage sensible decision making.