Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy


Frances Mayes - 2004
    Now I would like to take one of these women back to my house in California to show her how Bramasole traveled to America and took root, how the doors there are open to the breeze from San Pablo bay and to the distant view of Mount Tamalpais, how the table has expanded and the garden has burgeoned…The “bard of Tuscany” (New York Times) now offers a lavishly illustrated book for everyone who dreams of integrating the Tuscan lifestyle—from home decoration and cooking, to eating and drinking, to gardening, socializing, and celebrating—into their own lives. When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions of readers basked in the experience through her three bestselling memoirs. Now Frances and her husband, In Tuscany coauthor Edward, share the essence of Tuscan life as they have lived it, with specific ideas and inspiration for readers stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life. In her inimitable warm and evocative tone, Frances helps readers develop an eye for authentic Tuscan style, with advice on how to:• Choose a Tuscan color palette for the home, from earthy apricot tones to invigorating shades of antique blue.• Personalize a room with fanciful door frames, unique painted furniture, and fresco murals.• Cultivate a Tuscan garden, adding fountains, vine-covered pergolas, and terra-cotta urns among the herbs and flowers • Select the best Italian vino. (Frances describes lunches at regional vineyards and imparts tips for pairing food and wine.)• Create an atmosphere of irresistible, anytime hospitality—a casa aperta (open home).• Make primo finds at local antiques markets. (And to help truly bring Tuscany home, shipping advice and market days for several Tuscan towns are included.)• Set an imaginative Tuscan table using majolica and vintage linens.• Enjoy the abundant flavors and easy simplicity of the Tuscan kitchen, with details on everything from olive oil and vino santo to pici and gnocchi, plus special homegrown menus and recipes.• Make the most of a trip to Tuscany, visiting Frances’s favorite hill towns, restaurants, small museums, and other soothing places. With more than 100 photos by acclaimed photographer Steven Rothfeld (including several of the Mayes’s California home and its Tuscan accents), twenty-five all-new recipes, and lists of resources for travelers and shoppers, Bringing Tuscany Home is a treasure trove of practical advice and memorable images.

Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building & Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet


Ryan Mitchell - 2014
    Free yourself from clutter, mortgages and home maintenance while making more room in everyday life for the important things. Whether you downsize to a 400-square-foot home or simply scale back the amount of stuff you have in your current home, this book shows you how to well with less.This book explores the philosophies behind the tiny house movement, helps you determine whether it's a good fit for you, and guides you through the transition to a smaller space. For inspiration, you'll meet tiny house pioneers and hear how they built their dwellings (and their lives) in unconventional, creative and purposeful ways.Everything you need to design a tiny home of your own:• Worksheets and exercises to help you determine your true needs, define personal goals, and develop a tiny house layout that's just right for you• Practical strategies for cutting through clutter and paring down your possessions.• Guidance through the world of building codes and zoning laws.• Design tricks for making the most of every square foot, including multi-function features and ways to maximize vertical space.• Tours of 11 tiny homes and the unique story behind each.Imagine you house help you Live Your Dreams!

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things


Randy O. Frost - 2010
    Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks. With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder's piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders "churn" but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage; Frost and Steketee illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, very few of us are in fact free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live. For all of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

Design Mom: A Room-by-Room Guide to Living Well with Kids


Gabrielle Stanley Blair - 2015
    She has always felt that an intentionally designed environment is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your family. That the items and decor one chooses tell a story. That a home is truly a child’s first and favorite picture book and the comfort she reaches for when she needs it most. In this, her first book, Blair offers a room-by-room manual for keeping things sane, organized, creative, and stylish. She provides advice on making a foyer more functional; which sofas work best for different kinds of families; how to organize family photos; throwing birthday parties; kitchen organization; cooking with children; keeping a home office; how to deal with a never-ending stream of toys; traveling with children; how to balance it all; and much, much more.

Crafting a Meaningful Home: 27 DIY Projects to Tell Stories, Hold Memories, and Celebrate Family Heritage


Meg Mateo Ilasco - 2010
    In Crafting a Meaningful Home, Meg Mateo Ilasco shares 27 projects that tell personal stories and celebrate heritage, all easily created on a budget. Learn how to decoupage a plate with photos of a best friend; silkscreen upholstery with folk motifs; artfully display love notes; sew a teepee from a vintage quilt top; or create family silhouettes for a festive banner. Contributed by a hip cast of well known designers from across the country, the projects are, at once, nostalgic, sentimental, and modern. Clear instruc­tions are easy to follow, even for beginning crafters.Praise for Crafting a Meaningful Home:"[Crafting a Meaningful Home] can serve two purposes on your gift giving list. If you have time, make one of the projects from the book. If not, give the book itself. It's beautifully photographed and written, and the projects are incredible." --PopSugar Rush TV

The Selby is in Your Place


Todd Selby - 2010
    Nosy by nature, he wanted to see how personal style was reflected in private spaces. Lucky for us, he found his answer in the color-rich and eclectic quarters of a diverse group of subjects, including Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Faris Rotter, Andre Walker, and Olivier Zahm, in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, and London. Each profile is accompanied by Selby’s watercolor portraits of the subjects and objects from their homes, and illustrated questionnaires, which Selby asks each sitter to fill out. This book consists of over thirty profiles, many of which have never-before-seen, selected exclusively for the book. The result is a collection of unique spaces bursting with energy and personality that together create a colorful hodgepodge of inspirational interiors.

Hill House Living: The Art of Creating a Joyful Life


Paula Sutton - 2021
    No one knows this better than stylist and blogger Paula Sutton, who is behind the beloved Instagram account Hill House Vintage. Like many people, Paula gave years of her life to the busyness of the city until she traded catwalks for dog walks and couture for manure after leaving office life a decade ago.Beautifully illustrated with hundreds of photographs and drawings, this book gives you a full glimpse into life at Hill House. Inspired by Paula's love of all things vintage, and filled with simple, stylish, and thrifty tips and tricks for every area of the house, this book will bring the best of country life into your home, wherever you are.In a world that often moves too fast, Hill House Living is an invitation to take a moment to style, make or cook something nice for its own sake--and yours. Slow down, cozy up, and join the quest to making each day more intentionally joyful.

Simply Clean: The Proven Method for Keeping Your Home Organized, Clean, and Beautiful in Just 10 Minutes a Day


Becky Rapinchuk - 2017
    In Simply Clean, Becky will help you effortlessly keep a tidy house and build habits to become a neat person—no matter how messy you may naturally be! Simply Clean features: -A 7-Day Simply Clean Kick Start and the 28-Day Simply Clean Challenge, to turn cleaning from a chore into an effortless habit -A designated catch-up day, so you’ll never have to worry or stress when life gets in the way of cleaning -Step-by-step tutorials for speed cleaning hard-to-clean spaces -Dozens of recipes for organic, environmentally conscious cleaning supplies -Many of Becky’s famous checklists, schedules, and habit trackers No matter how big your home or busy your schedule, the Simply Clean method can be customized to fit your life. It really is possible—in just ten minutes a day, you can create a cleaner, happier home.

The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future


Ryder Carroll - 2018
    Out of sheer necessity, he developed a method called the Bullet Journal that helped him become consistently focused and effective. When he started sharing his system with friends who faced similar challenges, it went viral. Just a few years later, to his astonishment, Bullet Journaling is a global movement. The Bullet Journal Method is about much more than organizing your notes and to-do lists. It's about what Carroll calls "intentional living:" weeding out distractions and focusing your time and energy in pursuit of what's truly meaningful, in both your work and your personal life. It's about spending more time with what you care about, by working on fewer things. His new book shows you how to... • Track the past: Using nothing more than a pen and paper, create a clear and comprehensive record of your thoughts. • Order the present: Find daily calm by tackling your to-do list in a more mindful, systematic, and productive way. • Design the future: Transform your vague curiosities into meaningful goals, and then break those goals into manageable action steps that lead to big change. Carroll wrote this book for frustrated list-makers, overwhelmed multitaskers, and creatives who need some structure. Whether you've used a Bullet Journal for years or have never seen one before, The Bullet Journal Method will help you go from passenger to pilot of your own life.