The decorating magazines and TV shows never seem to talk to you. So what? With some attitude, know-how, and a lot of your own style, your place can be transformed into a fabulous Shangri-La, a swanky venue fit for living and entertaining well. Pad: The Guide to Ultra-Living is filled to bursting with hip, affordable projects for every room in the house and shows how to use basics like lighting, plants, mirrors, and paint to enhance even problem areas. Numerous testimonials from real people with real living spaces demonstrate how a little spaces demonstrate how a little spunk and individuality can overcome the limitations of the average urban dwelling. Offering a complete lifestyle package, Pad has instructions for building your own home bar, ideas for party themes and recipes--and even collateral hangover cures! This total living guide will have your place all spruced up--and the envy of guests--in no time.

    In 2004 The Wabi-Sabi House helped popularize this ancient Japanese philosophy in North America. Simply Imperfect is a fully revised and updated edition of The Wabi-Sabi House aimed at moving past our belief in life, liberty, and the pursuit of stuff to finding beauty in austerity, serenity, and authenticity.Far more than home decor, wabi-sabi is a state of mind: living modestly in the moment, stripping away the unnecessary, and finding satisfaction in everyday things. Simply Imperfect recounts wabi-sabi's rich history, tracing it from its Zen Buddhist roots through to the present day. This beautifully-illustrated book reveals ways to introduce wabi-sabi into your home such as:Clearing clutter and blocking noiseIntegrating salvaged and recycled materials Making and growing things yourself (or supporting local artisans who do)Taking time and space for self-reflectionWabi-sabi is everything that today's sleek, plastic, technology-saturated culture isn't. Simply Imperfect asks readers to see that mass-produced perfection is seductive but boring. This gentle book is for anyone who is overwhelmed by consumerism or whose focus has shifted from getting more to getting by.Robyn Griggs Lawrence is editor-in-chief of Natural Home magazine and a prolific writer and speaker on topics ranging from green building and ecological design to organic gardening. She has been instrumental in introducing the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi to a Western audience.

    As the owner of over 200 plants, Hilton feels strongly about the role of plants in one’s home—not just for the beauty they add, but for health benefits as well: ‘having plants in your home not only adds life, but changes the airflow throughout. It’s also a key design element when styling your place. For me, it wasn’t about just having greenery, but having the right variety of greenery. I like to see the different textures of foliage all grouped together. You take a fiddle leaf fig and sandwich it between a birds of paradise and a monstera and…. yes!’ You will be armed with the know-how you need to care for your plants, where to place them, how to propagate, how to find the right pot, and much more, and most importantly, how to arrange them so that they look their best. Combine sizes and leaf shapes to stunning effect, grow your own succulents from leaf cuttings, create your own air plant display, and more.

    From the kitchen to the bedroom and every space in between, here are tips for refreshing a home each season—arranging and displaying fresh flowers in spring, choosing the right sheets and linens for summer, taking warm herbal baths in autumn, and draping blankets and layering rugs to cozy up a space for winter. Brimming with easy-to-follow tips for elevating any space and packed with hundreds of photographs showcasing gorgeous interiors, this book is an invitation to create a home that nourishes, rejuvenates, and inspires—all year long.• CELEBRATED AUTHOR: Yumiko Sekine is the founder of Fog Linen Work, a Japanese home goods brand sold throughout the world and beloved by home cooks, interior decorators, and design enthusiasts. Her products are known for their simplicity, beauty, and ability to elevate any space. In this book, Sekine distills all her secrets to creating a home that exudes simple elegance.• ORGANIZATION MADE EASY: This book gives readers easy, elegant ways to declutter their homes and organize their belongings, whether they live in an apartment or house, and includes simple tips for tidying and curating objects to bring order and simplicity to every room.• JAPANESE TRADITIONS: Yumiko presents Japanese traditions for preparing food, arranging flowers, entertaining, organizing, and more. The combination of ancient practices and modern techniques makes this the perfect companion for anyone curious about Japanese culture and aesthetics.• GIFT WORTHY: Presented in a linen-wrapped case and brimming with hundreds of gorgeous photographs and inspired advice for every home, this book is a perfect addition to any bookshelf and a lovely gift for new homeowners, newlyweds, and fans of organization and interior design.Perfect for:• Interior designers, minimalists, and fans of sustainability• People who are into organizing their space• Fans of Fog Linen Work

    As well as her top 10 design hacks, Kate reveals the rules of rug layout, explains how to buy a sofa, and shows you how to get the lighting right in every room. Learn how to decorate your home with style and confidence, select colours that work, make the most of small spaces and create the perfect zones for relaxation, entertaining and work sometimes all in the same space.Whatever your style, Mad About The House is a must-have for anyone who is interested in interior design and who wants to make their house a home.

    It's about living simply – finding the essence of what makes you happy at home and creating spaces that reflect your needs and style. Filled with clever ideas and creative spaces it shows that you don't need a huge budget to create a beautiful home. This is Home provides examples and case studies of places with a global and timeless feel that haven't always been renovated in the traditional sense but are true homes.Featuring eight case studies from Australia, the US and Europe, and nearly 200 color photographs, This is Home will inspire you with beautiful, authentic places you want to be – today.Chapters include:The big picture: how to determine your decorating personality, and what's authentic for you.Starting over: let go of the past and create a home for the person you are today, with a focus on decision-making and the art of editing.Living for now: Work out a budget for your time and money using your values as a guide. Where you can spend and save when it comes to creating lasting interiors.The Art of ingenuity: Think creatively, not expensively, when it comes to making changes at home. Going beyond the usual suspects can help you to create a home that's distinctively yours.The poetry of space: Successful spaces are all about addition and subtraction, positive and negative. How to create balance within a room while reflecting your decorating style.The feel of a home: Create interiors that make you feel, and have an emotional connection. How to introduce decorative elements that make for authentic interiors.Surrounding spaces: Key ideas to consider when creating your place in relation to its environment - from the surrounding landscape to local community.Maintaining the focus: Ways to evolve what's important for you and keep focussed on your aesthetic and lifestyle.Happy renewal: How to keep your home fresh without exhausting or expensive overhauls.Rest and revive: How our homes can function as a place to rest our bodies, rejoice in our relationships and restore our values.

    Style and minimalism blogger Anuschka Rees presents a fascinatingly strategic, prescriptive approach to identifying, refining, and expressing personal style and building the ideal wardrobe to match it, with style and shopping strategies that women can use every day. Including beautiful full-color fashion photography, infographics, and activities, The Curated Closet is a useful guide covering everything women need to know to fully realize their individual style and create their perfect functional and beautiful wardrobe.

    Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains -- Home Comforts addresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management.--back cover

    For the DIY enthusiast, here are photos, elevation drawings, and door/window schedules for six Tumbleweed box bungalows, plus an extensive how-to set of instructions that can be applied to any backyard building project. What they are not is home-center garden sheds. Though conventionally built, these handsome little buildings have real doors, windows, and skylights with interesting and practical details throughout. Paint them and finish them to suit your tastes and needs.The term "Box Bungalow" is a trademark of Tumbleweek Tiny House Corp. It refers to their idea of packaging these backyard buildings on a flat skid, for weekend DIY assembly. They'll also sell a prefab building for delivery to your prepared site. They'll also sell complete sets of plans for any of the houses shown in this book.

    Whether it’s time to put out your best china and make a real fuss, or you’re just gathering for some sweet tea on the porch at dusk, Savannah style is about making folks feel welcome in your home. With the help of decorator and stylist Brandon Branch, you’ll learn how to bring a bit of Southern charm into homes from Minnesota to Mississippi. For each season, there are tips on decorating and entertaining. In the spring, you’ll learn how to make the most of your outdoor spaces, spruce up your porch, and make your garden inviting. In the summer, things get more casual with a dock party. Sleeping spaces, including, of course, the sleeping porch, are the focal point of this chapter. In the fall, cooler weather brings a return to more formal entertaining in the dining room, and in the winter, attention returns to the hearth, as Paula and her neighbors put out their best silver and show you how they celebrate the holidays. Paula loves getting a peek at her neighbors’ parlors, so she’s included photographs of some of Savannah’s grandest homes. From the vast grounds of Lebanon Plantation to the whimsically restored cottages on Tybee Island, you’ll see the unique blend of old-world elegance and laid-back hospitality that charmed Paula the moment she arrived from Albany, Georgia, with nothing but two hundred dollars and a pair of mouths to feed. And she isn’t shy about giving you a window into her own world, either. From her farmhouse kitchen to her luxurious powder room, you’ll see how Paula lives when she’s not in front of the camera. Packed with advice and nostalgia, Paula Deen’s Savannah Style makes it easy to bring gracious Southern living to homes north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

    Filled with evocative images of homes around the globe, the book illustrates how design game-changers are weaving age-old resourcefulness with new technology, creativity with sustainability to construct a more meaningful existence. We can think small (bringing more nature inside) or big (installing moving walls for multifunctional spaces), but the point is to rethink our design choices today for a more sustainable tomorrow. Beautiful and informative, Rethink reveals how to build a better world from the inside out.

    You would never think of me as someone with the courage to say, 'You have everything you need to be fantastic in your own house, apartment, or trailer to set a great table.'Let's face it, you look at a lot of books on Entertaining and think 'I could never do this in my house, I don't have this stuff and it's not going to look like what I'm seeing.' That's not what's going to happen here! I want to show you there is great heart in setting the table. For two or four or the kids or Halloween or tea just for you. For dinners with friends or the holidays. I'm going to tell you stories about what I do when people come over and give you ideas about what you're seeing because Honey, everything in this book is what you can do in your house.You got a bodega or a 7-Eleven near you? They sell flowers. Take those bad boys and put them on your table. You got some crazy old plate from your grandmother (or a fancy silver one)? You got little kids' toys that have been annoying you forever, put them on the table too. Who's going to tell you it's wrong? Not me! I'm going to tell you it's right and I'm going to take you on a journey. And don't forget the bathroom; decorate it too, people are going to see it. It's all at your house. Come with me. I'll show you!P.S. I know the glass on the cover is broken. Accidents happen!

    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 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. 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. 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 "in-law" or "granny flats" in the back yard. There are innovative solutions in cities, such as the "capsules" in Tokyo.If you're thinking of scaling back, you'll find plenty of inspiration shown by builders, designers, architects, dreamers, artists, road gypsies, and water dwellers who've achieved a measure of freedom and independence by taking shelter into their own hands.

    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.