With easy-to-read layouts and simple text, it runs the full ecological gamut, from geothermal heating to crop rotation to soap making. The Bridgewaters, well-regarded garden writers, help readers answer questions such as how much land they really require, whether or not to depend entirely on natural forms of energy, and which farm animals will best meet their needs. There’s practical information on building an insulated flue-pipe chimney, identifying edible wild plants, and composting with worms. In addition to recipes for jams, rhubarb wine, and other delicious foods, three A-Z sections offer planting and harvesting instructions for vegetables and salad crops, fruits, and herbs.

    As energy costs continue to rise, the almost-off-the-grid house proves its worth. Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid profiles more than 30 of the most energy-efficient homes in the United States, and this hardworking guide reveals how homeowners can achieve similar results with floor plans, the latest, most efficient technologies, and multiple images of the exterior and interior of each home. Praise for Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid: Recipient of the 2013 Robert Bruss Gold Book Award from the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) “You can build a high quality, environmentally friendly and efficient home at a reasonable price with a look and feel of a traditional home. Advancements like those used in our house and the other houses in this book will transform the homebuilding industry.” —Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency “The time has come to throw out the old stereotypes and to embrace prefab building techniques as the way of the future—and the best approach for today. For anyone wanting to create a house that’s sustainable in every sense of the word, this book is an excellent place to start.” —Sarah Susanka, architect and author of The Not So Big House series “I'm passionate about prefab because I know that it can spark an incredibly positive change in the building industry and dramatically reduce costs and construction duration. Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid is an enlightening guide on using prefab to create your own affordable, energy-efficient home.” —Bruce Ratner, chairman and chief executive of the Forest City Ratner Companies “Sheri Koones highlights the many ways of using prefabrication to create almost-off-the-grid homes that are not only environmentally friendly but often operate at nearly zero annual energy cost. . . . This is an easy-on-the-eyes guide that includes floor plans and multiple images of the exterior and interior of each home. It is not a manual for green construction, but a general overview of aspects of prefab and green construction. And it does that well.” —Natural Life magazine “If you’re ready to do something about your energy dependence, or if you enjoy stories of people who’ve bucked the trends, you owe it to yourself to give Prefabulous + Almost Off the Grid a look. Beautifully illustrated, it ends with a great resources list for the homes showcased.” —Examiner.com “Indispensable guide to creating the ideal, almost-off-the-grid home. . . . This text is both timely and tempting to anyone interested in inhabiting a more comfortable and cost-efficient abode.” —Bask “This attractive coffee-table-style book, the third in Koones’s Prefabulous series, features 32 prefabricated houses that, to a greater or lesser extent, boast environmentally friendly, efficient, and renewable-energy elements.” —Publishers Weekly

    Diagnosed with a heart condition at age forty-one, she was all too suddenly reminded that life is short, time is precious, and she wanted to be spending hers with the people and things she truly loved. That included the beautiful sprawling house in the Pacific Northwest she had painstakingly restored—but, increasingly, it did not include the mortgage payments, constant repairs, and general time-suck of home ownership. A new sense of clarity began to take hold: Just what was all this stuff for? Multiple extra rooms, a kitchen stocked with rarely used appliances, were things that couldn’t compare with the financial freedom and the ultimate luxury—time—that would come with downsizing.             Deciding to build an eighty-four-square-foot house—on her own, from the ground up—was just the beginning of building a new life. Williams can now list everything she owns on one sheet of paper, her monthly housekeeping bills amount to about eight dollars, and it takes her approximately ten minutes to clean the entire house. It’s left her with more time to spend with family and friends, and given her freedom to head out for adventure at a moment’s notice, or watch the clouds and sunset while drinking a beer on her (yes, tiny) front porch.             The lessons Williams learned from her “aha” moment post-trauma apply to all of us, every day, regardless of whether or not we decide to discard all our worldly belongings. Part how-to, part personal memoir, The Big Tiny is an utterly seductive meditation on the benefits of slowing down, scaling back, and appreciating the truly important things in life.

    Her conclusion: It's not hard to create a relaxed, stylish, and comfortable home. Just a few well-considered items can completely change the feel of your space, and The Perfectly Imperfect Home reveals them all.Ranging from classics such as "A Really Good Sofa" and "Pretty Table Settings" to unusual surprises like "A Bit of Quirk" and "Cozifications," the essential elements of style are treated in witty and wonderfully useful little essays. You'll learn what to look for, whether you are at a flea market or a fancy boutique--or just mining what you already own.Celebrated artist Virginia Johnson's original watercolor illustrations bring the items and the inspiring rooms of world-famous tastemakers to vibrant life. Styling tips and simple how-tos show you techniques to put it all together to create, say, a beautifully made bed (the fast way and the fancy way), an inviting reading nook, or an effortlessly chic display of pictures.According to Deborah, the point of decorating is to create the background for the best life you can have, with all its joys and imperfections. This book will show you how.Deborah Needleman is the editor in chief of WSJ. Magazine and creator of the Off Duty section of The Wall Street Journal. She was the founding editor in chief of domino magazine and coauthor of domino: the book of decorating.Virginia Johnson's illustrations have appeared in books by Kate Spade and on textiles carried in more than one hundred stores, including Barneys, Liberty of London, and Net-A-Porter.perfectlyimperfect.com

    Drawing on the expertise of America's leading home furnishings brand, this essential guide addresses every aspect of creating comfortable, casual living spaces with ease and style. With more than 250 original color photographs, Pottery Barn Living Rooms is the ultimate sourcebook for decorating the heart of your home.Key Features:* More than 250 never-before-seen photographs illustrate everything you need to know, from choosing colors to arranging furniture* Hundreds of practical decorating ideas and quick styling tips help you create simple, beautiful effects throughout your home* Walk-through room tours of real-life living spaces include color palettes, design plans, and quick-reference guides to materials

    Even a few little tweaks can transform the way your room feels.      At the heart of Styled are Emily Henderson’s ten easy steps to styling any space. From editing out what you don’t love to repurposing what you can’t live without to arranging the most eye-catching vignettes on any surface, you’ll learn how to make your own style magic. With Emily’s insider tips and more than 1,000 unique ideas from 75 envy-inducing rooms, you’ll soon be styling like you were born to do it.

    We are in the midst of a massive cultural shift away from consumerism and toward a vibrant and very active counter-movement that has been thriving on the outskirts for quite some time — do-it-yourself-ers who make frugal, homemade living hip are challenging the notion that true wealth has anything to do with money. In Making It, Coyne and Knutzen, who are at the forefront of this movement, provide readers with all the tools they need for this radical shift in home economics.The projects range from simple to ambitious and include activities done in the home, in the garden, and out in the streets. With step-by-step instructions for a wide range of projects—from growing food in an apartment and building a ninety-nine-cent solar oven to creating safe, effective laundry soap for pennies a gallon and fishing in urban waterways Making It will be the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive, and eminently doable. Within hours of buying this book, readers will be able to start transitioning into a creative, sustainable mode of living that is not just a temporary fad but a cultural revolution.

    See how they effortlessly mix contemporary furniture with thrift-store finds, and learn all sorts of tricks for creating a stylish home no matter what the obstacles: seven children, small spaces, or a tiny budget. From toddler-friendly bedroom for triplets to a beach retreat for two twenty-somethings, from a New Jersey basement to a Palm Beach cabana, Home by Novogratz proves that good design is just a book away.

    Becky Bee's manual is a friendly guide to making your own earth structure, with chapters on design, foundations, floors, windows and doors, finishes, and of course, making glorious cob."I believe that building with cob is a way to recreate community and experience the joy of working together while taking back the right to build our own homes and look after our Mother Earth."She loves doing something that makes sense in a world where lots of things don't.

    With designs contributed by more than 50 creative builders across North America, the projects include tables, stools, workstations, benches, laptop stands, shelves, art panels, organizers, headboards, doghouses, dollhouses, and more. A photo of each finished project is accompanied by a list of needed tools and materials, cutting and assembly diagrams, and clear step-by-step instructions.

    . .I get excited just listing these things! -LKPS SHELTER, it turns out, had a major influence on builders, and included are buildings our 1973 book inspired, so this is truly a sequel.

    Florke clearly explains why going green is so important, how to use what’s already there, find a focus for every space, and determine what makes something environmentally friendly.Anyone hoping to transform a home from ordinary to extraordinary will find eco-friendly, thrifty, and stylish ideas.   With its emphasis on simplicity, thrift, and respect for historical integrity, Randy Florke calls his philosophy the "anti-keeping up with the Joneses.”  Comfort, style, and economy are the bellwether elements of his approach to decorating.

    Most of us want to live a sustainable life in which we protect the land and keep it safe from development and overproduction. But we can take this a step further by learning how to grow and savor what we can produce ourselves—while still maintaining an alternative career to fund this passion. Michael and Audrey Levatino here share how to:     • Grow your own food.     • Raise chickens, horses, llamas, bees, and more.     • Practice being (a little) off the grid.     • Sell the bounty in your local community.     • Balance a professional career with a rural lifestyle.The Joy of Hobby Farming is a book that will excite armchair farmers and inspire any do-it-yourselfer.

    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.

    A global network of creative, interior design bloggers has emerged, publishing fresh and inspiring content online every day.With diverse backgrounds and lifestyles, these individual bloggers combine to create a thriving online community of trendsetters and style gurus. The digital world brings with it design democracy; with the freedom to publish whatever they want, whenever they want and unhampered by the restrictions of larger corporate websites, these design bloggers offer a beguiling alternative to traditional media and have become an important source of inspiration and information for the homes enthusiast. In her first book, leading interiors journalist and stylist Ellie Tennant meets the characters and creative forces behind leading design blogs, exploring their online realms, their beautiful homes and their clever styling ideas. Thirteen in-depth case studies cover a panorama of cutting edge bloggers’ spaces—from a pared-back monochrome cabin in Scandinavia to a maximalist, color-filled apartment in California—while the final chapter offers advice on setting up your own design blog. The result is a coffee table tome to treasure—a visual feast of inspiring yet achievable interiors—with plenty of ideas to steal for your own home.