Making Home


Book Description

“Shows us why the actions that prepare us for emergencies and energy descent are the right things to do no matter what the future brings.” —Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden Other books tell us how to live the good life—but you might have to win the lottery to do it. Making Home is about improving life with the real people around us and the resources we already have. While encouraging us to be more resilient in the face of hard times, author Sharon Astyk also points out the beauty, grace, and elegance that result, because getting the most out of everything we use is a way of transforming our lives into something much more fulfilling. Written from the perspective of a family who has already made this transition, Making Home shows readers how to turn the challenge of living with less into settling for more—more happiness, more security, and more peace of mind. Learn simple but effective strategies to: · Save money on everything from heating and cooling to refrigeration, laundry, water, sanitation, cooking, and cleaning · Create a stronger, more resilient family · Preserve more for future generations We must make fundamental changes to our way of life in the face of ongoing economic crisis and energy depletion. Making Home takes the fear out of this prospect, and invites us to embrace a simpler, more abundant reality. “Americans are born to be transient—Sharon Astyk has the prescription for dealing with that genetic disease, and building a healthy nativeness into our lives.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author “Exhaustively researched and compassionately delivered.” —Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householder’s Guide to the Universe




We Build Our Homes


Book Description

We Build Our Homes is a beautifully illustrated picture book exploring the incredible structures built by animals and the reasons why they build them. Each spread looks at a different animal, told as though from their viewpoint.




The House That She Built


Book Description

The House That She Built is inspired by and dedicated to the REAL women behind the home built exclusively by a team of women in construction, skilled tradeswomen, and women-owned companies. The House That She Built educates young readers about the people and skills that go into building a home. One by one, children learn about the architect, framer, roofer and many more as they contribute their individual skills needed to complete the collective project -- a new home. With illustrations that connect and empower and words that build upon each other with each page, this book will leave all kids (she, he, and they) excited about their own skills and interested in learning new ones.




The Making of Home


Book Description

The idea that 'home' is a special place, a separate place, a place where we can be our true selves, is so obvious to us today that we barely pause to think about it. But, as Judith Flanders shows in this revealing book, 'home' is a relatively new concept. When in 1900 Dorothy assured the citizens of Oz that 'There is no place like home', she was expressing a view that was a culmination of 300 years of economic, physical and emotional change. In The Making of Home, Flanders traces the evolution of the house across northern Europe and America from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, and paints a striking picture of how the homes we know today differ from homes through history. The transformation of houses into homes, she argues, was not a private matter, but an essential ingredient in the rise of capitalism and the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Without 'home', the modern world as we know it would not exist, and as Flanders charts the development of ordinary household objects - from cutlery, chairs and curtains, to fitted kitchens, plumbing and windows - she also peels back the myths that surround some of our most basic assumptions, including our entire notion of what it is that makes a family. As full of fascinating detail as her previous bestsellers, The Making of Home is also a book teeming with original and provocative ideas.




The Homes We Build


Book Description

Learn how humans have built dwellings to suit all kinds of habitats. Adapting themselves to all kinds of landscapes and climates, over the centuries humans have used their architectural ingeniousness to build amazing dwellings: find them here, from houses on stilts and igloos to tree houses and skyscrapers. Fully illustrated with clear, engaging artwork and intelligent, simple and original text presented in a clean, appealing design.




Young House Love


Book Description

This New York Times bestselling book is filled with hundreds of fun, deceptively simple, budget-friendly ideas for sprucing up your home. With two home renovations under their (tool) belts and millions of hits per month on their blog YoungHouseLove.com, Sherry and John Petersik are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Packed with 243 tips and ideas—both classic and unexpected—and more than 400 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.




Making Homes That Work


Book Description




Pretty Good House


Book Description

Pretty Good House provides a framework and set of guidelines for building or renovating a high-performance home that focus on its inhabitants and the environment--but keeps in mind that few people have pockets deep enough to achieve a "perfect" solution. The essential idea is for homeowners to work within their financial and practical constraints both to meet their own needs and do as much for the planet as possible. A Pretty Good House is: * A house that's as small as possible * Simple and durable, but also well designed * Insulated and air-sealed * Above all, it is affordable, healthy, responsible, and resilient.




The Not So Big House


Book Description

Provides a review of social trends and their effect on architecture and design.




Fairy Houses


Book Description

Add an exquisite flourish of design to your beloved green space or garden by adding tiny fairy homes inter-woven with nature. Fairy Houses gives you the instruction and inspiration you need to start! Have you ever seen a real fairy house? Not the ceramic ones at cavernous home improvement stores, but a real fairy house made from natural elements? Well, now you can build your own miniature magical abode - the perfect addition to your garden. Step-by-step instructions for constructing exquisite fairy houses are revealed in Fairy Houses, explained by master fairy house architect Sally Smith. Smith has been creating one-of-a-kind DIY fairy houses out of natural artifacts for years, now she passes her miniature construction knowledge to you. Imagine, a fairy garden with homes that have butterfly wings as stained-glass windows, twigs for window frames, birch bark for walls, dried mushrooms for shingles; it's all possible with a little instruction and inspiration from Fairy Houses. Begin by flipping through an inspiration gallery, find which elements appeal to you, and how they fit together. From there, you’ll learn about building materials (found and natural), on-site fairy house construction, and how to light a fairy house.