Move over, Man Caves. She Sheds are coming to a house near you. Across the country, ladies are carving out a special place for themselves, one free from stress and concern. And they're doing it in their own backyards by turning spaces usually reserved for old tools and greasy car parts into refined relaxation. The beauty of the She Shed is that it can take whatever form best suits your tastes. In Junk Beautiful: She Sheds, best-selling author and Queen of Junk Sue Whitney, founder of JUNKSTYLE and author of the Junk Beautiful brand of books, will introduce the rustoration philosophy to 15 she sheds from across the country. Featured She Sheds will largely be small wooden structures, but could also take the shape of a dolled-up camper, vintage horse trailer, tree house, or other unique space. Shed rehab will include indoor and outdoor projects that run from light construction to accessory projects and simple hacks. Re-using and re-inventing castoffs as home furnishings and accessories create uniquely personal spaces --the hallmark of She Sheds. She Sheds on the East Coast (greater Philadelphia), South (Texas), Midwest (greater Minneapolis), and West Coast (central California) will allow for regional design flavor.

It's a classic American dream: a beautiful log home nestled in the woods, standing proudly on a mountaintop, poised on a hillside, or serenely overlooking a sparkling lake or stream. With walls that beautifully blend the art of nature with the hand of human labor, no other kind of dwelling so poetically expresses the pioneering, self-sufficient spirit that made this nation great. If you're looking to make this dream a reality, let seasoned professionals Clyde Cremer and Jeffrey Cremer help you navigate the often puzzling maze of buying and building a log home. With this indispensable guide, Clyde and Jeffrey advise you on every aspect of the process, from idea stage to completed project, and explains how to choose the right style of home to fit your budget and site selection. They also cover such topics as: -Types of wood used for log cabins -Energy efficiency -Estimating costs -Construction concerns -Log home maintenance -And much more The Complete Guide to Log Homes gives you all the information you need to make an informed, educated decision on buying or building a log home. Take the first step today toward having the home of your dreams

Tiny homes are all the rage these days, especially among young people new to the housing market, for people wanting a small dwelling as a second home or as a studio, and among singles and empty nesters. As millions are experiencing the "magic" of tidying up and reducing the number of their possessions, many are also seeing the value of living with less space, while environmentalists are also valuing a smaller carbon footprint. How to Build Your Own Tiny House is a comprehensive guide to the actual construction process, building codes, and regulations, not another pretty picture book about tiny houses. Offers anyone with basic carpentry skills step-by-step instructions to successfully build a tiny house (250 to 1,000 square feet.) The book covers everything from forming a bill of materials to the basics of frame construction; it details wiring and plumbing a tiny home, outlines construction codes for small buildings and gives pointers as to where local regulations may apply, and also includes a section on building appropriately sized furniture for a tiny home. Includes a selection of tiny home designs, each of which can be expanded as needs change.

Life on 1/10th the fossil fuels turns out to be awesome. We all want to be happy. Yet as we consume ever more in a frantic bid for happiness, global warming worsens. Alarmed by drastic changes now occurring in the Earth's climate systems, the author, a climate scientist and suburban father of two, embarked on a journey to change his life and the world. He began by bicycling, growing food, meditating, and making other simple, fulfilling changes. Ultimately, he slashed his climate impact to under a tenth of the US average and became happier in the process. Being the Change explores the connections between our individual daily actions and our collective predicament. It merges science, spirituality, and practical action to develop a satisfying and appropriate response to global warming. Part one exposes our interconnected predicament: overpopulation, global warming, industrial agriculture, growth-addicted economics, a sold-out political system, and a mindset of separation from nature. It also includes a readable but authoritative overview of climate science. Part two offers a response at once obvious and unprecedented: mindfully opting out of this broken system and aligning our daily lives with the biosphere. The core message is deeply optimistic: living without fossil fuels is not only possible, it can be better. AWARDS GOLD (tie) | 2017 IPPY Awards: Books Most Likely to Save the Planet SILVER | 2017 Nautilus Book Awards: Green Living / Sustainability BRONZE | 2017 Foreword INDIES: Ecology & Environment

A modern home-keeping handbook for thrifty DIYers who care about sustainability and want to create an organised, productive and beautiful kitchen and home. A fresh take on modern homemaking, this is a practical (and sometimes sassy) guide to maximising your time, effort and energy in the kitchen and beyond. With a focus on less consumerism, you will learn how to organise your kitchen and home to make best use of your time and enjoy great results. For those yearning to live a more ecologically-minded, grounded lifestyle, this book is full of practical, no-nonsense advice, fabulous recipes and time- and money-saving techniques. There are 77 edible recipes and 38 home and bodycare recipes.

This collection of 36 articles from the experts at Fine Homebuilding, the most respected residential construction magazine in the country, lays out detailed information on every stage of remodeling - from planning and design to building and installation, upgrades, finishing and clean-up. Coverage includes interior and exterior design and building strategies, as well as information on additions and tips for living comfortably through a remodel. This complete guide, which includes 300 color photographs, 75 drawings, practical sidebars and case studies, is a one-stop reference.

THE ENTERTAINING AND HEARTWARMING SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. Like many couples, Dick and Angel had long dreamed of living in France, but where others might settle for a modest bolthole in the French countryside, the Strawbridges fell in love with a 19th-century fairytale chateau, complete with 45 rooms, seven outbuildings, 12 acres of land and its own moat. Throwing caution to the wind, Dick and Angel swapped their two-bedroom flat in East London for an abandoned and derelict castle in the heart of the Loire valley and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime with their two young children Arthur and Dorothy. Sharing their full journey for the first time, A Year at the Chateau follows Dick and Angel from when they first moved to France in the depths of winter and found bedrooms infested with flies, turrets inhabited by bats, the wind rattling through cracked windows, and just one working toilet, which flushed into the moat, through to the monumental efforts that went into readying the chateau for their unforgettable wedding and their incredibly special first Christmas. Along the way we'll read glorious descriptions of rural life in France, with charming characters, delicious food and wonderful seasonal produce, together with the extraordinary list of renovations and restorations Dick and Angel completed, many of which were never shown on TV. As warm and entertaining as their much-loved show, A Year at the Chateau is a truly irresistible story of adventure and heart, epic ambitions and a huge amount of hard graft.

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 declutter-ing 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.

This treasury of floor plans, elevations, and details of suburban residences is an endless source of inspiration for artists, architects, and historians alike. Eighty-one detailed illustrations capture the elaborate beauty of Victorian-era cornices, staircases, gables, verandas, doors, dormers, and more. A bonus section offers construction guidelines for masons, bricklayers, and carpenters.

A natural swimming pool is an exciting addition to a garden. It is the ultimate play resource that provides a healthy, chlorine-free environment for swimming, a living ecosystem for nature lovers and whole new world of aquatic plants for gardeners. This practical handbook describes a wide range of pools from simple "swimming ponds" to models with separate plant regeneration areas, and others that resemble traditional pools. It explains how plants are used to keep the water clean and advises on pumps, skimmers and filters to limit the growth of algae, encourage the growth of biofilm and keep the water sparkling. Natural swimming pools are easy to maintain, have low running costs and require less fill-up water than conventional pools. This book provides tried-and-trusted advice on a feature that is increasingly in demand among aspirational, eco-minded gardeners and designers.

Trust Martha to help you master all things organising - sorting, purging, tidying, and simplifying your life - with smart solutions and inspiration. Here, she offers her best guidance, methods, and DIY projects for organising in and around your home. Topics include room-by-room strategies (how to sort office paperwork, when to purge the garage or attic), seasonal advice (when to swap out bedding and clothing, how to put away holiday decorations), and day-by-day or week-by-week plans for projects such as de-cluttering, house cleaning, creating a filing system, overhauling the closet, and more. Martha's indispensable expertise walks you through goal-setting, principles of organising, useful supplies, and creating systems for ongoing success. A look into Martha's own personal calendars offers a template for scheduling essential tasks. Last, plenty of strategies, how-tos, timelines, and checklists will help you stay organised all year long.

Build a natural pond for wildlife, beauty, and quiet contemplation Typical backyard ponds are a complicated mess of pipes, pumps, filters, and nasty chemicals designed to adjust pH and keep algae at bay. Hardly the bucolic, natural ecosystem beloved by dragonflies, frogs, and songbirds. The antidote is a natural pond, free of hassle, cost, and complexity and designed as a fully functional ecosystem, ideal for biodiversity, swimming, irrigation, and quiet contemplation. Building Natural Ponds is the first step-by-step guide to designing and building natural ponds that use no pumps, filters, chemicals, or electricity and mimic native ponds in both aesthetics and functionality. Highly illustrated with how-to drawings and photographs, coverage includes: Understanding pond ecosystems and natural algae control Planning, design, siting, and pond aesthetics Step-by-step guidance for construction, plants and fish, and maintenance and trouble shooting Scaling up to large ponds, pools, bogs, and rain gardens. Whether you're a backyard gardener looking to add a small serene natural water feature or a homesteader with visions of a large pond for fish, swimming, and irrigation, Building Natural Ponds is the complete guide to building ponds in tune with nature, where plants, insects, and amphibians thrive in blissful serenity. Robert Pavlis , a Master Gardener with over 40 years of gardening experience, is owner and developer of Aspen Grove Gardens, a six-acre botanical garden featuring over 2,500 varieties of plants. A well-respected speaker and teacher, Robert has published articles in Mother Earth News , Ontario Gardening magazine, the widely read blog GardenMyths.com, which explodes common gardening myths and gardening information site GardenFundamentals.com.

This best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.
Japanese organizational consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly declutter your home once, you'll never have to do it again. Whereas most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, the KonMari Method's category-by-category, all-at-once prescription leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo's clients have been repeat customers (and she still has a three-month waiting list of new customers ). With detailed guidance for every type of item in the household, this quirky little manual from Japan's newest lifestyle phenomenon will help readers clear their clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home--and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.