This newly revised book presents a factual discussion of the wide variety of colorful and popular plastics housewares made between 1945 and 1960. Wonderful advertisements that announced to the world what new designs were possible with this experimental material are shown. Many color photographs of today's highly collectible plastics objects demonstrate the variety of colors and useful forms that were manufactured. Vinyl, Lucite, Melamine and Formica, to name but a few, have become common household names since their introduction in this era. Here are chairs, tables, dishes, cups, radios, lampshades, draperies, cooking containers, car interiors, floors and more-all made of plastics. A very useful Collectors' Guide, providing information about all the major manufacturers and trade names, is organized by product types for easy reference. For 1950s families with small budgets and small homes, the "magic" of plastics chemistry promised unprecedented practical benefits mingled with the glamour and drama of sleek modern forms. At last, plastics had stepped out of the kitchen and bath to enter almost every area of home design. In a single decade, plastics had won favor among an astonishingly diverse group-from dimestore shoppers and young marrieds to gifted designers and prestigious proponents of affordable good design. In tracing plastic's whirlwind rise from wartime sham to postwar miracle, this book explores not only the history of an important segment of 1950s collectibles but also the history of a culture redefining its way of life.

The bestselling alternative energy reference book in North America--now in an updated edition

Want to take advantage of solar power in your home? Whether you're looking to save on your energy costs by adding a few solar components or you want to build a solar-powered house from the ground up, "Solar Power For Dummies, 2nd Edition" takes the mystery out of this energy source and shows you how to put it to work for you

This new edition gives you hands-on tips and techniques for making your home more energy-efficient though solar power--and helping the planet at the same time. Plus, you'll get all the latest information on changes to federal, state, and local regulations, laws, and tax incentives that seek to make solar-power adoption more feasible.Expanded coverage of the technology that underpins full-scale solar-power systems for the homeNew small- and mid-sized solar products, projects, and applicationsRik DeGunther is a design engineer who started his own energy consulting firm

Featuring ten of the easiest and cheapest DIY solar projects, "Solar Power For Dummies, 2nd Edition" is the fun and easy way to meet your energy needs with this clean power source

Here is a collection of 370 gorgeous color photos to pour over and ponder: images to inspire dreams. Full-color pictures of hundreds of beautiful kitchens will help you sort out the details and create your own unique cooking/dining/entertaining environment. All the elements of beautiful kitchens-flooring, cabinetry, windows, walls, lighting, appliances, surrounds, backsplashes and more-are pictured and discussed. Individual chapters will help you find the right look, exploring current trends from exotic to country, formal to feminine, antique to modern. Imaginative solutions for showing off collections are explored, as well as ways to open up the kitchen to wonderful outside views. There are lots of ideas for creating gathering places for family and guests alike into the hearth of the home. A special chapter on the small kitchen illustrates solutions for homes with limited space, and a resource guide at the back of the book will point you toward award-winning designers and top-notch manufacturers. This is an invaluable resource for anyone planning to remodel an old kitchen or build a new one and a great reference book and sales tool for any kitchen design professional.

From basic storage sheds to playhouses, gazebos, home offices, workshops, and so much more, build the outdoor structure of your dreams and learn how to do all or part of the work yourself with this essential DIY guide! Build Your Own Shed & Outdoor Projects Manual, 6th Edition features all of the techniques and tips you need to know, as well as the latest in shed construction and every step of the process in detail. Select from a catalog of more than 100 expertly prepared plans - including more than 60 all-new designs for this updated edition - for building a wide range of outdoor structures, from simple utility sheds to elegant cabanas, cottages, greenhouses, and more. Whether you're looking to build the ideal pavilion, potting shed, patio furniture, arbor, trellis, or other outdoor structure, you're sure to find it here. Easy-to-follow construction blueprints and materials lists are also available for each project to ensure success.

This inspiring compendium of beautifully designed and crafted fences and gates will inspire homeowners and handymen to get right to work. This is a rich resource of dozens of beautifully crafted fences, any one of which could be the envy of your neighborhood. A how-to section helps you plan, plot, and execute a fence project. Included are ideas for privacy fences, fence/planter combinations, built-in seating, and arbor gates. Styles represented include fences influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement and Asian and traditional European designs. There are great ideas for providing privacy for a deck, patio, pool, or hot tub, and great gates to frame impressive entryways.

Extend your working, living and storage areas with low-cost barns, sheds and animal shelters. Building Small Barns, Sheds & Shelters provides basic, easy-to-follow construction methods for attractive outbuildings. Here's complete information on tools and materials; foundations and floors; framing, sheathing and roofing; windows and doors; wiring and plumbing; and finishing details. Specific plans and how-to-build instructions for popular home and family-farm structures include:

-- Multi-purpose barns

-- Woodshed, toolshed and carport plans

-- Combination small barn/studio

-- Barn-style garage

-- Underground root cellar

-- Smokehouse

-- Housing for poultry, rabbits, hogs

-- Various fencing designs

How to Light a historic interior appropriately—or create a realistic period look—can be a perplexing problem. Few people want to return to the days when light came mainly from candles, kerosene, gas or available sunlight. But acceptable ways of re-creating old lighting do exist, and Lighting for Historic Buildings shows how to find them. This invaluable guide provides both a history of lighting in America and a catalog of 481 suitable reproductions available today. Noted historian Roger Moss shows how interiors from the 1620s to the 1930s can be well lighted yet still maintain their character. Reproductions are organized by lighting source (candles, burning fluids, kerosene, gas and electricity) and fixture type (chandeliers, wall brackets and hall lights). Also included are chapters on street lighting and specialty items, a glossary and a reading list.

Make, mend, and customise your own wardrobe with this highly photographic beginner's guide to machine sewing. A sewing book for beginners that's actually helpful. It's love at first stitch! This highly photographic, easy-to-use guide to machine sewing features more than 200 step-by-step techniques to help you master every stitch in the book! Inside the pages of this sewing reference book, you will find: - More than 200 sewing techniques, all clearly and closely photographed and explained in sharp detail - Discover how to read a pattern, use a sewing machine, and sew basic stitches, seams, and hems - Explore how to put your new-found skills to use to create, personalise, up-cycle, and re-purpose your clothes and soft furnishings. - Photographs and explanations of essential sewing equipment and materials - for both hand and machine sewing - A guide to sewing jargon and terminology that describes when, where, and how to use each tool and technique - Techniques to create something new or to customise things you already have Whether you're a seasoned sewer or just starting to learn how to sew, a fashion design student or sewing for yourself at home, Sew Step by Step will guide you through every hand stitch, machine stitch, and sewing technique you will ever need. With fully updated text and a refreshed design, this is an essential sewing handbook that you will want to keep next to your sewing machine to come back to time and time again. Close-up photographs accompanied by crystal clear instructions take you through everything from cutting out patterns to inserting collars, sleeves and pockets into garments. Explore how to put those skills to use to make, mend and customise your clothes and home furnishings. You will also learn how to find a suitable fabric for every project with an easy-to-use guide to different materials. It also makes a wonderful gift for beginner sewers and expert stitchers alike.

Your client has decided to move out of the city to a country property. But they want to create a stylish, urban home in their new rural idyll. As a designer, it can seem difficult to recreate a metropolitan style while working within the more confined parameters of the country. This book shows you how to create a sophisticated scheme while also understanding the practicalities of designing for rural living. This practical and attractive design guide, including inspirational case studies, gives a fresh perspective on designing for country homes, explaining how to integrate contemporary style while engaging with current concerns such as how to design for sustainable building and wellbeing. Individual chapters cover various key rooms around the house with design ideas and practical tips to make them both comfortable and workable, as well as beautiful spaces. The design element of this book explores materials and finishes as well as styling that stand up to country life, the importance of using local materials and crafts people where possible and being aware of the architecture of the house and how it fits with the rural context. Case studies from a variety of exciting interior designers illustrate how following practical guidelines need not result in an uninspiring interior, but can result in an eclectic, contemporary finish.

'Somerville knows more about wooden barn construction than almost anyone alive.'-The Telegraph 'A joyful reminder of why nature, being outside, being together and creating beauty is so good for the soul.'-Kate Humble, broadcaster and author of A Year of Living Simply 'For all our advances, it's hard to deny the modern world brings with it new ills of disconnection and disenfranchisement, but here in Barn Club they've found their cure.'-Barn the Spoon, master craftsman and author of Spon Nature meets traditional craft in this celebration of the elm tree, beautiful buildings and community spirit. Barn Club calls on us to discover our landscapes more intimately and to explore the joys of making beautiful things by hand, together. When renowned craftsman Robert Somerville moved to Hertfordshire, he discovered an unexpected landscape rich with wildlife and elm trees. Nestled within London's commuter belt, this wooded farmland inspired Somerville, a lifelong woodworker, to revive the ancient tradition of hand-raising barns. Barn Club follows the building of Carley Barn over the course of one year. Volunteers from all walks of life joined Barn Club, inspired to learn this ancient skill of building elm barns by hand, at its own quiet pace and in the company of others, while using timber from the local woods. The tale of the elm tree in its landscape is central to Barn Club. Its natural history, historic importance and remarkable survival make for a fascinating story. This is a tale of forgotten trees, a local landscape and an ancient craft. This book includes sixteen pages of colour photographs, and black and white line drawings of techniques and traditional timber frame barns feature throughout.

With this book in one hand and a brush in the other, you can learn how to transform everyday furniture into something special, all for the price of a pot of paint. Annie Sloan is a paint legend and one of the world's most popular experts in the field of decorative painting. In Colour Recipes for Painted Furniture and more, Annie presents 40 new projects and ideas, showing you the easy way to update tired furniture and transform your home. Working with her own range of chalk paints, Annie shows how to mix colours and how to achieve certain looks. Whether your taste is for colourful boho chic or restrained Swedish hues, cosy and comforting rustic shades, a modern and contemporary approach or an elegant French look, here you will find a project to suit you. Start off by mastering the simple art of colourwashing, and work your way up to transfer printing, gilding, stencilling and glazing. There are even instructions for dyeing fabric using paint. As well as painting furniture, the projects range from a staircase painted in a rainbow of colours to stencilled walls, transforming floors with a coat of paint to dyeing linen curtains and even painting a vintage chandelier. Throughout the book, Annie offers expert tips, techniques, shortcuts and guidance, showing you the easy way to create a stylish home.

A guide to tackling the problems experienced in a project of this nature relevant to planning and building control procedures.

Quilting is big business. This book is for anyone who wants to turn their love for quilts into profit in a market that is viable and continues to grow. It will guide the reader through all the aspects of setting up and running a thriving home-based quilti

Make your home more mindful and discover a more considered way to decorate with this beautifully presented guide by acclaimed interior stylist, Joanna Thornhill.

We often think of mindfulness in relation to meditation, but our homes and interior design can play a big part in our emotional well-being. The New Mindful Home demystifies the links between body, mind and soul to explain how you can harness the power of mindfulness to help our homes support a more considered lifestyle.

How do we create spaces that can calm and revives us? With the same practical attention to problem-solving as in her first book, My Bedroom is an Office, author Joanna Thornhill helps you create an environment you will always want to come home to.

The New Mindful Home explores how you can use interiors to aid living with intention, slow living, creating supportive room layouts, considering mindful effects of colour, and embracing plants and natural elements in our homes. Enhanced by beautiful contemporary photography, this book will provide interior design inspiration for a generation who want to consider how they can live more mindfully.

Green Home explains how to 'green up' your life with an array of houseplants, and has been a bestseller in author Anders Royneberg's home country of Norway. Living with plants can enliven and enrich your surroundings, promoting feelings of relaxation and well-being. But where to start with curating that vital indoor collection? Green Home features all the green plants Anders has collected in his own apartment of 50 square meters - over 100 plants - and how this inspires him towards greener, more balanced living. With a guide to houseplant types, hints and tips on how to get your plants to thrive and also on how to integrate them into your home decor scheme, it's a plant book with added personality.

The highly acclaimed Festool*R system includes a line of four router models, the OF 1010 EQ, the OF 1400 EQ, the OF 2200 EB, and the MFK 700 EQ. Each has unique qualities that suit it for a particular job. In the OF series the 1010 is a light-weight, precision router, the 1400 is the middle range with more power and cutting depth, and the 2000 is a 3-1/4 HP production grade router. The MFK 700 EQ is a modular trim router that can change configuration for optimal, precise work with laminates.All four routers and their uses are covered in detail. Clear color photographs and concise explanations of the tools and their applications will help woodworkers get the most out of their Festool router and its accessories. As with all Festool products, the routers are integrated with the multi-function table (MFT), guiderail and dust extraction system. An overview of all these elements is included.The Festool Essential series helps the craftsperson use these fine tools to their highest capacity.

The Real Estate Market Sucks, Now What? is so crucial to the current economic Real Estate crisis that the consumer must understand that help does exist. If you want to know how to save your home from foreclosure, how to invest in today's market, how to get lenders to modify your loan and alternative ways to buy/sell your home, then read The Real Estate Market Sucks, Now What?.

The saw is one of the most basic tools and tends to be taken very much for granted. Many hours and much effort can be saved, and more accurate work produced, if the user has the knowledge of how his saw works and how to keep it in good condition. In this book Ian Bradley provides detailed guidance on the use and maintenance of all types of saw, both hand and mechanical, from the humble junior hacksaw to circular and bandsaws, in the comprehensive and succinct manner that has made him such a respected writer on workshop matters.

Tips from a Professional Organizer on How to Have an Organized Home"Real Life Organizing is a real solution to the clutter challenges we all face." Peter Walsh, New York Times best-selling author and organization expert #1 Best Seller in Do-It-Yourself Improvements, Small Spaces, and Decorating & Furnishings An organizing book with clutter-free solutions for keeping an organized home in just 15 minutes a day from a professional organizer and host of HGTV's HOT MESS HOUSE Create a Pinterest worthy home on a small budget. Learn how to organize your home, simplify life and have more time for things you love. Professional organizer Cassandra 'Cas' Aarssen, the guru from YouTube's ClutterBug channel and HGTV's Hot Mess House, reveals her tips, tricks and secrets to a clean and clutter free home in just 15 minutes a day. Simplify your life. In Real Life Organizing, Cas walks you through the steps to create a beautiful, organized, clutter free, and almost self-cleaning home. You don't have to get rid of all of your things, be a yoga loving minimalist, or radically change your lifestyle or personality. The truth is you do not need to actually be an organized person to live like an organized person. Organized home. Through years of experience as an industry expert, Cas has uncovered easy and inexpensive tips, tricks and solutions that enable her to maintain a clean, organized and functional home with minimal effort. After you've read Real Life Organizing, you too will be able to live a more organized life without having to give up your sanity. Learn how to: Create a Household Management Binder Make a "Kids Cupboard" in your kitchen Create an IN/OUT system Organize paperwork based on your unique style Create a Kitchen Command Center Organize your holidays with a gift closet Build a toy organizing system Also read Cas Aarssen's other bestselling home organizing books, Cluttered Mess to Organized Success, The Clutter Connection, and The Declutter Challenge.

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.

One of two most anticipated rooms of a house (the other is the master bathroom) is the kitchen. It's the interior space where most value can be added during a sale and the space that most homeowners, whether selling or not, wish to make the heart of the home. The kitchen is not just a place where meals are created: it is a place for fuelling the body, mind, and spirit. A space reserved exclusively to functionality a few years ago is now one of the most important meeting and socializing points in the house. What was an isolated space is today a showpiece integrated into other rooms. Here are over 100 amazing and contemporary kitchen designs to suit all sizes, shapes, and ages of house.