Martin Holladay has been making weekly postings to his 'Musings of an Energy Nerd' blog on Green Building Advisor since January 2009. Along the way, he has gathered a devoted following of energy nerds who await his weekly musings with rapt anticipation. For the first time, the 50 most popular postings have been assembled in book form to give homeowners a great opportunity to live a more energy-efficient life in their homes. The book begins with an overview of energy priorities, and a discussion of what we mean by terms like green and sustainable. Martin presents several options for energy upgrades for an existing house (from replacing windows to adding superinsulation) before looking at ways to improve the energy efficiency of a new house. Separate chapters follow on HVAC, domestic hot water, appliances and renewable energy, before the book wraps up with an eye-opening chapter on useless products, scams and myths.

Go back to basics-compost, raising chickens, water and irrigation, dealing with pests, and much more-with this unique, full color bestseller (over 400,000 sold). Mini Farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family's food on just a quarter acre-and earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require. Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, this book covers everything you need to know to get started: Buying and saving seeds Starting seedlings Establishing raised beds Soil fertility practices Composting Dealing with pest and disease problems Crop rotation Selling your produce arm planning, and much more. Because self-sufficiency is the objective, subjects such as raising backyard chickens and home canning are also covered along with numerous methods for keeping costs down and production high. Materials, tools, and techniques are detailed with photographs, tables, diagrams, and illustrations.

Ever wondered how to fit the ironing into an already overcrowded schedule? Or needed advice on how to deal with house guests whose political opinions you abhor?In this charming guide, Her Ladyship dons the mantle of a modern Mrs Beeton to provide the answers to these pressing domestic questions, and many more. In her trademark lightly humorous but always elegant style, she discusses important issues such as day-to-day housekeeping and routines (exactly how clean do you need to keep your house?), dealing effectively but graciously with 'staff' (cleaners, au pairs, gardeners), how to avoid committing social faux pas when entertaining, and useful ideas for getting the children to help with the housework.The book is not aimed solely at people who live in large country houses, like Her Ladyship, but at anyone who feels in need of a bit of gentle guidance on running a home properly, whatever its size or type, while still coping with the demands of work, childcare and all the other perils of modern life.

Can we get a feeling of spaciousness and well-being in an apartment when the available space is very limited? This book shows that not only is it possible, but often the solutions turn the house itself into a unique and singular space. These types of projects are also a challenge for architects, since they require bringing into play all their ingenuity, technique, and talent.

Take back your space, your time and your mind to live your authentic life. You have too many commitments in your life and too much stuff in your home. It's no wonder you feel overwhelmed and stressed out. You don't need to just throw out a few bits and bobs; you need to de-clutter your life! Our homes and workspace are a mirror of what's happening inside us, De-Clutter Your Life explains how you can change your relationship with the things you own. Instead of being weighed down with objects and possessions that keeps you stuck in the past, you can learn to think about your things in a new light; in a way that's constructive and helpful to you. There are plenty of ideas, advice, tips and techniques to help you. You'll discover how outer order leads to inner calm. De-Clutter Your Life explains how the principles and steps taken to clear and simplify your living space can improve not just your home but also other aspects of your life; your work, relationships and general wellbeing. An ordered environment leads to ordered thinking. When you stop allowing your life to revolve around things that don't matter, you instantly gain the time, space and energy to focus on the things that do. De-Clutter Your Life will help you to: Let go of guilt and get rid of the emotional baggage that keeps you stuck in the pastFeel less overwhelmed and stressedClear out your unnecessary commitmentsSimplify and improve your work lifeDe-clutter your relationships Simple living doesn't end at home. De-Clutter Your Life shows you how to reclaim your space, your time and your mind to achieve the life you want to live.

Question
Unpack
Evaluate
Eliminate
Neaten up!

It's a foolproof sorting system for even the most devoted packrat: Question the best possible use of a room, a closet, a drawer...Unpack all of your clutter to get a sense of what you have (and what you need to do with it)...Evaluate each and every item you own...Eliminate unwanted possessions without guilt or regrets...and Neaten up your belongings in their newly decluttered space. You'll find your home and your life organized like never before as you conquer clutter in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, attic, basement -- even the garage!

The key, says the Queen, is to start small...and soon you'll be revved up and ready to straighten out every nook and cranny of your home. Her down-to-earth clutter-busting advice is built for speed; in a flash she sorts through and tidies up wallets, purses, drawers, closets, pantries, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, junk mail, linens, toys, books, videos, photos, collectibles, and much, much more!

The Queen makes even the most dreaded organizing tasks a breeze with hundreds of easy and practical tips! Find out how good it feels to be a savvy manager of all that threatens to invade your orderly domain with these simple and effective strategies from America's #1 housekeeping expert, the Queen of Clean®.

How to Weed Your Attic: Getting Rid of Junk without Destroying History provides answers to the question: when someone dies or it's time to move --- or just clean out the attic, garage, or basement, what papers and other things should we save for the sake of history and what can we safely toss? After reading this clearly written book by a retired archivist and a retired museum curator, you can comfortably clean out your attic - or office, garage, basement, cupboards - with confidence that you're not tossing out historically valuable (or invaluable) things, and that you will not ask your local museum to take things that really belong in a thrift store, junk yard, or recycle center. The book first describes how to identify historically important documents and artifacts. The authors explain a few simple rules: 1) a complete or long collection has more value than a partial one; 2) emotive material provides a richer picture than factual material; 3) unique usually has more value than mass produced; 4) documents and objects carry more information than they intend to; and 5) a 25-year rule exists without our consciously recognizing it. They then apply the rules and assess the probable historical value of four different types of materials: mass produced (from books to vehicles), individually created (from art work to toys), business materials (from governance documents to uniforms), and commemorative materials (from awards to wedding dresses). The book includes a brief description of the basics for preserving materials the reader wants to keep and references sources for more detail. It also recognizes that the reader may not want to keep stuff that clearly has historical value. For those readers, the authors describe how to donate materials to a cultural repository. In broad strokes, they explain how repositories differ, what the repository will want to know about the stuff you're offering, where an appraiser and/or tax advisor fits into the process, and what the reader can expect the repository to do and not do. Finally, the book addresses unexpected issues that may arise around questions of legal ownership and privacy. Throughout the book, the authors illustrate their points using photographs and vignettes.

Everyone has baking soda on hand to help cookies rise and keep the pantry smelling fresh. But this simple compound also has dozens of other applications for health, cleaning, gardening and even crafting. In The Baking Soda Companion, Suzy Scherr explains just how useful this all-natural pantry staple can be. Make extra-fluffy scrambled eggs, clean the coffee pot, soothe bug bites, mix up toothpaste and shampoo, remove stubborn grass stains, repel garden pests, and more. This is a straightforward, informative guide for anyone who wants to incorporate simple, affordable and natural solutions into their day-to-day routine.

From ancient Greece to the Victorian era and into modern times, vinegar and oil have been used for an infinite variety of purposes. This book explores the many varied applications of these wondrous substances, looking at their distinct properties, the range of types available and their uses as valued ingredients in medicinal treatments, household cleaners, beauty treatments, aromatherapy, as well as 130 irresistible culinary recipes for sauces, marinades, soups and desserts and everything in between. Illustrated with more than 700 beautiful photographs, this wonderful compendium explores the amazing versatility and health and household benefits of these magical everyday ingredients.

Clearing clutter can radically transform your life. Drawing on her wealth of experience as a feng shui, space clearing and clutter clearing consultant, Karen Kingston explains how clutter is stuck energy that has far-reaching physical, mental, emotional and spiritual effects. This book will motivate you to clutter-clear as never before, once you realise just how much your junk has been holding you back! Learn: - Why people keep clutter - How clutter causes stagnation in every area of your life - Why clearing clutter is essential for effective feng shui - How to clear clutter quickly and effectively - Karen Kingston's top ten clutter clearing tips

THE HOME EDIT was founded on the idea that practical organization can work in harmony with design, so that spaces are both functional and beautiful. In their first book, Clea and Joanna - the two friends behind The Home Edit - have created a helpful, lively guide to getting every room in your house in order - stylishly, because organisation doesn't have to mean throwing everything out. THE HOME EDIT centres on incredibly practical advice that is adaptable to all living spaces, including tips for hard-to-organize areas. It also features some of the celebrity spaces that Clea and Joanna have reorganized. While every project is rooted in functional systems that can be maintained for the long term, there is an equal emphasis placed on transforming your space visually and adding THE HOME EDIT'S signature contemporary aesthetic.

With the rapid depletion of our planet's natural resources, we would all like to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle. But in the midst of an economic crisis, it's just as important to save money as it is to go green. As Gehring shows in this thorough but concise guide, being kind to Mother Earth can also mean being kind to your bank account It doesn't matter where your homestead is located--farm, suburb, or even city. Wherever you live, "The Homesteading Handbook" can help you:
- Plan, plant, and harvest your own organic home garden.
- Enjoy fruits and vegetables year-round by canning, drying, and freezing.
- Build alternate energy devices by hand, such as solar panels or geothermal heat pumps.
- Differentiate between an edible puffball mushroom and a poisonous amanita.
- Prepare butternut squash soup using ingredients from your own garden.
- Conserve water by making a rain barrel or installing an irrigation system.
- Have fun and save cash by handcrafting items such as soap, potpourri, and paper.
Experience the satisfaction that comes with self-sufficiency, as well as the assurance that you have done your part to help keep our planet green. "The Homesteading Handbook" is your roadmap to living in harmony with the land.

The Scent of Lemon and Rosemary is a fabulous book of magical spells, crafts, and recipes for your house and home. Based on the powerful energy and mythos of the goddess Hestia, the magical activities and workings in this book can be practiced by anyone, regardless of spiritual orientation. Magic themes and techniques abound for each room of your home love and transformation in the kitchen, communication and friendship in the living room, purification and health in the bathroom, prosperity and sleep in the bedroom, and protection in the threshold. You will discover recipes for food magic as well as tips for creating your own green cleaning supplies and tying your cleaning tasks to the lunar phase. Author Raechel Henderson also includes hands-on exercises for connecting with Hestia as a deity of bodily autonomy, racial equity, and social justice. Creating a harmonious environment that fosters feelings of acceptance, safety, and abundance is possible. With tools like visualization, centring, grounding, and raising power as well as crystals, essential oils, meditations, and rituals, this book guides you in balancing the energy of each room and turning your entire home into a sacred space.

How to Go Waste Free is the easy guide to disposing of waste from your life. 100 tips provide insight, practical advice and a painless approach to joining the zero-waste revolution. Every year, humankind dumps over 2 billion tons of waste. This either goes into landfill, is incinerated, or goes into our oceans - doing untold damage to the environment, wildlife and to our own bodies. What can we do, as individuals, to stem this tide of trash?

'(Gaff Goddess) should be taught in schools. It's genuinely, hands-on empowering! After four paragraphs I am fully convinced I could build my own house and go on Grand Designs!' - Marian Keyes

Laura de Barra is quite simply a Gaff Goddess. Expanding on her popular online home hacks, Laura will teach you how to handle the problems we all encounter in our homes.

Straight-talking and hilarious and packed with Laura’s stunning illustrations, her step-by-step guides will prepare you to handle the most common household emergencies with style. From dripping taps to hanging a frame, how best to look after your white goods, how to treat moths, mould and everything in between, and with invaluable design ideas to improve the living spaces in your home, this book is for everyone who has ever wanted to tackle a bit of She-IY without really knowing how.

Ingenious and sure to be an instant household must-have, Gaff Goddess will empower you to make those repairs and rediscover your space saving you time, money and stress in the process.

Home cures, recipes, everyday hints and tips. It is a celebration of one of nature's most powerful ingredients and how to use it for health, cleaning and in cooking. How to use bicarbonate of soda - or baking soda - as a cheap, natural cleaning product around the home, and for medicinal purposes. It includes delicious culinary ideas, with recipes for tasty main dishes, delightful desserts, perfect muffins and breads, and fizzing lemonades. An incredibly versatile substance, bicarbonate of soda - also known as baking soda - has an enormous variety of practical uses. It is a valuable commodity in the world of glass and soap manufacturing, it is a necessary ingredient in the making of gingerbread, and the Ancient Egyptians used it in the preparation of their mummies. This book sets out to pull together a number of facts - some whimsical, some serious - about bicarbonate of soda. It includes a chapter on the uses of bicarbonate of soda throughout history, from cleaning cuts and making toothpaste to leavening bread and creating fizzy drinks.There are helpful suggestions concerning how best to consume bicarbonate of soda, whether used as an ingredient in a recipe or for medicinal purposes. It can also be used for cleaning - in the kitchen, bathroom, laundry and outdoors - and for deodorizing pet smells and controlling household pests. With the help of this book, you will be surprised just how versatile bicarbonate of soda really is.

A comprehensive, upbeat guide to help you survive the moving process from start to finish, filled with fresh strategies and checklists for timing and supplies, choosing which items to toss and which to keep, determining the best place to live, saying farewell and looking forward to hello. Moving is a major life change-time consuming, expensive, often overwhelming, and sometimes scary. But it doesn't have to be! Instead of looking at it as a burdensome chore, consider it a new adventure. Ali Wenzke and her husband moved ten times in eleven years, living in seven states across the U.S. She created her popular blog, The Art of Happy Moving, to help others build a happier life before, during, and after a move. Infused with her infectious optimistic spirit, The Art of Happy Moving builds on her blog, offering step-by-step guidance, much-needed comfort, practical information, and welcome advice on every step of the process, including: How to stage your home for prospective buyers How to choose your next neighborhood How to discard your belongings and organize your packing How to say goodbye to your friends How to make the transition easier for your kids How to decorate your new home How to build a new community And so much more. Ali shares invaluable personal anecdotes from her many moves, and packs each chapter with a wealth of information and ingenious tips (Did you know that if you have an extra-large welcome mat at the entrance of your home, it's more likely to sell?). Ali also includes checklists for packing and staging, and agendas for the big moving day. Whether you're a relocating professional, newly married, a family with kids and pets, or a retiree looking to downsize, The Art of Happy Moving will help you discover ways to help make your transition an easier one-and be even happier than you were before.

An easy-to-read, idea-packed guide for anyone who wants to be more organized and who doesn't?
Everyone has overflowing closets and desk drawers, countertops loaded with kitchen gadgets, and overstuffed computer desktops. We dream of getting organized but what's a disorganized person to do? In this book, professional organizer Stacey Platt comes to the rescue with empowering ideas on putting and keeping things in order.
Like earlier titles in the series, such as the best-selling "What's a Cook to Do?," this book offers easy-to-scan and access solutions to everyday aggravations: How do you keep from misplacing your cell phone or house keys? What's the best way to organize the fridge? How do you pack efficiently for a trip? This user-friendly book, illustrated with stylish, full-color photography, is up-to-date on the latest technologies for organizing everything from music to family photos.
Here are hundreds of ingenious solutions for gaining control of clutter so you can live happily in your space. There are quick solutions as well as one-hour projects from organizing your emails so you can find your passwords to sorting the area under the bathroom sink that readers can tackle, one weekend at a time, with big payoffs. From the kitchen to the home office, the bedroom closet to the car, this thoughtful guide will help readers carve out more space and more time.

"

Simple Minimalism for Your Family and Your Life"Both practical and inspirational, you'll learn how to simplify and streamline your entire life." Morgan Tyree, @morganizewithme A collection of minimalist quotes, daily wisdom, affirmations, and meditations that you as a busy mom can use to stay focused and inspired to live a minimalist lifestyle. Make minimalist living possible for your family. Parenting is hard enough already without trying to change the way you live in one fell swoop. Diane Boden, the host of the Minimalist Moms podcast, knows that what busy moms desire are quick, daily minimalist quotes that provide inspiration and a reminder of the positive impact of minimalism. Minimalist Moms is a book of on-the-go minimalist wisdom, that gradually teaches busy parents how to embrace the core principles of minimalism-simple living, focusing on what matters, and inner calm. Thrive by living with less. Minimalism is more of a way of life than a goal to be reached. We need little reminders to help keep perspective and focus on what's important to us. Minimalist Moms helps you aspire toward minimalism and simplify your life and home. With daily meditations that take only a few minutes to read, this is the perfect, gentle guide to getting started. In this book find: Practical advice on how to live a minimalist lifestyle emotionally, physically, and mentally Mantras that cover a range of topics, from slowing down and getting outside to habit stacking and decluttering Accessible minimalism that is applicable to any lifestyle-and any busy mother You've read motivational books and minimalist books like When Less Becomes More, Make Space, or Cozy Minimalist Home? Then you'll love Minimalist Moms.

Hints on difficult decorating decisions and a quick reference for repairs, cooking techniques and sewing skills.

This title deals with nature's wonder ingredient: 100 amazing uses from traditional cures to food and beauty, with tips, hints and 40 tempting recipes. You can learn how to use the remarkable powers of honey in your medicine chest, household, bathroom and kitchen. It features dozens of safe natural remedies and preparations - how to make honey compresses, anti-fungal ointments, digestive tonics, cough syrups, antiseptic balms and sleeping aids. It contains a guide to all the different kinds of honey, and over 40 classic recipes that make the most of nutritious honey in all kinds of delicious ways - from sweet-and-sour marinades to delectable honey pastries. It comes with step-by-step instructions and 275 photographs. The first sweetener, honey predates sugar by hundreds of years. But as well as its culinary uses, honey has long been valued in folk remedies. This book presents in one volume not only a fascinating history of an ancient ingredient but a comprehensive and practical guide to the many amazing and beneficial uses of honey in the home. Combining history, a guide to the different types of honey, household uses, medicinal preparations and beauty treatments, as well as many delicious recipes, it demonstrates the amazing versatility of honey. This is a delightful sourcebook of ideas you will turn to time and again.

Created by an assembly of leading designers, architects, and bloggers, these 57 unique and innovative designs will show you the limits of what is possible. All of the designs include beautiful full-colour photos along with floor plans and building tips; 15 of them include flushed-out concept sketches; and five include step-by-step building plans. You'll also find guidelines on building with recycled and salvaged materials, plus techniques for making your small space comfortable and easy to inhabit.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER The Organised Mum Method is THE housekeeping bible that will completely revolutionise your home. Say goodbye to mess, clutter and weekends spent tidying and cleaning! Gemma Bray (a.k.a The Organised Mum) is a firm believer that there is more to life than housework, and over the last decade she has perfected The Organised Mum Method (TOMM).* The Organised Mum Method is a structured, manageable and ultra-efficient cleaning routine that ensures all areas of the home are taken care of. It's easy to follow, effective and ensures that everything gets done in just 30 minutes a day, Monday to Friday ... and you get weekends off! Perfect for existing fans of TOMM or anyone looking for ways to fit cleaning around a busy lifestyle, The Organised Mum Method includes life-changing tips, tricks, cleaning schedules, shopping lists, meal plans and quick recipes that will help you get your housework done fast. *Don't worry dads -- it works for you too.