Your home should be somewhere you look forward to spending time. It should be a haven from the stresses of the world. You should be proud to have your friends round for dinner and they should leave impressed by your comfortable, clean, homely home. Nowadays, we don't all have the time or energy to make the most of our homes. But with a little help from Anthea Turner, the queen of clean, you too can have a beautiful, clean and comfortable home to be truly proud of. With tips on everything from decluttering to dry cleaning, storage solutions to spring cleaning, dinner parties to brunches, this is an indispensable home management guide. There are simple lessons on each aspect of home making from cleaning to ironing to washing to tidying as well as top tips on entertaining. You wil learn to entertain in style, with little effort and cost. Whether you're a housewife, or a young professional or student just setting up home, the Perfect Housewife has helpful hints to get you organised. You can save time and energy and turn your house into a home with Anthea Turner!

The editors of "Yankee" magazine scoured scores of vintage books, magazines, journals, and memoirs to find the very best old-time secrets for preparing meals, cleaning, doing laundry, decorating, repairing the home, treating common ailments, caring for pets, celebrating the holidays, and gardening outdoors and indoors. Throughout this treasury, the editors suggest ways to adapt yesteryear's methods using today's technology and materials, giving readers the best of both the old and the new. As readers explore these pages, they'll discover: how to mix a stain for wood furniture from coffee and salt; how to air condition a hot, stale room without relying on electricity; and how to fashion a beautiful garden trellis from twigs. With this book by their side, readers will always be in the good company of an old-timer who is set to dispense a helpful hint, encouraging word, or sage secret at the turn of a page.

Get---and stay---organized!Let your natural inclinations guide you toward gaining control of your environment and learn to live life on your own terms. Drawing on the science of brain function and her experience as a professional organizer, Lanna Nakone offers tailored and specific advice that will actually work to help you tame your desk, unclutter your closet, manage your time, and save your sanity.Take the Brain Style quiz to determine which of the four parts of the brain you rely on the most to process information, and which organizing style complements your brain function. If you rely on the*Posterior left section of your brain, you're a Maintaining Style. You develop and follow routines well and adhere to traditional organizing methods. *Frontal right section of your brain, you're an Innovating Style. Artistically creative, you have a unique stacking system that no one else understands. *Posterior right section of your brain, you're a Harmonizing Style. Valuing interconnectedness with your family or coworkers, you need to be organized enough to keep your environment peaceful. *Frontal left section of your brain, you're a Prioritizing Style. Adept at analyzing data, you prefer to delegate organizing. Chapters specific to each type offer practical tips and strategies for implementing an organizing system, maintaining your system, and coexisting with different brain styles.Insightful and understanding, "Organizing for Your Brain Type" turns the task of managing your life into an enjoyable experience.

Ronni Eisenberg, author of the popular but slightly more intimidating Organize Yourself , has deconstructed the potentially hair-raising projects of getting the house in order: organizing closet space, filing household documents (do you know for sure if junior needs a tetanus shot anytime soon?), finagling some counter space in the kitchen, and even keeping photo negatives from seeming to multiply like rabbits and threatening to overtake the living room. Eisenberg reveals how to trim daunting tasks (like clearing up the garage) into manageable chunks.
If you're frazzled with worry about what sort of critters may be nesting in your attic, or have gone 15,000 miles without an oil change, or find yourself at the checkout of the grocery store grappling to find that Cheerios coupon that you know you stuffed in your wallet, only to find it two months later in the back of kitchen junk drawer, sadly expired, this book's for you.

The self-proclaimed "#1 Avoidance Expert" tells all in this outrageous, smart, and practical compendium of tips, hints, and secrets for maintaining a spotless home without lifting a finger.

er*go*nom*ic (er-ga-'na-mik) adj: designed to allow people and the things people use to interact in the safest, most effective, and most comfortable manner

You work indoors. You're not on your feet all day and you do no heavy lifting. You have escaped from the brutal nature of most human labor. And yet at the end of the day you feel exhausted. You have vague aches and pains that you are embarrassed to mention to your doctor. If you do, the doctor gives you some equally vague advice: take it easy; don't push yourself; get more rest. If that doesn't work, maybe you're a whiner, a hypochondriac.

Or maybe you're being attacked by your possessions.

Perhaps you've been making do with a worn-out old mattress in the bedroom, an office chair that won't let you sit up straight, and a computer screen that you struggle to read with your bifocals. You bought a desk and a file cabinet whose colors complement each other perfectly, but you had no idea how downright irritating ordinary furniture can get if the only choice you bother with is matching style and color.

Somewhere in this world is a reading light, chair, bed, perhaps even a keyboard and desk, built just for you. This book will show you how to find them.

HOME

How to Enter Your Home

The Child-Friendly Home

How to Prepare Food

How to Relax

How to Sleep

OFFICE

Territory

The Inner Circle

Ambience

Storage

The Personal Computer

The Information-Age Habitat

In today's economic climate, self-sufficiency is increasingly seen as a viable means of taking control of our lives and safeguarding for the future - this is the book that will help every householder do just that. Each of the twelve chapters focuses on key topics for living a more self-sustainable life, with practical information and expert guidance that will make the subject come alive for everyone, whatever their needs, circumstances and resources. This means that the gardening chapter, for example, is appropriate both for people with an urban back yard or a more substantial plot of land. Written in a down-to-earth, engaging and often amusing style, the book will appeal to single people as much as to those with large families, to women who want to be more creative, resourceful and independent, to men who want to rediscover their inner 'hunter-gatherer', and to parents looking to equip their children with basic life skills.

Finally, a way to get rid of the clutter -- and keep it away -- without making the process a full-time job Organizing expert Donna Smallin shows you how to enjoy the happy, healthy, inviting home you long for with hundreds of time-saving tips and solutions to your clutter and cleaning problems. Her approach is manageable and simple, helping you focus on the things that will make the biggest difference with the least amount ofeffort and time. You'll discover small, quick routines that will keep your spaces clean and clutter-free over time, as well as lots of things that you can do to introduce order and serenity in just one minute Clear away the clutter once and for all, and enjoy the happiness you'll find hiding underneath

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A unique diary with a practical week-to-view layout and 56 delicious triple-tested recipes so that you can try something new every week of the year. It has a handy pocket at the front for storing cards and receipts and features concealed wiro binding so that it lies flat when in use. There are plenty of useful pages for recording details, such as personal contacts, useful websites, thoughts and plans plus birthday and Christmas gift records. It even gives a step-by-step guide to producing gorgeous, scrumptious bakes. This Recipe Diary also provides hints, tips, calendars and conversions - in fact everything you need to plan your busy life.

A follow-up to Black Dog's bestselling "Country Wisdom and Know-How," the "Country Wisdom Almanac" provides hundreds of ideas and methods for living the good and simple life, plus information on weather, gardening, buying produce and cooking by season, holidays, frost dates, moon phases, and more.
Divided into the four seasons and then organized into 373 individual tips, the "Country Wisdom Almanac" presents a wide variety of ways to live a simpler, more self-sustained life year round. Each season offers home-improvement ideas (wallpaper a room in the Fall or build a stone wall in the Spring), crafts (create gorgeous homemade decorations for Christmas, Halloween, or the Fourth of July), recipes (use seasonal produce to create fresh, healthy meals), gardening advice (what and when to plant in order to get the maximum results from your land), and more.
Also included is year-round advice on caring for pets, creating your own health and beauty remedies, canning and preserving food, and more. Each season opens with a list of holidays and a guide to in-season produce. Appendices cover average weather by city and month, frost dates, and moon phases.

A housewife has to face many problems while doing household activities. The contains tips to get rid of such problems. These are practical tips for everyday recipes, which are equally effective also. Adopt them and become the perfect homemaker. #v&spublishers

The book includes hints on how to clean a dirty clothes-line, remove paint from window panes and get rid of a whole host of stains, from rust and indelible ink to blood and mildew. This delightful little volume also reveals how to rid yourself of those annoying household pests, including ants, beetles and flies, remove odours from your hands and use natural products to clean floors, windows and cooking utensils. Fowler also shows the twentieth-century housewife how to perform miracles in the kitchen, from making pastry extra flaky to the quickest way to peel carrots and how to remove burns from a cake.

Cleaning your home without using harsh toxic chemicals is rapidly becoming the new standard. "Knack Clean Home, Green Home" is the first visual guide that shows you all the best ideas for efficiently and safely cleaning your home. Green is an aesthetic choice as well, and you'll find out about all the good odors that accompany the germ-free surfaces of a clean green home, without the unhealthy chemical presence. In this well-organized and fully illustrated book, the author explains cogently what you really need to do to get rid of germs. You'll find recipes for homemade cleaning products as well as guidance on reading labels so you can recognize what's good and what's not. "Knack Clean Home, Green Home" is a one-stop shop for information on green homekeeping. Key features of "Knack Clean Home, Green Home"Room-by-room advice Recipes for homemade cleaning productsDecodes product ingredients: what's good, what's notDovetails with consumer trend toward "green" as the preferred choice "Get the Knack "Visually organized format makes information easier-than-ever to find 475 color photos to simplify the techniques Big book, layflat binding, clear instructionsBig Resource chapter with useful websites

Your prescription for the organized and beautiful home you desire

That old doll collection. Twenty years of pay stubs. All the trophies your child ever won. It's difficult to love your home when every inch is packed with possessions. "The Clutter Cure" gives you the power to toss the things that are holding you back from living a full life and finally having a beautiful home--one that's more than a giant container for your stuff. In three steps, you'll learn to: Understand your compulsion to hold on to things Buy fewer but better quality items Envision and create rooms that make you comfortable and happy Take action by donating, discarding, or selling your stuff

BIG OR SMALL, YOU CAN CLEAN IT ALL!

This is the handy all-in-one volume you've always wanted: the ultimate guide to the art of cleaning. America's #1 cleaning expert, Don Aslett, shares the secrets of the pros as he leads you through basic training -- over 600 alphabetized entries dealing with specific cleaning problems, with a comprehensive reference for everything from the anatomy of housekeeping to safe storage of cleaning chemicals and tools. Learn how to:
-- Clean quickly with maximum results and minimum effort
-- Find the best products for any job, including the top supermarket products, professional products, specialty items, and mail-order sources
-- Extend the life and beauty of your furniture and carpets -- including a complete carpet maintenance program
-- Stop clogged drains...control dust...enhance and preserve jewelry...wash windows and mirrors without streaking...clean fabrics...get rid of junk and clutter...

It's all here -- in the book that helps you prevent housework with tricks of the trade to save time, money, and elbow grease!

Favourite British Recipes is the latest in this delightful series of fun and practical cookery giftbooks. Enjoy a wealth of hearty and comforting classic recipes such as Shepherd's Pie and Rhubarb Crumble, alongside traditional tips and facts, from proper table manners and etiquette to how to fold a napkin, all beautifully designed and illustrated.

Spotless is the go-to guide to keeping your home sparkling clean and organised, full of handy hints and solutions for all those tough cleaning problems we each face and don't know where to start. Using cost-effective and eco-friendly methods this book has information on how to care for and fix just about anything in the home, as well as recipes for making your own cleaning products. From how to clean each room effectively to removing stains on any surface or item of clothing 'Queen of Clean' Shannon Lush shares her vast wealth of domestic wisdom and techniques, delivering valuable take-aways that will help you save time, money and the planet.

This book looks at cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping for people who don't know how to do any of those things and aren't about to learn. There are useful sections on cleaning - describing how to avoid cleaning, how to trick other people into cleaning for you and cooking, entertaining, home decorating, yard care, and miscellancous hints and tips.

The Modern Woman's Guide to Domestic Bliss: Household hints and tips is filled with ideas, shortcuts and good advice on all sorts of things. From it you will learn how to cook the perfect steak, bath a screaming baby, get sweat stains out of a T-shirt, organise the junk drawer, and singlehandedly strip and re-polish your living room floorboards. And that's only the beginning. The Modern Woman's Guide to Domestic Bliss is structured for easy reference, with the following sections: * Organisation: Planning ahead, getting rid of clutter, creating a productive home * Housework: Cleaning, home laundry, clothes care with fabrics guide, care of furniture and valuables, stain removal guide, ideas for streamlining everyday tasks * Food and drink: Cooking and serving shortcuts, basic kitchen inventory, useful recipes * Gardening: Planning and managing a garden, easy-to-care-for plants, flower arranging, houseplants * DIY repairs and maintenance: Painting and decorating, choosing the right tools for the job, measuring and buying * Crafts: How to knit, sew, embroider, crochet and more * Child care: Feeding babies and toddlers, day-to-day care * Pets: Choosing and caring for pets, training * Health and safety: Basic first aid, action for emergencies, home security * Law and Finance: Money saving tips, advice on legal situations, consumer rights An essential reference book for every Kiwi household, The Modern Woman's Guide to Domestic Bliss is also the ideal gift for soon-to-be and current homemakers.

Time-honored advice from the great American heartland.