Downsizing is a great way to live a more eco-sensible lifestyle and Ward also wrote, Use What You Have Decorating — another good green idea.

The good:

• The obvious best point of this book is that most of us could downsize as a way to tread lighter on the earth and even if you’re shunning green living (now, why would you do that) housing costs have gone up and even if you want a large house it may not be in your budget. For eco, budget, and sanity minded reasons downsizing is a logical way to live.
• This book covers ideas for decorating success when downsizing no matter the reason. It offers ideas that work if you’re moving to the city, trading in the large family home, or simply moving because you’d like to simplify your life. I like that the book covers the downsizing process in easy to manage steps.
• Ward discusses everything; from assessing the floor plan of your new home, to the preparation that needs to happen before you move (like measuring and locating light sources), to what to pack and what to leave behind. Once you have your new space she covers how to make the small space workable for you. Issues like making a space multifunctional and how to repurpose your stuff is all included.
• I LOVE how the book is broken down. Ward uses multiple headers and text colors in her book which really makes great tip sections; like bookshelves as room dividers stand out. You would hope that a book from a designer would be designed well and Ward gets a gold star from me for her easy to read, easy to scan, and easy to use content layout.

To give you an idea of what you’ll find in this book here’s how the book is broken down. Although keep in mind that each chapter has multiple sections with various case stories, tips, and more.

• Intro: Living more simply is the best revenge
• The ten most common decorating mistakes you don’t have to make
• Preparing for change
• What to pack and what to part with
• What to do with what you part with
• The truth about storage — you can never have enough
• Repurpose your stuff
• Camouflage and sleight of hand
• Make it multifunctional
• For kitchens and bathrooms only
• New tactics for living smaller
• One year later — time to reassess

There’s also an amazingly extensive resource section in the back that covers where to find the best storage and home items for downsizing.

The bad:

The one problem I have with this book is that when it comes to books about homes and decorating I like insanely cool eye candy. Chalk it up to me writing Offbeat Homes, or my preference for unique and / or retro style digs but this book had very few photos that interested me. The book’s style is more elegant and contemporary than I like.

That said I am sort of a snob about how I like things to look and also most people don’t agree with my decorating style. I’m guessing that about 90% of people will like the photos in this book. Overall I thought the usefulness of the tips far outweighed me not loving the photos so I’d highly recommend it as a useful book to have around if you’d like to learn to live smaller and still functionally.

If you want to see some of the photos in the book check out Harper Collins.
Win this book:

I am so contested out after last month (I had something like six blog contests going on) that this is going to be low-key. Here’s the deal; leave one comment anywhere on this blog between now and um, let’s say the 1st of December and I’ll enter your name into a big bowl and pull one out and if I draw your name I’ll send you this book.

Easy as store bought pie.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family