Smart Housekeeping: The No-Nonsense Guide to Decluttering, Organizing, and Cleaning Your Home, or Keys to Making Your Home Suit Yourself with No Help from Fads, Fanatics, or Other Foolishness - Softcover

Watson, Anne L

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1620355868 ISBN 13: 9781620355862

Publisher: Shepard Publications, 2016

Synopsis

SPECIAL NOTE! -- ANNE WILL PERSONALLY ANSWER ANY QUESTION OF YOURS AFTER READING THIS BOOK. ASK ON HER WEB SITE, AND YOU'LL NORMALLY HEAR BACK WITHIN HOURS!

There's no shortage of experts to cheerfully advise you on how to declutter, organize, and clean your home. But do they know what YOU want and need? Or are they only pushing rigid, quirky systems that ignore people's differences and how we really live?

With insight, wit, and common sense, "Smart Housekeeping" cuts through the clutter of questionable and often silly advice to offer practical keys to reclaiming and maintaining your home.

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Anne L. Watson is the author of a variety of works, including literary novels, soapmaking manuals, and two cookie cookbooks. She is also retired from a long and honored career as a historic preservation architecture consultant. Anne "lives apart together" with her husband, fellow author, and publisher, Aaron Shepard, in Friday Harbor, Washington.

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CONTENTS

Getting Started

A Decluttering Tale

Keys to Decluttering

Step-by-Step Decluttering

Clutter Control

Keys to Organizing

Keys to Cleaning

Sharing the Load

A Few Final Keys

About this title

From the Author:

CONTENTS Getting Started A Decluttering Tale Keys to Decluttering Step-by-Step Decluttering Clutter Control Keys to Organizing Keys to Cleaning Sharing the Load A Few Final Keys ///////////////////////////////////////////////// FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This book is a collection of tips on housekeeping and household organization -- on making your home easier to live in. It's a take-as-needed cafeteria of suggestions to adopt or expand on. Some ideas will trigger "aha" moments for one person, while not at all appealing to another. Most of what I suggest will fit easily within a small budget -- and if you're a renter, it won't make you lose your damage deposit! The book can help if . . . * You're distressed by your home's disorder, and you just don't know how to fix it. * You're downsizing or moving to a new home.  * You run around every morning looking for keys, papers, or articles of clothing. * You buy duplicates of things because you can't find the ones you have. * You wish you could have guests but don't want anyone to see the mess. * You spend time cleaning, but things don't get as clean as you'd like. * You want your family or roommates to pitch in more with household chores, but they're not on board.  So, now that you have an idea what this book is, let's talk about what it's not. * It is not a jump onto the latest cure-all bandwagon. If any fad could truly solve all housekeeping problems, why would new fads keep appearing? * It is not a tract. Smart housekeeping is not a path to nirvana or salvation, and I won't pretend it is.  * It is not a marketing lure. Sure, you can organize beautifully while going into debt for fashionable matched shelving and organizers at a specialty store. That store probably even has consultants to help you spend your money. So, if that's your preference, you don't need a book! * It is not a remodeling plan. I shudder to see articles prescribing home renovation for organization woes. Don't get me wrong. I spent thirty years myself in the design end of the construction business, and I don't deny that remodeling may eventually be worth the money, stress, and craziness. But it is not a solution for people looking for results in less than a year or so. And construction advice is irrelevant for renters and for people with little extra space. * It is not therapy. Yes, you might avoid some stress if you can find things without searching for hours. But no book on housekeeping will solve big personal problems like a compulsion to shop or hoard. If housekeeping and decluttering were the life changers some books claim, janitors would earn as much as therapists.  * This book is not a substitute for wading in and doing the work. I wish I had some kind of magic formula to just make it happen. I don't. But if you're ready to make the effort, this book should provide some direction. 

From the Inside Flap:

MORE BOOKS BY ANNE L. WATSON SMART HOUSEKEEPING AROUND THE YEAR. In this expansive companion to "Smart Housekeeping," Anne L. Watson presents tips on cleaning, organizing, decluttering, furnishing, maintaining, and managing your home, as you'd face those tasks around the year. Travel with Anne through the calendar as she deals with every aspect of keeping the things around you just the way you want them. BAKING WITH COOKIE MOLDS. In this groundbreaking book, Anne L. Watson restores cookie molds to an honored place in the baker's kitchen by revealing long-lost secrets of their use. With Anne's techniques and recipes, tasty cookies with lovely, detailed designs will literally fall from the mold into your hand.  SMART SOAPMAKING. Whether you've made melt-and-pour soap and want to move on -- or you've made traditional soap with slow, outmoded methods -- or you've never made a bar in your life -- you'll find "Smart Soapmaking" practical, helpful, and refreshing. Written by a former professional soapmaker, this book explodes the myths about soapmaking and shows you how to make luxurious soap from scratch with the least fuss and bother.  LIVING APART TOGETHER. There's one reason marriages and long-term relationships break up that is seldom acknowledged: Many committed couples would get along better if they weren't roommates. In this groundbreaking book, Anne L. Watson draws on personal experience to reveal the benefits of living separately and tells how you might make it work for yourself. SKEETER: A CAT TALE. When a stray kitten romps into Lynne's life, she has no idea what she's getting into. As Lynne describes in letters to her friend Angie, Skeeter is all cat -- high-spirited, contrary, inventive, and so goofy that he reminds Lynne of her own nuttiest escapades. No one who meets Skeeter will ever be quite the same again. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Shepard Publications
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1620355868
• ISBN 13: 9781620355862
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 72