Home Decorating Manual: Covers All Rooms, Surfaces, Styles and Techniques - The Dyi Manual for Painting, Wallpapering and Tiling

Melodie Moore

VIM & Vinegar: Moisten Cakes, Eliminate Grease, Remove Stains, Kill Weeds, Clean Pots & Pans, Soften Laundry, Unclog Drains, Control

Vinegar is inexpensive, safe and 100 percent natural, and nearly every household has a bottle tucked away somewhere, but few people ever take advantage of its full potential. Yes, it's great for dying Easter eggs and making salad dressing, but there's so much more it can do. In Vim & Vinegar, Melodie Moore tells all. Here are hundreds of tips to help readers tenderize meats, soup up soups, eradicate odor, firm fish fillets, cut grease, ease arthritis, cure cramps and more. Versatile vinegar also does wonders for flavoring food (plus, it has no fat or calories), and readers will be amazed at the range of tasty recipes, which include such treats as Vinegar Pie, Crazy Cake and Vinegar Hard Candy. For tightwads, environmental activists, health advocates and curious cooks -- in fact, anyone who appreciates good old American ingenuity -- Vim & Vinegar is the perfect book.

Victoria Moran

Shelter for the Spirit: Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World

Even though Americans spend thousands on furniture, appliances and interior decoration, many of our homes have become little more than drop-off zones where we collapse after work, glued to the TV while gulping down a microwave dinner. The home can be so much more than that, says Victoria Moran. It can be a haven in which people can revitalize mind, body and soul. That's what Shelter for the Spirit is all about. Merging Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with a sensitivity to the demands of modern life, it provides people with usable directions for bringing a sense of peace and renewal to their homes. Whether addressing how to get rid of clutter, decorate in a way that respects your personality, clean house as a spiritual exercise or celebrate special days (and ordinary ones too), Shelter for the Spirit shows how the quality of attention we give to everyday acts can transform our lives. The only book of its kind, it helps all readers make their homes places in which they and their guests enjoy spending their moments.

Kevin McCloud

Grand Designs Handbooks: The Blueprint for Building Your Dream Home

TV's architecture and design guru Kevin McCloud shares his passion and expertise in this brilliant guide to designing and building your own home, illustrated with the most memorable houses from the award-winning Channel 4 series.The book goes way beyond the confines of the usual TV tie-in. Over the 11 years that Grand Designs has been on our screens, Kevin has had plenty of opportunity to formulate his own strong views on what makes truly brilliant architecture. For the first time he can share those views fully, showing that 'houses too can be architecture' and giving any aspiring self-builder the maximum number of tools to ensure that their vision becomes reality, with the minimum amount of heartache along the way.Through three main sections - 'Thinking', 'Dreaming' and 'Doing' - he guides you through each stage of the self-build process, from working out what you really want, to finding a plot, obtaining planning permission, commissioning and briefing architects and builders, and implementing the build itself. Structured around fundamental locations - urban, suburban and rural - Kevin presents his own compendium of houses from across the UK which he finds exciting and exemplary. ...