Here's the cover of my new book, due out in February.
Writing a book is like dancing with an octopus underwater. I know because I’ve just finished my second. “HOUSE of HAVOC: How to Make – and Keep – a Beautiful Home Despite Cheap Spouses, Messy Kids and Other Difficult Roommates” (DaCapo Press) is off to my editor, and due to appear at a bookstore near you in February. All I can say is: Whew! Here’s a excerpt from the intro. Let me know if it speaks to you:
One evening, while reading a slick magazine about the good life, I felt irritation rise like hot lava. As I turned pages featuring articles on making your own scented candles, drying herbs for your fall tea, alphabetizing your favorite recipes and crafting a journal out of sea grass, I thought, not for the first time, about how wide the gap is between the picture-perfect home portrayed in the media and my home.
I thought about my tornado of a day. I’d dealt with a broken washing machine, maneuvered around school projects that had claimed the kitchen table, extracted a ketchup stain from the carpet, and stopped a pillow fight the dogs were having on the living room sofa, in between working, doing laundry, paying bills, and feeding this tribe I call a family.
No wonder I felt annoyed. Here I can barely get the kids out the door on time with clean clothes and I suddenly felt like a slacker because I didn’t put origami napkins in their lunch sacks.
However, I also recognized that my cynicism was cover for something else, for what I really wanted from my home and felt missing. Despite my mocking, I did want a more gracious lifestyle, more order in my home and a more beautifully decorated haven for my family – but how? How when I live with a thrifty spouse, careless kids and run-amuck pets in a time-crunched world where meeting the basic demands of work, home and family matters commandeer all my attention?
How when I live at home with Them!?
That’s the question I began exploring. As I delved into that murky underworld that separates home life from home design, I sought small, affordable, realistic ways to make big improvements at home. I read a lot of organizing and design books, then interviewed lifestyle and interior design experts peppering them with my selfishly motivated, burning questions.
The result is this girlfriend’s guide to mastering the art of living more beautifully with others. It’s a handbook for those who want to take their house back, and create calm out of chaos, heaven from havoc, and beauty on a budget, while feeling better about the fact that their home isn’t perfect.
You won’t find any gee-whizzy, this-woman-needs-to-get-a-life kind of advice. (Like you, I have plenty of life.) I’ve included what worked for me, and have left out any advice that made me want to scream. I won’t tell you how to make an origami napkin, but I will share how to buy perfect towels the first time. I won’t frustrate you with over-the-top, pricey decorating ideas, but will teach you how to make dreamy drapes with a glue gun for cheap. So you can fix up your home yourself with the confidence of a pro.
You also won’t find any advice that doesn’t pass the Them! test. If the advice won’t fly in a havoc-filled home, it’s not here. That’s because at my house, good relationships trump good design. Whether I’m grappling with gender wars, kids’ rooms, school projects, daily clutter, money crunches, unpredictable pets, or decorating on a shoestring budget – and I do all that – my goal is to live better and more beautifully with Them!
