Customer Reviews

The Healing House: How Living in the Right House Can Heal You Spiritually, Emotionally, and Physically

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The Healing House provides an excellent overview of how the places where we live can affect the way we live. I would recommend this book to anyone who is considering buying or designing a new home. The most important section of the book contains the "Healing House Design Principles" which explain both what features to look for in a new home and why they are important. Harwood talks about home building from hands-on experience as a builder, yet she has the gift of being able to explain important building concepts in terms that are easy to understand. For people who are more technically minded, there is a technical appendix in the back of the book. Barbara Harwood not only knows what she is talking about, but she strongly believes in what she is saying. Her knowledge, warmth and enthusiasm are likely to change the way many people think about houses.

I had hoped that the book would have helped with specific issues of 'design', as to how to 'create' or 'recreate' a home into one that could heal. While the author writes well, her background in feature articles was evident -- the book lacked continuity. While the introduction held great promise, I had to read well past page 100 to find the sort of 'detail' I was looking for (many pages covered healthy/healing environments which were not specific to a home, as the title would imply). While Barbara covered a number of 'needed' topics, her coverage was not as in-depth as I would have preferred. I often found myself 'scanning' for the meat only to end up in the next chapter.

While appropriate for someone who wants only to 'dabble' in the various topics, her high-level treatment might be appropriate. I was looking for more substance.

... and this book may help you find both. Full of practical knowledge and advice, it looks at the quest for a dream house from a much needed holistic viewpoint. I met the author in the process of doing a television news story about one of her unique projects and got to see firsthand how the principles of energy efficiency outlined in her book really do work. Ultimately, this approach can not only save precious natural resources and save you money, it can also help you find or design a home that is a refuge from stress not a cause of it.