Customer Reviews

Make Your House Do the Housework

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great book, if only to impart the notion of considering maintenance and upkeep when making various design decisions in your home. Even if you don't agree with the Asletts' decisions, the thought process behind them can still be used. Every time I empty the bugs out of the living room light, I remember that I bought it in spite of their advice... :-) ...but that I needed a "low-profile" fan and accepted that tradeoff.

I've given this book as a gift to several new homeowners and recommend it to everyone who runs a home, owned or rented.

I adore this book. In out last house I put cream colored carpet in and was always spending $100 to have them cleaned because everything showed. In our new house I chose a deep grey color and I finally had it cleaned after four years bacuase I realized it must be really dirty. It looked perfect and we never see the dirt. Just one example of making my house do the housework.

I also have taken Aslett's advice and had two couches covered in a beautiful print with a random design which is perfect for disguising dirt. Again, they never show spots.

If you used all the ideas in his book your house would look like an airport lounge, but most of his wisdom is wonderful.

Obviously no book about decorating/renovating is a bible. Everything is not going to be to your taste; everything will not be practical for you. But this book has a lot of sound advice on what materials and items last longest and are the least work to maintain. Our house is only in the planning stages, but this book has already taught us a lot. My parents followed its advice with the remodel of their bathroom and are so pleased at the low-maintenance results that they've requested a copy of their own for Christmas as a guide for doing the rest of the house.

The other book I'd recommend for people in the planning stages of a build or remodel is Ergonomic Living: How to Create a User-friendly Home and Office by Gordon Inkeles (ISBN 002093081X). Aslett shows you how to make things easy-care; Inkeles shows you how to make them comfortable and useful.

I just read this book, and I can't say enough good things about it! I love a clean home, but hate housework, so every time I do housework now I think how much easier it would be, using Don and Laura's guidelines. My husband and I are currently designing a new home and we're implementing dozens of the suggestions outlined in the book... they just all make so much sense! If we were planning on staying in our current home I'd insist on changing many of its features to be lower maintenance. I can't wait for the day in our new home when I think, gee, housework is almost fun now!

This book outlines pros & cons of different building materials. It also details strategies for keeping a house clean (or at least looking that way). The keys are "low maintains". What do you look for to provide low maintainence households in both materials & arrangement of items. I am changing my house based on the information in this book.

I wish the concept of low maintainance living was a genre onto itself. But so far this and "Ergonomic Living" seem to be the only books that embrace this practical concept. I think most people wouldn't use all the ideas Anslett suggests (like suspended furniture, toilets, etc), but this book makes you keep maintainance in mind before you make any design purchase. Now when I see people who choose to have white floors or furniture or tons of "accessories", I am not impressed with the beauty, I'm thinking of what a hassle it must be to keep it that pristine. I think the part of the book that most sticks out in my mind is a cartoon he puts in the introduction. It shows two neighbors, one with a fancy Victorian house and landscaping. The other with a spare and simple house. The owners of the fancy house are spending their day painting, pruning, fixing and cleaning. Whereas the owners of the simple house are spending family time together playing. That is the reason I bought this book. I enjoy a clean house, but I don't want to sacrifice time with my family to keep it looking impressive for others. I highly recommend this book, but wish it was updated for all the newest innovations that have recently come out.

Ought to be required reading for anyone building or remodeling their home. I used the guidelines for building our 5000 sq. ft home in Southern California; infact, I made my architect read it too. We have eight children, and our home gets just as dirty as anyone else's but it doesn't show thanks to Aslett's good sense recommendations.

I purchased this book expecting it to contain tips for ways to decorate your home in order to significantly reduce your house cleaning work load. However, this book is really more of a "how to BUILD a home to reduce housework" kind of book. At the very least one would need to significantly remodel in order to put many of the ideas within into practice.

I was disappointed.

I wound up taking 11 pages of notes from this book! We are currently in the process of building our home and I found the ideas in the book to be exceptional. No, I didn't agree with every single one of them but a good 90% worked for our family. I don't know of any other book that addresses every single area of the home and its many uses. Our new home will be much more functional thanks to this book. I highly recommend it and have already loaned mine to an interested friend. You can use this for existing homes as well. The ideas are timeless.

This book takes the unique--and brilliant--approach of providing the reader with information on the housekeeping and maintenance advantages and pitfalls of various types of building materials, household surfaces, decorative options, and furnishing styles. This enables the reader to make informed decisions and to know *in advance* what maintenance and housekeeping headaches may lurk behind specific choices. I live in a rented apartment, yet found this book incredibly helpful.

The author does *not* suggest creating an "ulgy", uncomfortable, "sterile", or undesirably futuristic house. Like white carpets, ornate furniture, and lots of decorative figurines? Fine; this book will let you know what you're in for chore-wise. Want delicate and fragile household surfaces? Okay; and this book will tell you what you're in for in terms of maintenance.

Only four stars because this book needs an update (the author does offer updated information to readers who contact him). Though some of the product information is dated, the *concepts* are timeless.