Fa l l 20 0 8 FLANAGAN’S
SMART HOME THE 101 ESSENTIALS FOR STARTING OUT, STARTING OVER, SCALING BACK K Barbara Flanagan
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home filled with the right stuff—that’s the vision behind this item-by-item -item guide to the 101 household essentials for everyone who is starting out,, or starting over, or scaling back. Barbara Flanagan, a writer and designer who o trained as an architect at Yale, lives by a clutter-free “bare necessities” principle nciple in a very small house of her own design. She tells us why we only need 13 things in a bedroom for comfortable sleeping, and then discusses them onee by one. Here is the best mattress (no springs), and why; the best sheets (linen), ), and why; the best blanket (electric), and why. She field-tests each product, talks with the people who’ve made it, advertised it, sold it, and used it, takes intoo account its costs and environmental and social factors, and always weighs its aesthetic appeal. Covering sleeping, bathing, dressing, cooking, dining, entertaining, cleaning, fixing, and the home office, FLANAGAN’S SMART HOME tells us how we should live today: simply, smartly, responsibly, yet stylishly. It is a practical, entertaining, at times outspoken book that is greater than the sum of its parts. Because while its subject is bath mats and cooking spoons, sofas, lamps, and dining chairs, it tackles an age-old question—how to live.
The 101 essential items needed to outfit a home
For everyone who is starting out, starting over, or scaling back—newlyweds, recent graduates, downsizing boomers, divorcées
How to live more simply, more smartly, more stylishly, and at the same time leave a smaller carbon footprint
By a well-known New York Times style writer
15-city author tour
National radio satellite tour
Barbara Flanagan is a writer and designer trained as an architect at Yale. She is the author of The Houseboat Book (Rizzoli) and has written extensively for The New York Times, as well as The New York Times Magazine, Elle Décor, Metropolis, and I.D., where she is a contributing editor. She has designed products for the MoMA Design Stores, and also designed her own tiny, hightech house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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FLANAGAN’S SMART HOME 240 pages; 5" x 8" Paper: $11.95/$13.95 Can. ISBN-13: 978-0-7611-4460-1 No. 14460 UPC 0-19628-14460-7
Ships: September