The Simple Home: The Luxury of Enough

I paid over $8 for this book with the description as “Very Good” condition. The paper slip cover was ripped. The book under the slip cover was faded and discolored and the binding is ripped. The front cover of the book is coming off. Not to mention pages are folded inward throughout the book. His book is in poor condition!!

Great book to help you get focused on the necessities of your house. It makes you think what is necessary and what really is not. Do you really need two ovens...etc. After reading or more realistically paging through several other books I found myself jotting down notes made from this book that really hit home. Our lives are fast paced and complicated enough, so it was wonderful to hear the great thoughts of Sarah Nettleton. I recommend this book along with The Farmhouse by Jean Rehkamp Larson and the New Old House by Russell Versaci. Great Job Sarah Nettleton!

Wonderful case studies about 20 homes with good explanations about material choices, site considerations, and the people who own them. It's a Taunton Press book, so the photos are great, of course. I especially like the floor plan illustrations that support the photos and give a sense of flow through the houses.

Sarah Nettleton's THE SIMPLE HOME: THE LUXURY OF ENOUGH defines the concept of a 'simple home' and offers interior design tips to achieving satisfaction from a basic home design. This involves eliminating non-essentials and practicing restraint: six avenues to achieving a 'greener' lifestyle from this approach blends full-page color photos with comments on designs which refine and simplify the home - perfect for new students of interior design and homeowners contemplating reconstruction.

I bought this book because I liked the pictures, but what turned out to be the best thing about it is the philosophy behind it. I've been trying to streamline my life and reduce clutter, but I haven't been able to strip things down as far as I'd like. This book makes bold suggestions about how much we really need to live comfortably while doing as little damage as possible to our surroundings, and suggests specific ways to do it. It made me look at our house in a whole new way. This book is a great model for anyone trying to simplify their living space. It's also imaginative--one house has a ceiling like an overturned boat because the people who live there love the water. I like it so much I bought two more copies for gifts.

To me, the essence of this book is beautifully summarized in the photograph on the back cover. It shows a plain and simple room, tan/biege colored walls, a couple of windows, a painting on one wall and the only furniture is an easy chair, a small table beside it and a stack of books on the table. Like most of you, I suppose, I've lived in a bunch of houses and apartments. I finally decided to move to a small town in Nevada. I bought a tiny house, less than a thousand square feet. It's old, I don't know how old, but at least a hundred years. As Ms. Nettleton says in one of her chapters, Simple is Timeless. It was cheap, $30,000 (plus another $12 for remodelling), As Ms. Nettleton says, Simple is Thrifty. And as she also says, 'Simple is: Enouth, Flexible, Sustainable, Resolved Complexity. As she quotes Albert Einstein (who wasn't talking about houses, but it's a very good quote) 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.' Ms. Nettleton has grasped the essence of living a much simpler life. The homes presented here might not fit your ideal, but the ideas she presents are exactly what I wanted when I moved here from the East Coast. Beautiful book.