Your Naturally Healthy Home: Stylish, Safe, Simple

Rating:
Summary: For Those Concerned with Health
Review: This book is an excellent. It is both a guide to bulding home, and at the same time a guide to the toxins in our home furnishing and ways to minimize our exposure. More and more people are concerned about the chemicals impregnated in the fabrics, woods, paints, and plastics we buy. For instance, many new carpets give off toxic fumes for the first month of installation. After reading that, I realized why I had a chronic sore throat right after we insalled our new carpet.

It gives alternative materials to look for when buying bedding, shelving, wood stains, and other products. It talks about electric fields and why we should not put our bed on a wall with a power-box on the other side. It also lists which plants are best to purify the air.

This is a must-have for people who are going to build their own home, and very helpful for people who are refurnishing their home or apartment. Many suggestions do seem centered on elaborate renovations, but even within those suggestions there is information about things such as wall-paints, furnature, and house-hold ventilation. Some of the ideas, like unbleached organic cotten towels are certianly more expensive than regular store-bought towels, but it is a trade off that you can make after reading the book and reviewing your budget.

Rating:
Summary: No suggestions for traditional-looking interiors
Review: This is great if you're not worried about reselling your home or if you're in a market that supports a lot of the kind of things they show in this book, but it's short on practical suggestions for folks who want to incorporate healthy ideas into a regular-looking house.