Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home

`Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook' might be entitled `A Guide to Living Well'. It is authored by the magazine staff of Martha Stewart Omnimedia Incorporated, and edited by Stewart herself, is the second major book, to come from Miss Martha and Company since she got out of the slammer, the first being her excellent `Baking Handbook'.While much material in the book is probably reprinted from the magazine, the book is a far superior repository than 15 years worth of `Martha Stewart Living', since, like her cookbooks, it collects and organizes all the material in a far more useable form.The first thing I noticed about the book is that it deals with more than simple cleaning and even more than keeping organized. The book is literally a guideline for the design of the most important rooms in the house in order that keeping them clean and organized is a manageable task. Its no surprise that Martha's first subject is the kitchen, as that is the venue for much of her magazine's other concerns. As an example of material for home design, the kitchen chapter includes sidebars on all the different kitchen counter materials with their pros, cons, cleaning, and repair instructions. A similar section follows this on the materials and designs of kitchen sinks, sink fixtures, and major kitchen appliances.As you browse through the book, one gets the feeling that simply no subject has been overlooked. One may wonder whether any one person would use as much as 1/10 of the material in the book. But, as someone who considers a book valuable if it has but one important idea, Martha's book far exceeds my needs for a book to be valuable. My favorite item is the instruction on how to fold a fitted sheet. I have seen Martha do it on TV at least three times, and I simply can never remember how it's done when I actually get one in hand. Her authority on most matters is also reassuring. When Martha tells me to clean my dryer lint trap after every load, and gives good reasons, I'm ready to fall in line.All this means that this is a perfect reference book. One problem with having the book is to take some simple task for granted and proceed on your own without consulting the book. An example is the task of scrubbing surfaces, which is a much differen than simply wiping clean of loose dirt. My instincts when I'm about to clean a difficult surface is to simply go to the store and look for the strongest cleaner I can find which seems remotely applicable to the surface. Martha advises exactly the opposite, and recommends a cautious approach, starting with the mildest cleaners. She even points out that before beginning, one must take into consideration that the surface you are about to attack may not even be suitable to standing up to a lot of water, which is a typical aspect of `scrubbing'.I'm still finding things I needed (at least once in my life) but didn't now until now. I've gone through life seeing only twin, standard, queen, and king sized beds, and felt at a loss when I had to find a mattress smaller than twin. It turns out that there are actually nine (9) `U.S. Standard Sizes' for bed linens, with at least two smaller than the standard twin. Another major surprise was the amount of space in the book dedicated to cleaning, organizing, and maintaining outdoor spaces. While much of this tends to border on the subject of landscaping, it all fits into the overall scheme of the book and it's objective to cover simply everything.Since Ms. Martha is known to have several dogs and cats, it was not surprising to find much on the care and comfort of both species, although there is nothing I could find regarding either pet fish, pet birds, aquariums or birdcages. This may be the sole oversight. I was delighted to find even instructions on how to correctly store vinyl records, with the surprising instruction to remove the plastic outer wrapping. I have been saving this plastic on my vinyl dating back to records acquired almost 40 years ago. I could find nothing under `allergens'; however there was much under the very similar topic of `biological pollutants'.The most useful advice is the guidelines for when to do weekly, monthly, seasonal, and yearly tasks. On the other hand, these schedules also appear to be the impractical for the average working adult living alone or with only a working spouse. Those who are retired or who have one or more able adolescents in the house will probably be able to handle much of these things. The first advice in the book is `Six things to do every day!'. Since I'm retired, I have ample time to do all these things; except that I am in love with `living in the moment', and having imposed on me the tasks of making a bed, tidying up every time I leave a room, and sweeping the kitchen floor every day may seem to be a bit much. But then, the trick is to make these part of your routine, so that they become second nature, a matter of habit, and no longer a distraction. Still, there are items on these lists that may be excessively fussy for many people. One example is the advice to dust the top of books on a weekly basis. Now I suspect Miss Martha may do that in some of her rooms, but if, like me, she has a library of over 1000 volumes, she does NOT dust the tops of all THOSE books. In fact, I do virtually none of the weekly tasks more often than once every two weeks, and feel none the grimier for that fact.Martha shares with Julia Child the fact that it is her books and not her TV presence which is her greatest work.

Ahh, Martha. I have no idea why people seem to love to hate her. I find her books and TV shows and magazines to be a real joy and I learn tons from them. I guess when you are a super successful woman, you end up with a target on your back.I ordered this book in frustration one day. I'm single and my house is 75 years old and you'd think that both living and working at home (I'm a writer), my house wouldn't be that tough to keep neat and organized and functional. Hah. Think again. I struggle with almost epic levels of clutter most of the time and stupid things like not being able to find the right kitchen tools when I want them becomes a daily frustration. Plus, there are all of these silly things that just drive me nuts--like keeping a hardwood floor clean (and getting rid of scratches) or just how to store cleaning supplies so you can actually *find* them (what a concept).This book is huge, around 750 pages, I think, and it's very well organized. Each section is devoted to a particular room and them delves into that room's contents, everything from furniture to accessories to windows, etc. I won't say that this book is as informal or as cozy as some of Martha's book are, there is a kind of cold tone to some of the writing, but let's face it, when you are putting together 750 pages of information and ideas, there's not a lot of room for chit chat. But there is a ton and a half (almost literally, lol) of info.This is a great book gift idea for a child in their first apartment or as a house-warming gift (give it to them in a bucket with cleaning supplies--they'll bless your name forever). I keep my copy on the hearth, next to where I watch TV and when commercials come on or TV starts to bore me, I just flip through the book.By the way, for many years I dated a woman that lived on the same street as Martha in Westport and I never heard a single neighbor say an unkind thing about her--and that house (now sold) always looked just as perfect in photos as it did on TV, etc. A lot of people don't realize this woman rose to wealth and fame from very average suburban NJ circumstances and she built this empire on her own. I think she's a wonderful role model for men and women. And this book is a gem.

Great book, good price. Excellent content that’s easy to prepare.

Very good book! Very good condition!

Had no problem with delivery. The box was in tact, however. The ziplock bag that the book came in to protect even further had split open on the side. It looks as though liquid soap (I did not order liquid soap) had leaked into the bag, covering the entire book. THIS HAD TO HAVE LEAKED INTO THE ZIPLOCK BEFORE BEING PUT IN THE BOX AND IT WAS SHIPPED ANYWAY. Thank goodness the soap only made contact with a few paper pages. The paper is of good quality so it was able to take me washing it off.Martha Stewart takes great care in producing high quality books. No other book could have with stood these elements. Would have given five stars if not for this. The book now smells pretty good though! Keeping the book despite an inadequate quality check.

This is a great book that tells everything need need about caring for your home. Perhaps the only downside is that it is very thick (700+) pages, and thus not something you just carry around with you. Otherwise it exceeded my expectations. Every page has good, helpful content that is still relevant after 20 years. The content is broken into bitesize articles, so you don't feel like you are reading a huge book. It comes with cleaning checklists and even a moving checklist.

Martha Stewart' Homekeeping Handbook, 752 pages, 7.6" x 1.95" x 9.4". This author has written lots of informative books. This book is well written, educational and easy to understand. I'm sure you will learn new ways of doing things if you read this book. I loved reading this book. She is always showing or telling you how to do things better.