Canada: a country where, in winter, half the population curls (or skis, or snowboards) and the other half curls up for a good read, justifying the sofa time under the mohair blankie with the thought God forbid this should be fun. It's project-planning. Your story too? Well, isn't it reassuring to know that enough books exist to keep you warmly occupied until Christmas when, assuming you've been careful about cocoa stains and toast crumbs, you can wrap them up for your friends.
Redecorating is step two; step one is clearing your rooms of clutter. Feeling overwhelmed by stuff is such a common condition that entire TV series are devoted to helping you get sorted. From a U.K. show comes The Life Laundry: How to De-Junk Your Life, by Dawna Walter and Mark Franks (BBC Worldwide Americas Inc., $22.95). Its mantra? "Use it or lose it." Walter and Franks are tough cookies; fill-in-the-blanks surveys, checklists, truths that you can't fault (such as why hang on to blankets if you own a duvet? "Bin these relics") make this the most convincing self-help book yet.
Sorry, no glamorous interiors, but a guarantee you'll find House About It: Dream/Design/Dwell by Sheri Koones (Gibbs Smith, $34.95) curiously intriguing. Where most volumes with house in the title concentrate on appearances, Koones's is more concerned with the innards. Aiming her words at would-be builders and renovators, she packs in copious amounts of practical information: the pros and cons of various flooring options, what lighting works best, technical terms so that rather than asking Home Depot staff for "those thingies round the door" you can speak knowledgeably of corner blocks and cross headers--there's even a workbook so you can really get going, at least with a pencil.
But enough hard labour. Open the Merlot and let's start dreaming. A Denman Island weekend place may exceed your budget, but you can still live the fantasy by transforming your little urban pad into a cottage. The question is, Which kind? English or French? Acadian or farmhouse? Abundant fuel for decisions lies in Canadian Country Style (McArthur & Company, $29.95), an offshoot of shelter mag Canadian Home & Country that showcases nine approaches to cottage life, from the "relaxed leather sofas and plump club chairs" of the western style to the "tables the colour of faded driftwood" typical of seaside chic. Succinct text leaves space for large photos you can scan for ideas to borrow or colours to match at the paint store.
Tuscan-yellow, perhaps. Imagine owning Frances Mayes's Bramasole, the gorgeous Italian villa her books have raised to stardom. Failing that, Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy (Broadway Books, $42) lets you step inside her life, from meeting the locals to growing herbs in her sun-baked garden to assembling a platter of antipasto della casa. The title pretty much says it all. Steven Rothfeld's sensual shots of drowsy landscapes, weathered stone, opulent candlelit dinners, and extreme closeups of Parmigiana don't hurt either, and Mayes's piccola guida to shopping for Florentine ceramics, textiles, and papers is enough to have you calling the travel agent.
Up there with sofa-reclining for shameless indulgence is a lengthy read in the tub, justifiable when you tell yourself this is fieldwork as you leaf through the Zenlike interiors in Contemporary Asian Bathrooms (Periplus Editions, $39.95) by Chami Jotisalikorn and Karina Zabihi, with photos by Luca Invernizzi Tettoni. Maybe you should think about installing a solid-brass tub; perhaps "muslin drapes gently wafting in the soft tropical breeze" would make a difference; could be that a bamboo ladder propped against the wall would make an admirable towel rack... Let the reveries begin.
Towelled dry and again horizontal, you're struck by déjà vu as you open the cover of Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home (Gibbs Smith, $70). Relax. If some of those houses look familiar, you could be right. Linda Svendsen's lavish visual roundup includes homes in Vancouver and Victoria as well as the States. In this benchmark volume, Jane Powell walks you through the bungalow's origins and typical exteriors before taking you inside, room by room. If you've ever wondered how to marry modern convenience with an arts-and-crafts kitchen, or create a bathroom in character, here are solutions. Bonus points for Powell's refreshingly opinionated text. Not many coffee-table books contain lines like "Ninety-nine percent of contemporary architecture sucks."
Just as subversive (on TV, anyway) is the broadly grinning, cheerfully sexy Charlie Dimmock, the Nigella Lawson of the herbaceous border, who, along with colleagues Alan Titchmarsh and Tommy Walsh, anchors the U.K. series Ground Force. Individually authored paperback spinoffs (BBC, $24.95 each) span a Weekend Workbook, Practical Garden Projects, and a Water Garden Workbook with a handy primer on Container Gardening for suite dwellers. Instructions are dead simple, and right down to earth. But gardening is months ahead. All you can do right now is read about all the labour involved. So do. Research, remember?
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