Book recommendation: "Home Cheap Home" / Cost: $

So I originally wanted to call this blog My Home Cheap Home... and the name was available too. Turns out though that I accidentally borrowed the title from a book I had read just last month (yeah, I've got a short memory for those things I guess). I realized my mess up in time, the blog name changed, but the book is still excellent.

Home Cheap Home gathers tons of reasonable tips, suggestions, and projects for making your home stylish without having to go broke in the process. They're also projects and suggestions that almost anyone with some semblance of hand-eye coordination and ability to follow instructions should be able to pull off, so don't worry about needing to have big-time art skills to find the tips useful. The book goes for many smaller suggestions rather than just a few big projects, which I like because it means that no matter what your style is there'll be something in here that'll make reading the book worth your time.

I should note, though, that the authors of this book had a wide price range in mind when they decided to define what "cheap" meant to them. There are some suggestions for pieces to purchase that definitely wouldn't initially strike me as affordable. However, most of the pricey items are things intended to stay in your home for the long-term. It's not too terrible to think about spending, say, $600 on a table if the table is going to be with you for the rest of your days (and normally sells for way more than that to boot). I'm a big believer in spending more up front to spend less in the long run, so I'm letting Home Cheap Home slide on this a bit.

The book was put together by the editors of Budget Living Magazine, which was my favourite magazine back in the early 2000's. And, naturally, because I loved it with all my heart it of course went under. If you can find old copies of the magazine they've got great suggestions for making the best of a minimal budget (several of the features in this book are directly lifted from the magazine word for word).

The magazine is out of print... and guess what? So is this book (such is my fate). I borrowed my copy from the library. Want to take a peek through it? Check and see if your library has it (look, if my suburban library did there's a decent chance yours might too). Want your own copy (I know I do!)? Barring haunting your local flea markets and garage sales, try your country's version of Amazon. I found used copies, all under $10, on both the Canadian and American versions. Ebay has it too sometimes. Needless to say, it's not too hard to work around the out-of-print-ness.