One of the great pleasures of staying in a hotel is spending time in a spotless, neat, and organized space that you don’t have to clean. That doesn’t, however, mean the work disappears—when we’re not looking, someone else is doing it. With Housekeeping by Design, David Brody introduces us to those people—the housekeepers whose labor keeps the rooms clean and the guests happy. Through unprecedented access to staff at several hotels, Brody shows us just how much work goes on behind the scenes—and how much management goes out of its way to make sure that labor stays hidden. We see the incredible amount of hard physical work that is involved in cleaning and preparing a room, how spaces, furniture, and other objects are designed to facilitate a smooth flow of hidden labor, and, crucially, how that design could be improved for workers and management alike if front-line staff were involved in the design process. After reading this fascinating exposé of the ways hotels work—or don’t for housekeepers—one thing is certain: checking in will never be the same again.

A mattress, box spring, and duvet for a king-size hotel bed weighs in at 225 pounds. Imagine trying to wrestle with changing the sheets and getting the hospital corners just right; it is easy to see why hotel housekeepers experience back and shoulder injuries at increasing rates. David Brody got behind the scenes at the Chicago Hyatt Regency and the Starwood hotels in Hawaii, bypassing management and corporate press releases to interview the housekeeping staff directly. Given Brody s expertise in architecture and design, his mission here is to help us understand service design in hotels in order to situate the needs of hotel customers, housekeepers, and hotel management one relative to the other. What unfolds as a new perspective on hotels is designin terms of spaces, products, maintenance, and workflow systems. We get vivid examples of how a hotel room s design encapsulates a highly orchestrated, hidden process of management and labor, where work is invisible and surface appearances are paramount to the guest s sense of domestic comfort. ( Turndown service is one exampleroom light dimmed, drapes drawn, music on classical, turndown mat on floor, slippers in place, mint on pillow, etc.) Brody opts strongly for what he calls co-design, which means collaboration between workers and management on improving hotel design, and he is unabashedly partisan in taking sides with hotel workers and their unions. He also advocates for sustainability and green politics."

Housekeeping Operations, Design And Management is a comprehensive textbook, which aims to cover all relevant theoretical and practical aspects of housekeeping with special reference to hotels. The book is divided into three sections operations, design and management. The first part covers the theoretical foundation and techniques of operation of housekeeping and gives the basic knowledge of practical housekeeping. The second part of the book covers the design aspects in housekeeping, which includes interior decoration, floral design, uniform design and textiles. The third section of the book highlights the managerial aspects of housekeeping, which includes contract services, human resource management, budgets and also the latest trends in the accommodation department of hotels. The book also highlights the relation between interior decoration and housekeeping. It is specially designed for students pursuing a degree or diploma in Hotel Management/Home Science, and also for housekeepers working in the industy. The photographs, charts, diagrams and tables are useful in coverage of the concepts of housekeeping. The book is also helpful for entrepreneurs who want to start their own housekeeping concern.

A classic bestselling resource for every household, Home Comforts helps you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home. “Home Comforts is to the house what Joy of Cooking is to food.” —USA TODAY Home Comforts is an engaging and comprehensive book about housekeeping. It is a lively and readable guide for both beginners and experts in all the domestic arts. From keeping surfaces free of germs, watering plants, removing stains, folding a fitted sheet, cleaning china, tuning a piano, lighting a fire, setting the dining room table—this guide covers everything that people might want to do for themselves in their homes. Further topics include: making up a bed with hospital corners, expert recommendations for safe food storage, reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, this is a practical, good-humored, philosophical guidebook to the art and science of household management.

"The story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience."--

Whether your home is small or large, an apartment in the city or a country cottage, it is a space that should be at once beautiful and livable. The key to that is managing the upkeep without feeling flustered. Until now, there has never been a comprehensive resource that not only tells how to care for your home and everything in it, but that also simplifies the process by explaining just when. With secrets from Martha Stewart for accomplishing the most challenging homekeeping tasks with ease, this detailed and comprehensive book is the only one you will need to help you keep your home looking its best, floor to ceiling, room by room. In Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook, Martha shares her unparalleled expertise in home maintenance and care. Readable and practical–and graced with charts, sidebars, illustrated techniques, and personal anecdotes from Martha’s decades of experience caring for her homes– this is far more than just a compendium of ways to keep your house clean. It covers everything from properly executing a living room floor plan to setting a formal table; from choosing HEPA filters to sealing soapstone countertops; from organizing your home office to polishing your silver and caring for family heirlooms. Martha Stewart’ s Homekeeping Handbook is organized for clarity and maximum practicality: Room by Room covers the upkeep of the appliances, tools, furnishings, and surfaces found in each room, from the entryway to the kitchen, from the attic to the laundry room. Throughout the House instructs the reader on the proper ways to routinely clean and periodically maintain everything in the home, including dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, polishing, scrubbing, waxing and much more. Comfort and Safety focuses on techniques to ensure your home is running properly and safely, such as recognizing when to clean vents, fixing a leaky faucet, and eradicating pests. A-to-Z Materials Guide provides an invaluable resource that explains the unusual materials that many favorite objects are made of–from abalone to zinc–and how to care for them so they last. Encyclopedic yet friendly, Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook is a seminal work–a must-have for everyone who wants a well-cared-for home that will endure for generations.

Clean, elegant lines, delicate color schemes, well-proportioned, light-filled spaces, and natural materi-als--the hallmarks of Scandinavian design are unmistak-able. As the trend in residential design continues to move toward pared-down, comfortably elegant, environmentally friendly homes, the Scandinavian aesthetic has become a global influence in interior design. Lars Bolander, one of Sweden's foremost interior designers, has been creating the Scandinavian look in homes all over the world for decades. In this impressively illustrated volume, he and author Heather Smith MacIsaac, a former editor of House & Garden magazine, share their expert knowledge of the very best in Scandinavian design, past and present, offer-ing guidance on how to achieve the Scandinavian look, incorporate the trademark elements into any decor, and mix and match traditional and modern, humble and grand. Praise for Lars Bolander's Scandinavian Design: "A private, exclusive tour of the best of Scandinavian design. . . . This book is a new treasure for my design library, one I will refer to over and over." Bunny Williams "A sophisticated volume . . . an in-depth, intelligent, and informative look at the design sensibilities found in Scandinavian domestic furniture and decoration. . . . Lars Bolander surveys all of this with his keen . . . eye and finely honed historical knowledge, and the results are breathtaking." Martha Stewart "From his captivating shops in New York and Palm Beach, Lars Bolander has won an army of converts to his seductive vision of Scandinavian design, antique and modern, rustic and urbane. In this book, he brings that world of style vividly to life with images of some of the most magical and inspiring environments to be found there, from the light-dappled elegance of Gustavian interiors to the inventive purity of the very best in contemporary architecture." Hamish Bowles "Lars Bolander's handsome and intelligent book tells the story of Scandinavian design and its influence--in the past, in the present, and leading into the twenty-first century. A product of a northern world separated to a great extent from Europe, Scandinavian design looked to the styles of the French court in the eighteenth century, but developed its own style with an adaptive simplicity that has given it a place unto itself in the history of design, as beautifully visualized on the pages of this book." David Easton "Lars has the magic formula for combining the sophisticated Gustavian style with the rustic charm of the Scandinavian countryside. Just perfect " Juan Pablo Molyneux "He creates both classic and new looks, as well as bringing the traditional pieces into the 20th century (which I love) " MadebyGirl "Lars Bolander is the go-to person for Scandinavian decor in America." Veranda "It's total design porn at its finest." Everything LEB "Gorgeous." Annechovie "A visual delight." Swedish Interiors by Eleish van Breems "A lovely read and must-have reference and inspiration guide for any design library." Hampton Hostess "One you'll want to add to your library." From the Right Bank "Wonderful." Rita Konig (interview with A Lovely Being)