Eckel Smith

Easier Living

Thanks to Pam Hughes and Andy Ishee for the introduction to:

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Time is a valued commodity in our modern world, and everyone struggles to make the most of each minute. Russel and Mary Wright recognized decades ago that finding time to organize their lives and homes would become a priority for modern men and women. In their groundbreaking book, Guide to Easier Living, the Wrights offered simple ways to achieve a comfortable, well-designed, and organized living environment in any home for any family.

Originally published in 1950, Gibbs Smith is proud to rerelease Guide to Easier Living, and to reintroduce the Wrights' time-tested and proven methods for maintaining an inviting and efficient home. From ways to make household chores as fast and painless as possible, to how to organize a room for maximum living space, the Wrights pioneered a new informal way of living for a newly suburban American public. The Wrights' ideas revolutionized American living and the way everyday people dealt with the unending job of keeping a home in order. These methods and ideas are just as relevant-if not more so-today as they were a half-century ago.

Inside Jacket

Whether you live in a city or in the country, whether you have modern or traditional furnishings, you probably work much too hard at the job of keeping your home in order. In Guide to Easier Living (1950), Russel and Mary Wright solve this problem by encouraging people to discard rigid, old-fashioned patterns and create a new informal standard. The Wrights' truly revolutionary contribution to American living is still applicable today as it was when the book was first published. With the intention of making good American design available to everyone, the authors offer timeless advice, such as how to plan the arrangement of rooms to serve their purposes most efficiently, how to choose the most practical furniture and lighting for your specific needs, and much more information geared toward "increasing the enjoyment and satisfaction of life in your home." Should not the reader expect, then, that by following this well-charted course and applying the principles to one's own home, one can create a comfortable, well-designed, and organized living space? Try these ideas and see for yourself.

About the Author

Russel and Mary Wright were prominent and successful designers who pioneered the fusion of modern design and informal living. Most importantly, they were known for their tabletop designs. The Wrights' most famous tabletop design, American Modern, was the best-selling dinnerware in American history and has just been rereleased by Oneida Ltd.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Be it ever so humble, the words of the song tell us, there's no place like home. But the American home today, it must be admitted, is far from living up to that comforting lyric.

Do our homes really express the ideal's of democracy and individualism we all profess? Do they provide a place where we can relax together, where a spirit of family living can thrive? Are they efficient, capable of being kept in order without an unduly heavy expenditure of time and energy?

The answer to any such questions, in all too many cases, must be a sorrowful No.

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