Debbie Wiener's Blog

A publicist sent me a copy of the new book, Slob Proof! Real-Life Design Solutions by Debbie Wiener. The book is geared towards women who have real households: kids, dogs, messes, dirt.

Debbie has some of the best tips in this book you’ll ever find: what paint to use (it’s an industrial strength paint available at Sherwin Williams), what to tell the store when you buy a new couch, where you should never use full-length curtains, and more. Plus she includes pallettes of her favorite paint colors so you can take the book straight to the paint store and order away.

It’s a  design book, true, but for me, it’s a book about making choices that will save time, money and aggravation later. It just hit the market, and you can ask your library to order a copy. Libraries are very responsive to our requests and will often let you be the first person to check it out.

Here are a few gems I picked up:

1. Use outdoor fabric like Sunbrella for kitchen chairs and benches. It’s stain proof and rugged. And it beats covering your chairs with plastic seat covers.

2. You can touch up nicked and chipped white wood trimming with liquid white-out.

3. Never use a neutral color for flooring: it will show smudges, dirt and stains. One  homeowner coordinated colors with her dog’s fur, so shedding hairs wouldn’t be as noticeable.

4. Think of the most frequent spills and stains in your house, and coordinate colors to provide camoflauge for them. (This one cracked me up but makes sense. I spill coffee on the stairs, so I should be looking for a stair runner with a dark brown pattern. My dogs insist on removing food from their bowls and carrying it to the den for consumption, so I just get a family rug with reds and browns.)

It’s a great book that makes keeping house an easier job. It has nothing to do with history, women’s issues, or spirituality, but then….cleanliness is next to godliness, right?