Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World

Spending money is the last thing anyone wants to do right now. We are in the midst of a massive cultural shift away from consumerism and toward a vibrant and very active countermovement that has been thriving on the outskirts for quite some time—do-it-yourselfers who make frugal, homemade living hip are challenging the notion that true wealth has anything to do with money. In Making It, Coyne and Knutzen, who are at the forefront of this movement, provide readers with all the tools they need for this radical shift in home economics.

The projects range from simple to ambitious and include activities done in the home, in the garden,

and out in the streets. With step-by-step instructions for a wide range of projects—from growing food in an apartment and building a ninety-nine-cent solar oven to creating safe, effective laundry soap for pennies a gallon and fishing in urban waterways—Making It will be the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive, and eminently doable. Within hours of buying this book, readers will be able to start transitioning into a creative, sustainable mode of living that is not just a temporary fad but a cultural revolution.

Spending money is the last thing anyone wants to do right now. We are in the midst of a massive cultural shift away from consumerism and toward a vibrant and very active countermovement that has been thriving on the outskirts for quite some time—do-it-yourselfers who make frugal, homemade living hip are challenging the notion that true wealth has anything to do with money. In Making It, Coyne and Knutzen, who are at the forefront of this movement, provide readers with all the tools they need for this radical shift in home economics.

The projects range from simple to ambitious and include activities done in the home, in the garden,
and out in the streets. With step-by-step instructions for a wide range of projects—from growing food in an apartment and building a ninety-nine-cent solar oven to creating safe, effective laundry soap for pennies a gallon and fishing in urban waterways—Making It will be the go-to source for post-consumer living activities that are fun, inexpensive, and eminently doable. Within hours of buying this book, readers will be able to start transitioning into a creative, sustainable mode of living that is not just a temporary fad but a cultural revolution.

KELLY COYNE and ERIK KNUTZEN grow food, keep chickens, brew, bike, bake, and plot revolution from their 1/12-acre farm in the heart of Los Angeles. They are the keepers of the popular DIY blog, Homegrown Evolution, and the authors of The Urban Homestead, which the New York Times describes as “home economics as our greatgrandparents knew it…the contemporary bible on the subject.”