Home Reset

Karissa Barker, who shares her home life online as @karissaathome, has long enjoyed books on home organization and décor. She found that most of them offered little more than a motivational speech with pretty photos, and none gave her the tools to change how things actually work in her home. When she was new to keeping house and life became busy or overwhelming, she wanted someone to teach her habits and strategies, not just show her a look to aim for.

After years of trial and error, she has written that book. The Home Reset gathers the core strategies and skills for making any space, whether an apartment, a condo or a house, cleaner and better organized day to day. It argues that a perfectly styled closet is not worth chasing when life gets hard, and that a home can still be a soft place to land. The advice is built for busy families.

The book moves through the key areas of the home, beginning each with its essential resets and then covering the habits and techniques that go with it. The kitchen section looks at short and long resets, countertop strategies, involving kids, cleaning stations, flow, decluttering, cleaning surfaces by material, floors, dishes, pots and pans, and storage in tricky spaces. The living room covers full and nightly resets, toy storage, functional furniture, homes for remotes and books, and cleaning carpets, rugs, couches, chairs and ceiling fans.

In the bedroom, Barker covers morning and quick resets, habit stacking, closet systems and small-closet tips, washing bedding and mattresses, making a bed and folding clothes. The bathroom section covers wiping and clearing habits, getting kids involved, caddies and under-sink storage, toys, makeup and toiletry storage, cleaning showers and tubs, and the difference between disinfecting and cleaning. The entry covers quick and weekly resets, habits for shoes and keys, coat and shoe storage with or without a closet, mail, backpacks and rotating seasonal clothes.

The laundry chapter covers keeping laundry from taking over, key products, basket options, weekly strategies, cleaning the washer and dryer, a homemade detergent recipe, a stain removal guide and how to wash different items. A chapter on kids' spaces covers building habits for a cleaner room, morning and nightly routines, toy storage and rotation, bedding, cleaning up kid-related messes, problem areas, and cleaning and sanitizing toys. A final chapter offers core skills, hacks and tips for especially challenging seasons of life.