Interior designer Lauri Ward has built a career on helping people create a new look.

Now she's helping them make a new life.

Ward's latest book, Downsizing Your Home With Style, is targeted at people who are moving to smaller homes. Ward is the founder of Use What You Have Inc. and a pioneer in the interior redesign movement, so her focus is on paring and reusing rather than buying new.

She has filled the book with practical guidance, such as directions on measuring and assessing your new space so you'll know what will fit and what changes you'll need to make, questions to help you decide what to bring with you, tips on what to do with the things you decide to give up, and ideas for finding new purposes for items you have.

But she's a designer, so she also helps readers create spaces that are functional and beautiful.

Downsizing Your Home With Style is published by Collins and sells for $24.95 (U.S.) in hardcover.

Source Ottawa Citizen