BOOK MARNI JAMESON

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Marni Jameson

Specialties: Downsizing, rightsizing, home design, living well, decluttering
Home base: Orlando, Florida
Web site: www.marnijameson.com

A nationally syndicated columnist, author, journalist, speaker, interior designer and frequent TV guest, Marni Jamesonis America’s most-loved home and lifestyle expert. Her humorous and helpful column “At Home with Marni Jameson” appeared weekly in newspapers across America for over 20 years, attracting loyal readers who followed the author’s many home adventures and misadventures. As one reviewer wrote, “Think Erma Bombeck’s wit, Martha Stewart’s gumption and Rachael Ray’s verve in one humble yet helpful package.”

Marni’s first two popular titles—The House Always Wins: Create the Home You Love Without Busting Your Budget and House of Havoc: How to Make and Keep a Beautiful Home Despite Cheap Husbands, Messy Kids and Other Difficult Roommates (both Da Capo Press)— received wide and glowing acclaim. Publishers Weekly calls Marni’s work “hilarious, helpful and brave.”

Her third book, Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go (Union Square, 2016), quickly became an Amazon bestseller, hitting No.1 in the categories of aging parents, real estate, and selling and buying homes. In it, Marni used her trademark narrative voice—a blend of wit, wisdom, vulnerability and tough love—to provide a roadmap through one of life’s most difficult rites of passage. That success spawned a related series of best-selling books including Downsizing the Family Home: A Workbook (Union Square, 2018), Downsizing the Blended Home: When Two Households Become One (Union Square, 2019), What to Do With  Everything You Own to Leave the Legacy You Want (The Experiment, 2021), and Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow (HCI Press, 2024).  Whether tackling your own home, or that of a loved one, debating whether to stay where you live or move, or simply striving to live more beautifully, Marni’s words and works provide inspiration and encouragement.

An award-winning journalist as well as an interior designer, Jameson has written for national women’s magazines, including Woman’s Day, Family Circle and Reader’s Digest, and has published more than 2,000 articles in The Los Angeles Times andThe Orlando Sentinel, where she served as a senior health reporter, taking Florida’s top journalism award for medical science and health reporting. Marni has made dozens of TV appearances on ABC, NBC and FOX. What makes Marni such a fresh voice is her knack of bringing home advice that works.

Marni received her master‘s degree in creative writing from Vermont College, and her bachelor‘s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas, and her interior design certificate from the University of Central Florida. She lives with her husband, DC, in Orlando, where they share a busy home with a blended family of five adult children and nine grandchildren. Whether speaking or writing or staging a home, her message helps audiences live better, more beautifully, and more simply—all with a sense of humor.

Suggested Topics

• Downsizing the Family Home
  

  In a funny, insightful and heartfelt talk on a topic that everyone will eventually face, Marni takes you by the hand and helps you clear out or downsize your own home or that of a family member. She will help you sort through a mountain of memories and provide a roadmap to help you know what to let go of, how, and what to keep to honor the memories of loved ones, or so you don’t leave a mess for those behind you.

• Rightsize Your Life

This soul-searching talk helps audiences consider where they live and why, and where they should live and how to get there. Recognizing that the ideal home is one that is the right physical, financial, social and emotional fit, Marni helps you identify where in the world you should live, in what kind of dwelling, and with what belongings, and clear the roadblocks standing between you and your best, rightsized life.

• What to Do With Everything You Own

You don’t have to be rich to leave a legacy, but you do have to make a plan. With heart and humor, Marni helps audiences think about how everything they have can be left to benefit what matters most to them—be it their family, the environment, science, the arts, animal welfare, their church or any cause dear to them. In this inspiring talk, she offers a step-by-step guide to help anyone turn their stuff into money into meaning that will outlast them. Whether you are in the prime of life or your later years, single or partnered, have kids or not, are well off or of modest means, the time to plan is now.

Sample Video

What People Say About Marni Jameson’s Books

What to Do with Everything You Own
“An engaging, well-timed guide, streamlining the complexities of estate planning and untangling the hows and whys of thoughtful decision-making.” —Kerry Hannon, New York Times columnist

“Easy to flip through, great for any-time reference, this is the kind of book to have, no matter what your age or bank account.” —Nashville Ledger

“A useful book that gets five stars.” —Mensa Bulletin

“Citing her experience helping her parents move and dispose of excess possessions, home and lifestyle columnist Jameson (The House Always Wins) shares her pragmatic approach to getting rid of unwanted items in 21 short, succinct chapters with pithy main-point summaries. Acknowledging that the handling of personal papers and belongings, household furnishings, and the home itself can trigger feelings of guilt and sadness, Jameson encourages readers to push beyond the emotions to sort objects, determine the best disposal methods, and price the potential sale pieces.”—Library Journal, Starred Review

Downsizing the Family Home
“Essential reading for anyone clearing out your own or a loved one’s home. . . . well-researched. . . . . Her suggestions about how to re- frame daunting tasks as positive gambits struck me as invaluable.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Jameson’s book . . . addresses what few others do—the powerful feelings and memories.” —Marin Independent Journal

The House Always Wins
“The only question to ask after finishing newspaper columnist Jameson’s highly personal, achingly realistic, and snickeringly funny introduction to home decorating is, Why is she read by only 7 million readers in thirty markets?” —Booklist

“Readers gain the benefit of Jameson’s experience—along with laugh-out-loud anecdotes—in this informative home-improvement guide.” —Publishers Weekly

“Marni Jameson: dizzy, uncertain, overwhelmed ditz? Don’t believe it for a second. Her new book launches with an epiphany and sails through aggravation, turmoil, bargain hunting, major outlays of cash and numerous other ups and downs encountered when a person sets out to create his or her ‘dream home.’ Eventually, she comes to a sane and satisfying conclusion.” —Los Angeles Times

“Jameson, whose uproarious voice recalls Erma Bombeck’s, dishes out home advice in witty essays . . . You don’t necessarily have to be in the middle of a remodel or redecorating project to appreciate the laughs . . . but anyone on the rocky road to making a house a home will find Jameson an especially charming companion.” —Book Page

“If you want a good laugh and a cleverly disguised portion of home-building reality, this is the book for you. I know of no other book that’s such an entertaining read while teaching you both what to do and what not to do to make your dream house a reality. I highly recommend The House Always Wins for anyone contemplating either a move or a remodel. As Marni so wisely advises, take your time, and, as I would add, put this book at the top of your to-do list.”
—Sarah Susanka, architect and author of the Not So Big House series and The Not So Big Life

House of Havoc
“Think Erma Bombeck’s wit, Martha Stewart’s gumption and Rachael Ray’s verve in one humble yet helpful package.” —Dallas Morning News

“Jameson offers advice on how to turn a havoc-filled home into a heavenly haven without losing your savings or your sanity.” —Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine

“[Jameson] advocates solutions that are workable rather than idealistic...and she does it with humor and the credibility of one who’s been there and survived.” —Akron Beacon Journal

“Syndicated home columnist Jameson brings a down-to-earth, humorous approach to maintaining a household that’s based in the real world . . . Jameson makes home improvement advice fun as well as practical.” —Publishers Weekly

“Jameson’s blend of humor and helpfulness can handle anything.”  —BookPage