If you have a modern-ish sensibility and live in an apartment or a small-scale house, you may love this blog as much as I do.

Apartment Therapy.com has been my haunt for the last two years or so for home-related inspiration of all kinds. It’s not just hints on buying pretty stuff (though there’s a lot of that too), it’s about de-cluttering, getting down to inspiring basics, creating a home that reflects and nurtures the real you. I was thrilled this spring when the site’s founder, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, came out with a book: Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure.

It really is a shrink for your home. Here’s a description of the book’s ingredients from the site:

– A therapeutic questionnaire to help you get in touch with your personal taste and diagnose your home’s physical, emotional, and energy flow issues
– A prescription with recommendations for each room based on your needs and lifestyle–including tips on how to use color, lighting, and accessories
– A treatment plan, including regular maintenance schedules to ensure the ongoing health of your space
– Illustrations of floor plans and decorative examples that allow you to visualize concepts before you begin

What I love most is the community that’s sprouted up at this site—readers snoop around people’s virtual apartments (see “Mama Chilanga”‘s recent re-do at left) and post comments (mostly kind, though there are inevitable snarks), ask questions about your own home dilemmas (Where can I find a sofa that will fit in my narrow doorway?). And when Maxwell and his wife had their baby a month or so ago 169 people posted their cooing congratulations. We all got a little misty and felt inexplicably proud.

You can buy the book here. And you can read a recent big story in the NYT about their teeny-tiny lovely apartment here.

By Valerie Reiss. Amy’s on vacation.