Eric Steele

About the author

Eric Steele has spent his working life making things for other people — environments, fixtures, cabinetry, interiors, landscapes and hardscapes — and, most of all, figuring out how to get things completed to a high standard. Twenty of those years were in retail interiors, trade-show exhibits and brand environments: work that comes down to one question asked a few thousand times — where does this go, so a person can find it and use it? He holds a patent for the CanStand, an outdoor beverage holder whose entire function is giving an object a home.

Everything he writes comes out of that: books that take the overwhelming, put-off things people avoid and make them doable, by deciding where things go and then getting them done.

YOU'RE NOT THE BAD GUY FOR NOTICING is that instinct turned toward a family facing the early stage of dementia. Eric watched this disease move through the families around him for years — his wife's family, friends' parents — and saw the same thing every time: people who noticed something was wrong and didn't know what to do, until too much time had passed. It's the plain-spoken guide he kept wishing someone had handed them sooner — how to see it clearly, talk about it without a fight, and get a family's documents, accounts and wishes in order while their loved one can still take part.

IT DOESN'T GO THERE is that same instinct pointed at a house — a decluttering method built on design rather than willpower: every object has a there, it goes there or it goes out, and two short daily passes hold the line. It's for the reader who has decluttered before and watched the counter fill back up, and it's honest about why that happened.

His coloring books come from the same preoccupation with built things, drawn rather than organized. RESIDENTIAL LINES is a six-volume tour of the houses that shaped the American street — Mid-Century Modern, Modern Farmhouse, Victorian, Craftsman, Ranch and Colonial — each in the confident, uncluttered line of a classic architectural drawing, with a facing page of history for every plate. LANDMARK LINES carries that fine-line style out into the world — World Landmarks & Iconic Cities, Italy and France, with more to come.

Some of Eric's books are made to be read, and some to be colored. The illustrations in the coloring books are AI-generated and chosen by hand, and AI was used in writing the guides — how, and why, is explained in every book.

Follow to hear when the next one lands.