There’s a particular kind of magic in watching a 77-year-old grandmother teach eight million people how to fold a fitted sheet, and Barbara “Babs” Costello has built an empire on exactly that magic. Her latest book, Homemaking with Babs: Tips and Tricks for Making a House a Home, takes the warmth of her viral TikTok tutorials and bottles it into a season-by-season guide to running a household without losing your mind.
Organized by season rather than by room or chore type, the book walks readers through a full calendar year of home upkeep, opening with a spring section titled “Start Fresh” and closing with a winter chapter called “Decorate and Celebrate.” Within each season, Costello offers more than 100 tips: quick fixes, deep-clean routines, and small rituals meant to make a house feel lived-in rather than merely maintained. It reads less like a manual than a companion, carrying the same conversational voice that made her social following so devoted.
What sets the book apart from the crowded field of home-hack guides is Costello’s background. Long before she was “America’s grandma” on TikTok, she spent over a decade running her own preschool and raising four children, and that hands-on experience shows in tips that feel field-tested rather than trend-chased — like squeezing a full bottle of glue into a car cupholder to solve a liner problem, or wrapping fragile ornaments in paper cups before boxing them for storage. The book is also more rigorously sourced than most in its genre, citing research (including a study linking childhood chores to adult success) rather than leaning purely on anecdote. That blend of authority and approachability is Costello’s signature, and it translates well to the page.
Early trade reviews have been warm without being rapturous. Reviewers have praised the book’s charm, its genuinely useful and specific tips, and Costello’s clear, encouraging voice, with several noting that the seasonal structure makes it easy to dip in and out of rather than read cover to cover. At the same time, more than one review has pointed out that the book doesn’t reinvent the home-and-hearth genre so much as execute it exceptionally well, positioning it as a comfortable shelf companion to staples like Martha Stewart’s homekeeping guides rather than a radical departure from them. That’s less a criticism than a description of what the book is trying to be.
Homemaking with Babs won’t surprise readers looking for a total reinvention of domestic life, but that was never the assignment. What Costello delivers instead is a warm, well-organized, genuinely useful guide from someone who has spent both a career and a viral second act proving she knows her subject. For fans who already trust her on their phone screens, and for anyone looking for a gentle nudge toward a more orderly home, this is a worthy and satisfying addition to the shelf.
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