When looking for inspiration for your home, Chelsey Luger offers this sage advice: “I remind people to ask their ancestors,” she says. “They always have answers.” The Mesa-based author, wellness advocate and enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa expands on that wisdom in her 2026 book, Native Home: The Ancestral Art of Creating Healing Spaces. Drawing from her Indigenous heritage and the process of building her own house, Luger created the book as a practical guide for those who want to make their home more welcoming and healing. Luger says this tradition has been dismantled over the centuries, and she offers practical advice on how ancestral traditions can make the home a spiritually nourishing place. “I want to offer something for everyone, and as Native people, what I can tell you is what we do, and what my ancestors have always done,” she says. “We’ve told stories through our homes, and the story that I hope to tell is one of wellness and culture.”  

Luger spoke with us about the book and accepting our home’s imperfections. 

What motivated you to write Native Home? 

I think that as I got more settled in the Valley, with my marriage and children, the concept of home became more central for me. For years, we had already been teaching about sacred spaces as a component of a healthy lifestyle. It’s a topic that has interested me for a long time, even before getting to this stage of life. But it really was interesting how I pitched this book around the exact same time we really got the ball rolling on our own house-building process. 

You write how our homes are never perfect. How can we learn to accept the flaws our homes have? 

I think there’s always an illusion of perfection that’s kind of just around the corner in every aspect of our lives—“if I could just get this task done, if I could get that promotion…” I think my ancestors were a lot better at understanding that that’s not really the truth. Everything is cyclical. There was this trust in everything is a process. When you die, you’ll return as something else. And so, I think imperfection and the unknown were something that was very accepted and understood for my people.  

Even though I was taught those things, I’m human, so it’s really difficult to practice them. I think in today’s world, especially with social media, with Instagram, with media churning out these images of perfection, we feel even more compelled to believe that’s where our home needs to be. But it’s not the case for you or me, or for the person on the cover of Architectural Digest.  

The truth is our spaces evolve. They deteriorate, they mend, they go through cycles, and I think the sooner we can embrace that, the sooner we can really begin to live and settle into our spaces.  

I was struck by the book’s lack of images, which allows readers to build their homes in ways that are personal. How can someone start the process without tuning into HGTV for inspiration? 

You’re spot on. Part of it is a social justice mindset that I always have as well. I don’t think it’s right that people of certain incomes are excluded from home content. I come from a community that has been historically disenfranchised of our land, our property rights, our economies. That’s something my people are still very much actively recovering from.  

Don’t get me wrong. I love a celebrity home tour. I think aspiration and inspiration are fine and fun, but at some point, you’ve got to offer something for real people. I’m much more interested in allowing people to use their imaginations and making the most of it. I continue to aspire, but I can appreciate where I’m at even when it’s less than perfect.   

Luger will be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix for an author meet-and-greet Friday, October 2. For information, visit changinghands.com.