Reviews (4)

1920s Houses and photographs
As another reviewer pointed out, this book is really a straight reprint of the 1925 Harris, McHenry and Baker Lumber company. It's a book of house plans (not whole kits) offered for sale.
A good starting place
This book is a good starting point for anyone interested in the homes built in the 1920-1930's.The plans are small, but do give you an idea of the basic setup.

Great addition to a collection of plan books
This is a reprint of a house plan catalog from 1925; originally, it was the catalog of the Harris, McHenry & Baker Co., a lumber company. These books from Dover are exact reprints of original plan books from the turn of the century (1880-1925, roughly - this book is one of the latest years in the series). Dover adds little or no modern explanations, just presenting the catalog as it was. So when one looks to review these books, one isn't really judging the modern-day publisher, or editing, or writing. To judge the books, one has to compare each one to others of its kind, and then to decide whether the material in it is thorough and complete according to the standards of its time. Since there are several dozen of these catalogs published by Dover, we have the basis for such a comparison. Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture, Domestic    3. Designs and plans    4. Domestic    5. Home Improvement / Construction    6. House Plans    7. Suburban homes    8. United States    9. Architecture / General    10. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Subjects:  1. Home Improvement / Construction    2. House Plans   

Reviews (2)

Some fabulous designs but often repeated...
Sater designs are creative and beautiful.The use of space and light to encourage the feel of openness is unsurpassed.The photos in this book are gorgeous.
Proudly showcases 120 designs of truly great homes
Grand Manor Homes proudly showcases 120 designs of truly great homes which range in their individual spaciousness from 2,200 to 6,300 square feet. Full color photographs of some of the houses wonderfully embellish the entries comprising the Homer Planners' edition of Grand Manor Homes. Featuring a meticulous and detailed layout plan of each home, Grand Manor Homes is especially suitable for assessing at a glance the many possible options available when a grand manor residence is built. An insightful descriptive commentary text rounds out this inherently fascinating architectural tour. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Decorating - General    2. Design & Construction    3. Do-It-Yourself    4. Home Improvement / Construction    5. House & Home    6. House Plans   

Reviews (9)

save your dough
The plans are so small you cant even see the room sizes on most of them.

Awesome Book
I had looked at soooo many house plans and thought I was never going to find a plan I liked.I bought this book as a last resort.Well, let me tell everyone...it is an awesome book.Not only did I find the plan I wanted, I called and ordered it.The girl was very helpful and explained all the ins and outs of buying this plan.I would recommend the book and the company highly.

A lot, yet not much
I realize there are one thousand plans in this book, but many are so small on the page I couldn't really make out the names of the various rooms. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'd rather have 200 plans that are big enough to adequately review than 1001 plans that are too small to see. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture, Domestic    2. Design & Construction    3. Designs and plans    4. General    5. Home Improvement / Construction    6. House Plans    7. Reference    8. United States    9. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Reviews (2)

Better Houses, Better Living
"Better Houses, Better Living" isn't just one more book on what to look for when buying, building or remodeling- it is THE book to have. I haven't found a book this chock full of practical, down to earth, actually useful information in years. While other books address aesthetics and other issues, "Better Houses, Better Lviing" gets right to work from the first page.
A solidly useful and highly recommended resource

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Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Do-It-Yourself    3. House & Home    4. House Plans    5. Real Estate - Buying/Selling Homes    6. Reference    7. Remodeling & Renovation - General   

Reviews (6)

Beautiful Ideas for Smaller Homes
The small spaces in this book represent a spectrum of locations, budgets and individual style and taste, but all were chosen because they prove that scaling back doesn't have to become a sacrifice in comfort, spaciousness, or beauty." ~Michelle Kodis
VERY INSPIRATIONAL!
This is a "must have" book for anyone who needs some inspiration and incentive for turning small spaces into fantastic living areas!Wow!Kodis's book offers a thorough look at creative and aesthetic solutions for all lifestyles.Complete with architectural renderings, floor plans, photographs, and excellent descriptions; the book appeals to a wide variety of tastes. Excellent Designs, Wonderful Presentation
I'd be lying if I said that most of the designs in "Blueprint Small" are my cup of tea (with the notable exception being the apartment in the Chicago highrise -- amazing!)... I'm more of a "white walls and clean, modern design" sort of person. However, this book does a very good job of showing a variety of innovative and imaginative designs, in a format that shows them from all sorts of angles. It also explains the reasons for decisions made by the architects and homeowners, which is something you don't often hear. Complaints that most people can't afford to do the things shown in this book are somewhat beside the point; if that were the case, "Architectural Digest" magazine wouldn't be as well known as it is. "Blueprint Small" exists in that same realm, where good design is appreciated for what it is. This book is a very good source for ideas for improving your own space; you don't have to hire an architect or an interior designer to appreciate what it has to offer. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Domestic    2. 20th century    3. Domestic architecture    4. Architecture, Domestic    5. House & Home    6. House Plans    7. History Of Art / Art & Design Styles    8. House & Home / House Plans    9. Residential buildings, domestic buildings    10. United States    11. Architecture    12. Decorating - General    13. Decorating   

Reviews (1)

Before there were kit homes, there were plan books...
This is a reprint of Radford's 1909 Plan Book and (may I one day be forgiven for saying this, but), some of these houses were ugly. I mean really and truly UGLY.
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Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Design & Construction    3. Domestic    4. History - General    5. House & Home    6. House Plans    7. Architecture / General    8. History Of Art / Art & Design Styles    9. House maintenance   

Subjects:  1. Do-It-Yourself    2. Home Improvement / Construction    3. House & Home    4. House Plans    5. Houses, apartments, flats, etc   

Reviews (2)

Houses Houses Houses and more Houses
If you like old houses, (or at least early 20th Century houses) or you want to get a feel for some of the social history of the period, this is a wonderful book.I think it complements nicely the other house catalog reprints from Dover.While the illustrations and plans are smaller than those in some of the other books such as the Sears 1926 house catalog or the Aladdin built in a day catalog, it does show 500 houses. It also has some interesting articles concerning the state of domestic architecture circa 1925 or so.

A Reference Book for Memory Lane
Did you ever find yourself stopping your car to oggle and old brick or stucco bungalow, now a bit run down but free from "modernization"? Ever wonder how they were designed or what kindof floor plan they might have? For the amateur or the professionalarchitect, Henry Atterbury Smith's compilation provides an accurate andintriguing reference to the historical developement of the modern suburbanenvironment. For those of us who enjoy dreaming of one day designing andbuilding our own bungalows, this book is pure delight. The house plans aredisplayed with the information which would have been available at the timeof their initial distribution which can be quite amusing as well ashistorically informative. This book represents a set of ideals aspired toby the Arts and Crafts movement, ideals which should be appreciated andemulated by the architects and builders of the twenty-first century. Doplan on a long, leisurely perusal of this book if you enjoy history,architecture and craftsmanship as much as I do! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture, Domestic    3. Design & Construction    4. Designs and plans    5. General    6. House Plans    7. Small houses    8. United States    9. Architecture / General   

Reviews (1)

All kinds of homes in one big book.
This book has plans for homes from under 1,000 square feet to over 4,000 square feet.It also includes two pages of garage plans.
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Subjects:  1. Construction - General    2. Cottages    3. Design & Construction    4. Designs and plans    5. Do-It-Yourself    6. Home Improvement / Construction    7. House & Home    8. House Plans    9. United States    10. Vacation homes   

Reviews (7)

Unique collection of small homes
I like this book, and have had it in my home plan collection library for years.I still refer to the designs in this book because they are still fresh today, as compared to other similar books on the market.The layouts are livable, given the tight quarters imposed by the square footage limitation, and the floor plans are easy to read. A few of the houses are economical to build as well as graceful, unique, and stylish. Several of the houses have modern facades. If you need someting small, but have no interest in the average ranch/saltbox/Mediterranian, this could be your book. Need more books like this!
If you are looking for some creative ideas for small homes then this is a great book. If you are looking for the typical traditional home, then there a lot of other plan books or online plan stores that you may prefer. This book has avariety of home styles with a lot of great ideas. Some are pretty simple and some are a bit outlandish, but you'll see some designs that you don't see in the regular plan books, which is what makes this book so good.

Editor is no better than the designs.
I bought this book because I was designing a sub-1250 square feet house for my parents, which I have since finished.I thought the book had potential until I attempted to apply some of the ideas of the "winning" plan.The winning house is not 1250 square feet.Not even close.When I contacted Mr. Metz through his publisher for an explanation, his response was that he "couldn't care less if the houses featureed(sic) are a bit under or over the 1250 advertised."I think it says quite a bit that the editor doesn't think the title has to be accurate.Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture, Domestic    3. Awards    4. Design & Construction    5. Designs and plans    6. Do-It-Yourself    7. General    8. House & Home    9. House Plans    10. North America    11. Small houses    12. Home furnishing & decoration    13. House & Home / House Plans    14. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Reviews (1)

beautiful plans, lots of detail
This is a reprint of a house plan catalog from 1912. These books are actually exact reprints of original plan books from the turn of the century (1880-1925, roughly). Dover adds little or no modern explanations, just presenting the catalog as it was. So when one looks to review these books, one isn't really judging the modern-day publisher, or editing, or writing. The only modern element is the accuracy of reproduction- in some cases, if pages in the originals that Dover found are damaged or torn, that page is reproduced in the original with the tear, smudge, blot, or hole showing. So to judge the books, one has to compare each one to others of its kind, and then to decide whether the material in it is thorough and complete according to the standards of its time. Since there are several dozen of these catalogs published by Dover, we have the basis for such a comparison.Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Architecture    3. Architecture, Domestic    4. Design & Construction    5. Designs and plans    6. General    7. House Plans    8. Mission style    9. United States    10. Architecture / General   

Reviews (2)

Not quite an encyclopedia but its getting close.
A huge book full of various floor plans for most budgets and tastes.There are many floorplans here.I'm sure you will find something you like.A great book.
Encyclopedia of Home Designs by Home Planners
This work is excellent if you are planning to build a homeRead more

Subjects:  1. Design & Construction    2. Do-It-Yourself    3. Home Improvement / Construction    4. House & Home    5. House Plans    6. Home & House Maintenance    7. Reference works    8. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Reviews (1)

One Story - Same old story
There are lots of plans in here with ridiculously high pitched roof-lines, tiny, barely functional rooms, and for a book that was supposed to feature ONE STORY homes, a surprising number of TWO STORY plans.No matter how small the total square footage of the house, these designers (surely not architects) worked in three bedrooms and sometimes a "media room", leaving some of the bedrooms as small as 9 x 9, and hardly any that were larger than 12 x 15. Nobody could live in such cramped spaces, and you'd never find furniture to fit the rooms.Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Design & Drafting    3. Home Improvement / Construction    4. House Plans    5. Architectural structure & design    6. House maintenance    7. Houses, apartments, flats, etc    8. Housing & property for the individual   

Reviews (4)

disappointing, but better than no book at all
I'm glad that the book exists - if James Grayson Truelove hadn't bothered to slap together this flawed survey, you'd not get to see these houses in any detail.But I enjoyed "Gwathmey Siegel: Houses" more, and even preferred other JGT archi-photo books to this one.Only 4 houses (of 25) had enough drawings and varied enough photos to see and make sense of the whole. Plan drawings are present for most of the houses, which is a step up from photos-only glossy books.Alas, they're small & unlabeled.In addition to the swap mentioned by other reviewers, p.30 is missing all its plans (typo/print-o), and p.128 has the 2nd/3rd floor plans upside-down from the first floor."How," you might ask, "could this idiot reviewer possibly complain about so simple a transform, which he obviously ought to be able to figure out?"Therein lies the problem with this book: In fact, it *wasn't* obvious how the house was arranged, because the accompanying photos were not comprehensive, nor documentary!Such is the case for most of the structures in this book: either multiple photos show the same angle, or they only really document one room in an entire design.To be fair, perhaps I should have realized this from the product description: 25 houses in 181pp. means only 7 pp. each.But with such a low page count, "white-spacey" layout, and largish photos, duplication is inexcusable.(N.B. Of 25 houses, 21 are modern-style.Just in case you were looking for -- or trying to avoid -- contemporary.)

Was the editor on vacation?
This book has some interesting small houses, and does include floor plans, sections, elevations, and lots of photos (of varying quality). But the book is full of typos that anyone giving the book a last once-over should have caught: "and and", using "compliments" instead of "complements", and in one case (The Methow Cabin) the floor plan of one building was listed for both itself AND another, totally different structure (The Cavehill Residence). If you're looking for ideas, this isn't a bad book, but its size is unwieldy,its photographs in many cases just clearly enlarged from photos provided by the builders or architects, and there are more than a few errors throughout the book. I'd check this one out from the library rather than buying it.

There are better places to spend your money
This book was quite dissapointing.My biggest complaint is the idea of what is a house.A few of the buildings where guest houses or studios, or vacation homes.The title makes me want to see houses that people actually live in, with all of their stuff!
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Subjects:  1. Architectural & Industrial    2. Architecture    3. Design & Construction    4. Domestic    5. General    6. Home Improvement / Construction    7. House Plans    8. Architecture / Domestic    9. Houses, apartments, flats, etc   

Reviews (5)

Could have been better
There are some ok ideas in this book but it suffers greatly from a cramped layout. It's not easy to browse and most of the photo are cropped so close one almost feels claustrophobic just flipping through the pages

disappointing
Although there are pictures scattered throughout the book, they are mainly of small details and accents, rather than a total view of the houses. Also, it seemed that some of the pictures were not even of the design that was being featured. I found it difficult to get any perspective of relative dimensions or the overall feel of the design from simple line drawings and floor plans. Perhaps a better book for someone more familiar with architectural drawings than for someone just starting out and looking for inspiration.Finally, not many of the designs were of what I would call a cottage, with square footage at, or higher than most average homes.

Beautiful Dreamer
This lovely book proves that a picture is worth a thousand words. I am in the beginning stages of planning my dream retirement home, and I have been looking for a few select books to convey the sense of style I want. This book is the best I have found so far. Tredway's designs are very well thought out -both beautiful AND liveable looking. There are lots of photos of completed structures along with the floor plans and elevations. Please note that as of 11/03/01, the web-site listed in the book is not working. Highly recommended book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cottages    2. Design & Construction    3. Designs and plans    4. Do-It-Yourself    5. Domestic    6. Home Improvement / Construction    7. House & Home    8. House Plans    9. Vacation homes    10. Building skills    11. House & Home / House Plans    12. House maintenance    13. Interior design   

Reviews (2)

Buildingloghouse,plan
Pleasesendmesamemagazineswithinformationabout building loghouse. Sendmebill, I pay sudenly. Iinterestidprenumeratesfor1-yers. Myadres:Tulipanowa86 , 20-827Lublin, Poland A Must For Log home Builders
There is not a book at the city library that I have left untouched that has anything to do with Log Home Construction.B. Allan Mackie's books caught my undivided attention, and put to rest any questions I may have hadabout building my own log home from scratch.`Log House Plans' is anexcellent resource to thumb through and find just the dream log home youwant.Just as it's name indicates, it is not a book to teach you how tobuild, yet a book to help you find a plan you want to build.It' is fullof plans that range from simple to extravagant, but mostly cost effectivedesigns.There is even a full section that covers smaller efficient yetattractive designs for the family on a budget. I certainly found thedesign I wanted.A wonderful advantage of this book is the detail of allthe designs.It contains no blue prints, but there is enough informationin the design to aid an architect in drawing up accurate blueprint withoutthe need of filling in the blanks.You may also order the blueprintsthrough an address provided in the book.If you are considering building alog home, and you are looking for good ideas, this is by far the bestresource on the market.If you want to build the home with you own hands,then do not pass up `B. Allan Mackie's Building with Logs.' Definitely thebest books on the market for Log Home Construction!Christopher Derbidge ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Designs and plans    2. Do-It-Yourself    3. House & Home    4. House Plans    5. Log cabins    6. Architecture - Domestic - Design and Plans    7. Log Buildings - Design and Plans   

Subjects:  1. Decorating - General    2. Design & Construction    3. Do-It-Yourself    4. Home Improvement / Construction    5. House & Home    6. House Plans    7. Building skills    8. Home furnishing & decoration    9. House maintenance   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Architecture    3. Bungalows    4. Designs and plans    5. Domestic    6. History - General    7. History - Specific Styles    8. House Plans    9. Remodeling & Renovation - General    10. U.S. Architecture - General    11. United States    12. Architecture / General   

Reviews (2)

Design Idea for Great American Homes:Additions
Beautiful book, beautiful photos, wonderful ideas IF you either have a two-story home or would like to add a second story addition to your one-story home.For me, however, the book served no particular purpose and was a great disappointment as my intent is to increase the size of our home by going outward, not upward.

The Art of the Seamless Addition
As the owner of a small architectural practice that does many additions, I see this book as an excellent (and very affordable) sourcebook for residential additions.This book brings together twenty-five projects that have been featured in Fine Homebuilding magazine over the past five years.The additions range in scale form major complete home makeovers to small additions/remodelings such as adding a portico to a Georgian Colonial home.The projects are classified in terms of "Adding Up, Adding on the Side, Adding On, and Adding Out.Read more

Subjects:  1. Additions    2. Buildings    3. Design & Construction    4. Design and construction    5. Do-It-Yourself    6. Dwellings    7. Home Improvement / Construction    8. Home Maintenance And Repair    9. House & Home    10. House Plans    11. Houses    12. Remodeling    13. Remodeling & Renovation - General    14. House & Home / Design & Construction