Reviews (3)

WOW!
This is a detailed book! Two thumbs up!

Plans with Options
The plans in this book are refreshing and original. They have a lot of contemporary amenities such as big master suites and great rooms; but for the most part, these homes are fiarly reasonable in size. It is nice to see a home with under 2,000 sf of living space have a real luxury estate feel to it.Also, most of the plans tend to have a very large garage/basement space which is left for future use as playroom or workshop, which adds a large degree of flexibility to the plans. Not what I expected
I was hoping to find a nice selection of cabins, cottages, and villas, but what I found instead was perhaps only a handful of floorplans with differing elevations. Although it is a somewhat thick book, it is very deceiving with the variety of the content within it. Unfortunately, there's not too much. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture, Domestic    2. Cottages    3. Design & Construction    4. Designs and plans    5. Do-It-Yourself    6. Home Improvement / Construction    7. House & Home    8. House Plans    9. Outdoor & Recreational Areas - General    10. Seaside architecture    11. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Subjects:  1. Construction - General    2. Cottages    3. Design & Construction    4. Design and construction    5. Do-It-Yourself    6. Drawings    7. Home Improvement / Construction    8. House & Home    9. Log cabins    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. House & Home / Design & Construction   

Reviews (4)

A keeper
Myshelves groan from the weight of gardening books, most of which I never look at twice. But this book is one of the very few which never gathers dust. Very readable and the ruling passion exercize is excellent!
A very enjoyable read. The pictures are lovely and the exercizes for determining your ruling passions for planning your garden are excellent. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves cottage gardens.

This book is a pleasure to read as well as to look at.
There are a lot of beautiful garden books available right now and this is one of them, but with some differences that make it well worth owning or giving. While it is filled with gorgeous color photos of flowers andgardens, it is the writing that makes it special.Rand Lee writes in anintimate, amusing style that feels like a letter from a friend - I washooked immediately.His "Ruling Passion" exercises are awonderful way to begin to envision your perfect garden or fine tune analready thriving one.Also of note are his sample collections of plants tocreate borders with various themes.My favorite chapter though is"Fragrance in the Cottage Garden". It was a delight to find awhole chapter devoted to a garden pleasure which doesn't get enoughattention in either the literature or the breeding of new plants. Woventhroughout the narrative is lots of information on specific plants andtheir cultivation.Some gardeners may be put off by the author'snon-linear approach, but as with the cottage garden itself, I found that tobe one of the book's charms. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cottage gardening    2. Cottage gardens    3. Flowers - General    4. Garden Design    5. Gardening / Horticulture    6. Gardening/Plants    7. Pictorial works   

Subjects:  1. Architecture, Domestic    2. Designs and plans    3. Log cabins    4. Outdoor life   

Reviews (3)

Dated, but still a classic
I have got the 1959 edition, but have the feeling the book has not changed much since then. In 1959 this was an above-average book aimed at the general public. It illustrates the woods treated by distribution maps, botanical line drawings and black-and-white photographs. Content was pretty good, with the names, both scientific and trade names, very much in order.
Know your Woods? Not after reading this book
I don't understand why anyone would publish a book anymore with black and white illustrations. I know this is supposed to be a classic and all that so it's my own fault for not checking when I read the description. I don't even know why I'm keeping it; I'll never read it. You have to wade through tons of technical jargon and lengthy chapters that would be much better served by some large color photographs. Maybe that makes me shallow, I don't know, but there are much more 'complete guides' out there on this topic these days.

Know Your Woods: A Complete Guide
This book seems to be complete and informative for basic information about the subject matter.It is a good reference for basic information.The reader must look elsewhere for detailed information (such as would be of interest to engineers, scientists, and luthiers). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Crafts / Hobbies    2. Encyclopedias    3. Nature/Ecology    4. Technical & Manufacturing Trades    5. Timber    6. Trees    7. Veneers and veneering    8. Wood    9. Woodwork - General    10. House & Home / Repair    11. Trees & wildflowers    12. Woodworking   

Subjects:  1. Construction - Carpentry    2. Design and construction    3. Home Improvement / Construction    4. Log cabins   

Editorial Review

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of its original publication, Margery Fish's classic gardening memoir has been published in the United States for the first time. Fish and her husband Walter, a former editor of the Read more

Reviews (3)

Great Garden, Great Book, Not So Great Marriage
Margery Fish must have loved her Walter very, very much to have put up with him all those years.Her account of the garden they made despite each other is one of the great triumphs of the "garden memoir" genre, and vastly more interesting than most such works. A Slightly Depressing Weed Of A Book
I wanted to like this book.I just finished the Dudley Warner Book, in the same classic gardening series, which I had savored like a good box of chocolates, rationing out a few pages, each day.But this one--oddly enough--depressed me slightly.It has a sad subplot.You have this stiff upper lip British Matron, who was married to Walter, who oppressed every good idea she had for their garden.She basically isn't able to implement her visions until he dies.But once he's dead you realize, in her humerous complaints, that she misses him.The rest is all gardening, without the breathtaking observations Charles Dudley Warner has, about plants, and without the richness of his language.Fish is an OK writer, but she's not great.I guess Charles Dudley Warner is an impossible act to follow.Warner has one chapter where General Ulysses Grant visits, then he realizes he must burn the chair he sat in.He's unbelievably funny.That book is full of life and a grand vision.Fish's book is somehow claustrophobic.Reading Warner's book, I feel like I'm in a most interesting place filled with surprises, in Fish's book I feel like I'm trapped in a garden, I'd rather exit.I've read about half of her book, and you'd have to pay me to finish it.I frown when I see it on the pile of books behind my comode.

Garden story....
WE MADE A GARDEN is a lovely little book by Margery Fish, an "elderly" English lady who with her husband (he who must be obeyed or cleverly deceived it seems) moved to a country manor and converted the mostly lawn areas into gardens of shrubs, flowers, and herbs. First published in the U.K. in the 1950s, the book has been republished as part of the `Modern Library Garden Series' edited by Michael Pollan. Read more

Subjects:  1. Cottage gardens    2. East Lambrook Garden (England)    3. England    4. Essays    5. Fish, Margery    6. Gardening    7. Gardening / Horticulture    8. Gardening/Plants    9. General    10. Home Gardening    11. Somerset    12. Techniques    13. Garden design & planning    14. Gardening / General    15. Gardens (descriptions, history etc)    16. Landscape art & architecture   

Subjects:  1. Architecture, British    2. Architecture, Domestic    3. Bargain Books    4. Cottages    5. Design & Construction    6. England    7. Home Improvement / Construction    8. Non-Classifiable    9. Sale Books   

Editorial Review

This is an essentially British book, filled with charming photos of bungalows surrounded by a riot of annual flowers. These old-fashioned annuals are the rangy, colorful, sweetly scented flowers that evoke nostalgia for a grandma's garden that most of us never knew, but that we can grow ourselves with the help of this book. Everything old is new again: many of the flowers here, like castor oil bean, celosia, and abutilon, have been used for decades in traditional British gardens, and they're the hot new annuals of today. Clive Lane gives detailed instructions, complete with drawings, on growing annuals from seed, explaining techniques like pricking out and stratification. What is most unusual and useful about this book are the lengthy lists of annuals for specific situations or with special characteristics; for instance, annual vines to grow for flowers, annuals for fragrance and cutting, and annuals that give at least three months of bloom. Why choose this book from among the many others on annuals? It makes gardening look like sheer, creative delight, with window boxes packed with colorful annuals, front gardens with such a fluff of annuals that it is hard to find the stepping stones, and theme gardens such as "The Edwardian Hot Bed Border." Read more

Reviews (1)

WONDERFUL BOOK AND PICTURES WITH PRACTICAL INFORMATION
THIS EXCELLENT BRITISH BOOK LISTS OLD-FASHIONED ANNUALS FROM A TO Z.IT OFFERS THE READER INTERESTING HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON EACH PLANT AND DISCUSSES GROWTH HABITS AND PLANTING SUGGESTIONS. THE BOOK SERVES AS AGREAT PLANTING GUIDE AND A MARVELOUS PICTORIAL REFERENCE.I KNOW OF NOOTHER BOOK OF ITS KIND. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Annuals (Plants)    2. Cottage gardens    3. England    4. Flowers    5. Flowers - Annuals    6. Gardening    7. Gardening / Horticulture    8. Gardening/Plants    9. Gardening: plants   

Reviews (4)

Any day now....
When the going gets tough in day-to-day living, Your Cabin in the Woods is my favorite escape literature.
Your Cabin in the Woods by Conrad Meinecke
This book was originally a private printing produced by Meinecke for his friends. It was published in 1945 to offer returning soldiers from WW 2 an opportunity to find peace in the simple life of living in the woods in your own home-built log cabin. But it is so much more!! It is a romantic book of the mind as well. There is a spirit in this book based on Meinecke's wisdom and personal experiences as a young man living in the woods with "necktie Jim" an Indian companion. It may be the greatest combination of building plans and a living philosophy ever written. Even if you never intend to have a cabin save for an imaginary one in your mind, this is the book to buy. Meinecke gets into your heart and soul as he speaks about nature, like Whitman in "Leaves of Grass" and you will never be the same ever again!

Really a spiritual guide
This book is by far and away my favorite all-time book. I have read and re-read it so many times...it is truly wonderful. It is really more of a spiritual guide to building in the woods, although the simple plans are chock full of great ideas. There isn't anyone who loves the "great out-of-doors" that won't love this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture, Domestic    3. Designs and plans    4. Domestic    5. Log cabins    6. Log cabins and houses    7. Outdoor life    8. Reference    9. Non-Classifiable    10. Sale Books   

Subjects:  1. Alphabet    2. Children's Books/Ages 4-8 Nonfiction    3. Children: Grades 2-3    4. Concepts - Alphabet    5. Cottage gardening    6. Cottage gardens    7. English language    8. Handicraft    9. Science & Nature - Flowers & Plants    10. ABC books    11. Life Skills & Personal Awareness, General Studies   

Reviews (1)

A Must For All Loft Lovers.
"Converted Spaces" is one of those types ofbooks that makes you want to jump into the pictures and take immediate tours of thoseincredible spaces. Living in a space that's notdesigned to be lived in isto live surrounded by character and originality. I particularly loved thelofts in Jersey City (NJ) with the quadruple height ceilings. I did notknow that lofts with 50ft ceilings even existed. Apparently Wells Fargobuilt the building at the turn of the century as a carraige house. We don'thave anything like that in Soho. That's Amazing!!! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Buildings    2. Design & Construction    3. Do-It-Yourself    4. House & Home    5. Interior architecture    6. Remodeling for other use    7. Room layout (Dwellings)    8. Space (Architecture)    9. Home furnishing & decoration    10. Interior design    11. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Subjects:  1. History: American    2. U.S. Local History - Missouri River Valley States   

Reviews (2)

Full of ideas and inspiration
I find that do-it-yourself decorating is more about finding ideas and inspiration than having somebody tell me exactly how to pull it off.Although there is a good deal of instruction in this book, I love it for for Jerri Farris' casual writing style and awesome "cottage style" room photos.The projects in this book are so unique and, although I haven't had the chance to do them yet, appear pretty simple.I'm especially anxious to try the "Teapot Lamp" project for my living room (page 111).

Cottage Projects
I am a huge country and cottage decorating book collector, and I have to say this is one of my least favorite of them.There are a few really nice pictures of cottage rooms to inspire you, but mostly the book is filled with cutsie cottage type projects to do, such as making a bench, and clocks.I prefer books with lots of pictures that I can pick things out of the room that I think are beautiful and worth recreating in my home.I also prefer to find these things at flea markets and antique stores, not make obviously homemade reproductions of them. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cottages    2. Decorating    3. Decorating - General    4. Decoration    5. Decoration and ornament, Rusti    6. Decoration and ornament, Rustic    7. General    8. Handicraft    9. Home Improvement / Construction    10. House & Home    11. Interior Design - Style Books    12. DIY    13. Home furnishing & decoration   

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture (Specific Aspects)    3. Comparative Religion    4. Congresses    5. Environmental Science    6. Environmental Studies    7. New Age    8. Psychological aspects    9. Religion (Specific Aspects)    10. Sacred space    11. Interior design    12. Mind, body, spirit: disciplines & techniques    13. Religion / Inspirational    14. Residential buildings, domestic buildings   

Reviews (6)

Good book, but not complete in itself.
I've watched the videos three times through now, in addition to digesting the web site and now the book.I recommend all three. Great! Now is there anymore?
I didn't think I could love anything more than watching the Frontier House series on PBS. I am pleased to report that I loved this book even more. I don't think it would be a great read for someone who hasn't seen the series, but for those of us who have and loved it this is a must have companion. Couldn't put it down.
I loved this book. It gave a lot more details than the show and tried hard not to pass judgement on the individual families.
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Subjects:  1. Americana    2. Architecture    3. Domestic    4. General    5. Sociology    6. United States - State & Local - General   

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Careers - General    5. Cottage industries    6. Entrepreneurship    7. Home business    8. Home-based Businesses    9. New business enterprises    10. Self-employed    11. Small business    12. Business & Economics / Careers    13. Self-Help & Practical Interests    14. Small businesses & self-employed   

Subjects:  1. Log cabins   

Subjects:  1. Criticism and interpretation    2. Literary studies: general    3. Purdy, James