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The chapters were broken up into various house styles. (this window trim, this bathroom sink, this eave trim, this mantle, etc).
We started with some good plans, and then went to work on the 'little stuff'. My husband and I recently built a new old house.We were shooting for an 1830 half cape that looked as though it had been remodeled in 1860.
Add them all up and you get a new house that looks old. I found myself flagging page after page to show our contractor.
The success of a reproduction is in the tiny details. This book was one of our two favorite sources of ideas.
Not all of them were applicable to us, but there were plenty that were.
Very beautiful book, well written, and satisfied my yearning for old houses. I am restroring a 1960 Cape and I was able to cull many ideas from this book. Highly recommend this book, and the photography and room settings are great.
What I found was that there was one BRIEF example of each different architectual style with a very general description. My husband and I are thinking about building a colonial revival home. I was hoping this book would give more examples of what it really takes to make a new house old. There wasn't much to sink our teeth into. The pictures were pretty, but the information was too general.
My husband and I are just beginning the process of building a custom home, and this book has been a wonderful resource for me. It is helping me to learn what it is that makes an old home feel so established, and how to achieve the same permanence in a new structure. The photos are gorgeous, and the accompanying text is useful (unlike the frou-frou text of many home design books). If you don't mind that all of the homes were clearly built with extravagant budgets, this book provides fodder for beautiful fantasies.and some nuggets for inclusion in a more modest home, as well.
Great book on how to update older or run down homes. The pictures are beautiful. It is a book on fine taste in home building.
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