Customer Reviews

Arts & Crafts Home Plans: Showcasing 85 Home Plans in the Craftsman, Prairie and Bungalow Styles

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a catalog of home plans. Operative words: "home" and "plans". Plans with which you can build a home. The other reviewer missed that somehow.

If you want a book of painting tips and decorating suggestions, don't buy this book. This is a catalog of plans for a future home that you might be considering to build.

Just wanted to clear that up a little. Thanks.

First off, kudos to the authors for getting the facts right regarding Sears and Aladdin kit homes of the early 1900s. I was so pleased to see the honorable mention of these companies and accurate factual info that I nearly swooned from pure joy. I truly appreciate their giving the kit home companies of the 20s and 30s their due.

As to the designs of the houses pictured in this book, I was pretty impressed with that, as well. Those are some good-looking homes. As to the other reviewer's comment that the houses had big garages and great rooms, the fact is, old-house purists buy old houses and spend 43 years restoring them to their original condition, replete with monitor-top refrigerators and old gas stoves with pilot lights and porcelain tear-drop handles.

The rest of the house-buying public may want something with an exterior look that gives them warm-fuzzy memories of Grandma's house, but with innards that are much more modern (and easy to manage and maintain). The plans offered in this book meet that criteria.

Having spent much of my life in old homes and a small time in a new home, I can see the advantages of a newer home. There is something to be said for being able to pay a utility bill without taking out a second mortgage.

The houses pictured in this book had a nice look. I don't think they'd ever be mistaken for OLD houses, but I was surprisingly impressed with their attention to detail. And the floorplans are spacious, practical and appealing to people who like 21st Century homes.

Rose

The book is plainly marked "House Plans." That's exactly what you get: plans to build a house. Not to decorate nor historically analyze it, but to build. To rate it low because she wanted it to be something it's *clearly* marked that it's NOT is unfair.

Good stuff working looking at.

What a beautiful book. Every page has a very interesting house plan. I have picked our next house. If our current house goes back up to what we paid for it then we will build again. A nice house for a nice retirement.

I really wish that however disappointed Kathleen might have been with what she GOT vs. what she thought she was getting, she would have rated it based on what it was, not what she wanted it to be. It sounds like she thinks it's an OK book of plans, but she only gave it one star. I can only assume that's because it's not a decorating book. That's a little like going to see Citizen Kane and calling it a crappy movie because there weren't any good battle scenes or car chases.
So... even though I haven't read it, I'm giving this 5 stars just to counterbalance Kathleen because it would be a shame if someone looking for a book of plans didn't check this out because of an artifically low rating.

great reference book with a good number of photos. if you like this architectural style, you'll love this book of house plans.

I was very disappointed with this book because I thought I'd be getting lots of pictures and ideas for an Arts and Crafts home, especially for the kitchen which I am remodeling. What it is instead is a book of blueprints for building a new Arts & Crafts home. If that's what you want, it may be good. I have no way of knowing. But if you're looking for ideas for remodeling a kitchen or any other room, or pretty pictures, forget it. A waste of money.

I just have a big warning for anyone thinking of buying this book: it is a catalogue for blueprints that you can buy from the Hanley Wood Company. For some reason Hanley Wood calls their catalogues "books." Their choice, I guess.

I will get to what this catalogue is in a minute. What is important is what it is not. It is not a book about the Arts and Crafts movement. It is not a book of photographs of Arts & Crafts homes since almost all of the pictures are architects' renditions of what the finished houses might look like, not actual photos of what they do look like. It is not a book about Arts and Crafts interiors, which is what I thought it was. When I read about getting 85 "home plans," I was so excited to think that I would be getting 85 ideas for room paint jobs, furniture and fixture ideas, etc. None of that. There's just a handful of photographs of interiors and no real attention paid to that side of it: the dominant imagery is of what the building might look like on the street (curb appeal).

There are a lot of other books about the Arts & Crafts movement that can give you ideas for decorating or redoing an existing home. This just is not one of them. I'm now taking a look at "Living the Arts & Crafts Style: A Home Decorating Workbook."

If you are planning on hiring a bunch of carpenters to build you a house in the Arts and Crafts style, I would buy this book for sure, even though a lot of the plans are not very original Arts & Crafts looking. They have a lot of 2000s details like "great rooms" and three car garages, and some of them look like McMansions with some Arts & Crafts features added in. A lot of them though are original looking and rather nice. You just might find your dream house and won't have to hire an architect. Even if you are planning on hiring an architect, I would buy this little catalogue anyway just to keep him or her honest!