Customer Reviews

Built-In Furniture: A Gallery of Design Ideas (Idea Book)

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

 

 

This book is useful for anyone building a custom home who wants lots of wooden built-in furniture and storage. The pictures are lush, and the ideas plentiful. I don't know if a woodworker would find it useful, but as someone in the process of planning a customized home, I find Tolpin's work the most helpful way to show my architect what I had in mind.

Built-In Furniture is a great book for everyone who's ever dreamed of having a secret door to a hidden room or just wants to utilize seamingly wasted space. This book of ideas has been a great launching pad for my own new home design. It's NOT a project book with plans and instructions but if you're in the "looking for ideas" phase this is a good picture book.

I can't tell unsuspecting readers and would-be remodelers how disappointed I was in this book. I bought the book for ideas for our major remodelling. In particular, I was looking for great pictures of clever, contemporary ideas for our sons' bedrooms and for our family room. The pictures in the book are very poor quality, grainy and faded, and most appear to have been taken well before the mid-Nineties. This book was published in 1997; it's now 2000. Why would I want to look at a room clearly designed for and in the 70's? What's with the crocheted pillow (p. 149)? I suspect that room has long since been RE-modeled. While I did enjoy the historical background on Gusbav Stickley's Structural Furnishings, I certainly didn't feel inspired by the already-dated examples of "contemporary" interpretations. While I am sure that Jim Tolpin is a competent carpenter, his taste and presentation are NOT for the style-conscious.

Ignore the unfavorable reviews of the hardcover edition. This current version seems completely up to date. Lots of great pictures for ideas, and enough construction data to get by if you have some experience.

This book does have enough pictures of built in cabinets/furniture from every room in the house to give you an idea of what can be done, but I found that other books I have read, such as Kitchen Design books, have way more information on certain topics than this book is able to cover. There is also some instructions on how to make some of the cabinets yourself. The style is all North American which is ok, but you should also read some books on how the Japanese design built in furniture, such as, Small Spaces: Stylish Ideas for Making More of Less in the Home, by Azby Brown.

Apparently the hardcover edition reviewer bought a bad copy - this is an excellent book with crisp, bright photos and excellent ideas for expanding any room. But don't stop here...let this serve as a base and let your imagination really take off. I've used ideas from this book to make projects that turned out much better!

Built-In furniture shows you imaginative solutions for every room of the house. Create a library in a stairwell. Add a wet bar to your family room. Hide appliances & electronics. With the hundreds of color photos, floor plans & diagrams in this book, you'll have a wealth of ideas for every space in your home.

This is mainly a picture book rather than Tolpin's usual instruction manual. While the photos are quite interesting and the book has some good ideas on space usage this is closer to a decorating book than a woodworking book.

This would be helpful as a what-if book for building a new home or a remodel. Otherwise it's not particularly useful.

No, it's not a woodworking book with instructions for how to build the pieces pictured. It's a book of executed ideas that one may use for your own designs. I have the soft cover, which is better than the hardcover, if judged by the reviews. I love the history of built-ins and the great pictures. The text is wrapped around the pictures and great pleasure reading. He does show some things, such as: how to create a pattern to ensure the piece fits, how to scribe a fountain so the piece rests levelly on an imperfect floor, how to use trim to hide gaps of varying width, or make a strong joint. This book will help you come up with your own pieces or adapt the designs in the book to your space but you will need another book, or a woodworker, to build them.

Lots of terrific ideas if I owned a million dollar home, but hardly applicable to simple housing with less than expansion rooms.