Customer Reviews

Designing Your Perfect House

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The value of this book is found in its practicality, its convenience and its charm. "Designing Your Perfect House" is a really helpful tool for a current or soon-to-be homeowner who wants to build. When deciding on a book to read, I always want to read reviews that tell me some specifics about the book so I know if it relates. I hope to give you just that.

I'm actually a custom homebuilding consultant. I advise people on picking their contractors, architects, designers, materials and more. It really bothers me when people don't do their homework before deciding to design a home or have one designed for them. After reading this book I feel confident in telling you to start right here! The author takes you through your emotional, thought, and preparation processes that are so necessary when designing your home. He pretty much just covers everything you need to know and it really jibes with my belief that preparation is paramount. He explains how important it is to pick a good architect (as well as HOW to do it) and that everything flows from good design, and that so many mistakes and heartaches can be avoided by taking the time at the early stages.

William J. Hirsch knows his stuff. 30 years of experience allows him to lead you through the steps you need, to make the right decisions and design a home that is perfect for you. From style, to size, to interior spaces, to orientation on the lot, to home value, to priorities, to weather, and so many other important factors, the author has an answer and presents it in a down to earth, easy to understand fashion. If I were you, wouldn't hesitate to invest money in this book. It's worth every cent and I'm very glad I did.

It is very well laid out, full of beautiful pictures, and even helps you choose a good builder. Even if ... well, especially if you're not quite ready to build, buy it now! You'll learn a lot and just as importantly, you'll really enjoy reading it more than once!

Sometimes the hardest part of any project is deciding where to start first. "Designing Your Perfect House" not only shows you how to find the beginning, but also gives you an advance preview of what the ending will look like. We have been building high-end custom homes for over thirty years and this is the first time we have seen the designing process so throughly explained and easily understood for prospective homeowners (as well as builders). Bill Hirsch's liberal use of illustrations, check lists and photographs aid in refining the reader's ideas and organizing the design process. But the author is careful not to over-simplify a complex task. He cautions the reader to take the time to think things out, warning about: proper site planning, sizing spaces to create the best "people" effect and checking out prospective builders. But lest you think this is a dull "text" book, "Designing Your Perfect Home" includes plenty of good humor and outright fun. It starts with an optical illusion: A Rorschach test of a man playing a saxaphone vs. a woman's face, to illustrate how we can achieve the "Aha" effect. Later we meet; "Just Say No to Avocado", "Why Did They Ever Call it a Living Room?" and my all time favorite; "Windows Are the Eyes and a Door is the Mouth of the building". When I got to the end of this very readable book I kept hoping that this would be the beginning of a series: "Designing your Perfect Home Remodeling Project....?"

As other reviewers have noted, this is a great book to help someone walk through designing their own home. I found myself in a position where I had to come up with potential floor plans for an awkwardly-shaped lot, and this book was the best resource I found.

However, this book could also be titled "How to come up with and/or appreciate good floor plans." Hirsch presents a pretty simple process, but I hadn't seen it described anywhere this clearly, and it helps you evaluate any floor plan or design you encounter, not just new ones! He presents a good framework for how to come up with usable spaces, and make the most of your design/building dollars.

And another note: this is also a good Kindle title. That is, the book reads well on a Kindle, even with some of the larger photos and floor plans.

Read this book in one sitting. Mr. Hirsch makes many excellent points about house design, especially the feel and flow of a house, symmetry and asymmetry, capturing light, repeating certain motifs, etc. etc. If this is the only book you read prior to designing or remodelling a house, you will be ahead of the game. However, I do think many of the same points are made more effectively, with more extensive illustrations, and in a better organized fashion in two other books: Patterns of Home (Jacobson et al.) and Home by Design (Sarah Susanka). To supplement learning about design principles, a great book to walk you through through nitty gritty details of functionality so that you avoid annoying mistakes like poor placement of light switches, inconvenient door locations, awkward placement of appliances and so forth, try Better House, Better Living, by Myron Ferguson.

Architect Hirsch has written a handy guidebook for designing a house that will fit your needs, both now and in the future. Of course, being an architect, he strongly advises hiring one to do the actual design work. But he admits that today the majority of houses are built without an architect, and that makes the book even more valuable than if you had one. He points out the things to be considered, from the feel of a home to energy efficiency to the long term savings that can be had by spending more at building stage.

He goes over the psychology of architecture- how if a room is too large, people don't want to sit and talk in it unless you make tight groupings of furniture, how the position of the driveway affects if you feel like you've arrived at a home, why high ceilings can be a waste of materials (and energy to heat it) because people always end up trying to make them look lower anyway. He goes over balance and symmetry, and why the home owner shouldn't tell the subcontractors to do things (because you should go through the general contractor, as one change can affect the whole project and end up costing you a fortune). He tells you to decide how you want to use the house before you ever put a line on paper. What is important to you in the house? Being green? Having a lot of family space? Having spaces to be alone? Entertaining? Hobbies? Decide those things first. He gives hints on site selection. There is a section of what needs to be designed in to make a house accessible if one needs a wheelchair.

It's a very thorough book, and includes a lot of things that most people just wouldn't think of on their own. It encourages the owner to ask questions of the architect and/or builder rather than just being led- not just design questions, either, but ones about prices, insurance and subcontractors. This would be a good book for anyone building a house, even if you're starting with off-the-rack plans.

I am not an architect, but I am an arm-chair architect, builder, and restorer. In meetings I doodle in floor plans and renderings. Over the years I have amassed a fine collection of architectural books, read most in pieces over extended periods of time. This is the first I read cover to cover without stopping to wander into another book. It covered how to design in a most approachable manner. I strongly recommend it for any person who wishes to design a home for themselves or others.

This book has tons of information for anyone that wants to be heavily involved in the process of designing and building a home that is just right. The pictures inside show some truly beautiful homes and the author, an actual architect, gives plenty of insight along side to help readers follow and understand the crucial steps of the design process. This book comes across as a genuine reference with a goal to save readers much hassle and confusion before starting their future projects. I only wish I had found it before building my own house!

I LOVED this book! It is smart, accessible, and just plain lovely. I am in the process of designing my dream home and was about to make a lot of decisions I would have regretted if I did not read this book before finalizing my floor plans. I am on a limited budget and was letting finances make a lot of my design decisions, such as cutting hallways to save on square footage and not considering how things flow together. I was just trying to get the most in the smallest space so I could spend money on some luxury items I want. I am somebody who can appreciate when a house "feels right," but really didn't understand why. After reading Designing Your Perfect House, I feel better able to understand what will contribute to making my dream house "feel right." Finances will still be a part of my decision making process, but so will the feel of the house. And I now know where a little money might go a long way - like in soundproofing and using another shade of wood in doorways to mark transitions in a classy way! Those luxury items I'm going to have would have made little difference if my house felt wrong. I feel like I now have the information I need to help me prioritize my decision making and create the home I imagine.

In addition, when I finished reading this book, I was so excited and felt like I knew the author and liked him. I felt so comfortable, in fact, that I emailed him with a question I had about where to put my laundry room. I've never emailed an author in my life. To my amazement and delight, he emailed me back that same day and answered my question.

This book is the best investment I've made in my dream home so far!!!

When I started photographing interiors, I tried to read many architectural and design books to get a better idea of why the home/building/room was designed/built the way that it was. I'm sure I haven't looked at ALL of those books, but I've looked through a lot of them. None of them could I read cover to cover. That was prior to this one.
The author does a fantastic job of guiding you through the process of designing "your" perfect house. He explains not only what to look for but also things to avoid. Several of his suggestions I had never thought about, but it would be a big mistake to leave them out of the planning process. This book is a gold mine for anyone thinking of building their own home or even putting an addition onto their existing home.
I would highly recommend this book especially to those who are interested in reading a book instead of an instruction manual.

Real estate agents frequently describe their clients' houses as "custom," but in most cases, the original buyers' input was limited to selecting paint colors and floor coverings. These production houses work well enough for most buyers. But if you want to own a truly custom-built house, the house that each of us envisions in our mind's eye, Designing Your Perfect House will help you achieve your goal.

Author and architect Bill Hirsch describes the custom-building process in 12 "lessons." The issues discussed in these lessons range from the theoretical (e.g., Golden Mean aspect of design) to the extremely practical (e.g., site selection; hiring the architect and builder; deciding the location of the various rooms; working with a budget). Though this book is written for people building new houses, many of these lessons apply to the process of remodeling an existing house. For example, the book contains a simple, practical solution for the old problem with Jack and Jill bathrooms.

The custom-building process is not for the faint of heart. But if you really want to acquire a house that was built for you rather than the masses, buy this book.