Customer Reviews

Designing Your Dream Home: Every Question to Ask, Every Detail to Consider, and Everything to Know Before You Build or Remodel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Designing Your Dream Home is a must have for anyone thinking about or in the process of designing or remodeling a home. As I remodeled my kitchen this book kept me from making some very costly mistakes. The biggest mistake I avoided was having custom cabinets made that were not deep enough to hold my oversized dinner plates. Fortunately, I read the kitchen section of this book just in time to call the cabinet makers and have my cabinet dimensions changed to accomodate my plates. By reading this book you will avoid many inconveniences or daily annoyances that could have been avoided. You will not be disappointed!

Susan Lang has written a masterpiece for anyone involved in building a new home. There exists in this book all the hidden jewels to create the perfect home with ease. Builders, architects, interior designers, contractors, subcontractors and the lay people who are building their home should have this book at their side at all times. It is complete, detailed yet easy to read with many charts, flow sheets, captured inserts of important points and much much more. Having completed a new home recently I would have loved to have a copy of this book to avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in the building process. I highly recommend that you buy this one and tell your friends about it.

Mark Houston MD
Nashville, Tennessee

This book is an excellent collection of very helpful design advice and checklists to design or remodel every room of your home. It focuses on "what you need to know" and "what you need to consider" for every phase of design or remodeling. It is to-the-point, with few wasted words. The checklists help you quick identify where you need to learn or do more without plowing through a dozen books on any one particular subject. Many checklists by room, type of space and situation. Interview guides for builders, architects, designers. Helpful tips and gottchas to avoid. You will find it can help you plan, organize and clarify your thinking, plus organize the mountains of information you find when you plan to build or perform a large remodel.

At first I thought the book was a little heavy on the blank forms and checklists, but she covers the basics, and there are a number of useful illustrations that teach you what you need to know about what a house is made up of. Plus a glossary, architect's symbols that help you decipher your house's blueprints, measurement basics (very helpful), mistakes to avoid, and more. The forms and checklists require work, but they can prevent you from making some serious mistakes. (I'd advise looking at more than one house book, btw. I had a number of them--most of which I have since culled, but I still have a few to refer to.) I would also advise you to keep this book for your records. I bought house record books--The Home Owner's Journal: What I Did & When I Did It and The Home Owner's Diary: What Was Done and When We Did It. (For two different homes we built; these books became very cluttered with additional work and notes.) You will find these records essential in the future.

Very thorough and informative. Excellent advice on organizing an important, challenging process. How to get organized outlined in an easy to follow format which saves time, money and headaches! I'm recommending it to everyone I know.

I found this book disappointing. It's formulaic and driven mostly by blank forms and checklists. May be helpful for some people, but I have to believe that most folks who plan to hire an architect and build their own custom home are already operating on a level beyond this book.

This book attacks the design of a home in a well-organized manner & imparts lots of common sense tips. Great checklists & organizational tools.

This guide alone will enable us to be completely thorough when we build our next home regardless of whether we Owner-Build or contract with a builder. It contains very detailed criteria for each construction step with great tips and explanations.

Designing your Dream Home is a must read for anyone about to embark on the journey of building or remodeling. The book's easy-to-read format, coupled with the incredibly thought-provoking information contained within, makes it one of the best sources of information for anyone looking to build or remodel. Thanks for the invaluable information!

My husband and I built our dream home four years ago. I wish we had Susan Lang's book at the time to educate ourselves throughout the process. This book hits the mark on everything you need to design your house to reflect your personal style and be exquisitely classy. This book is helpful regardless of a person's house building budget or personal taste. Ms. Lang's book is easy to read and provides priceless ideas, recommendations and advice; the pictures are also very helpful. This book is for people who care enough to create a truly custom built house that is unique, practical, and personal.