Customer Reviews

Home Design Guide

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I picked this book out of a stack of home design books because I was impressed by the color photos and because its size made me suspect I'd actually be able to carry it around and read it, unlike the numerous oversize coffee table books on the subject. Now I think I made a mistake. Phillips' book is a jumble of tips that reads as if it were written and edited by amateurs. At times repetitive, at other times maddeningly elliptical, it alternates between stating the obvious and alluding to without explaining the esoteric. Styles and concepts are referred to extensively in early chapters which are only explained in later chapters, with haphazard cross-references. The color photos seem to be an afterthought; while they do have useful captions, the main text doesn't refer to them at all. And the book entirely lacks drawings and schematic diagrams which would at times have illustrated the author's points better than photos. We are frequently urged to allow "enough" room for a certain feature, but only rarely are specific figures given suggesting how much is "enough". Only about half of the technical terminology appears in the glossary (what in the heck is an "inglenook"?). So while Phillips' "Home Design Guide" is not without value as a browsing book, it's not the systematic cover-to-cover read I had hoped it would be.