Customer Reviews

Home by Design: Insipration for Transforming House Into Home

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A groundbreaking book that empowers homeowners to transform a house into a home

Sarah Susanka has revolutionized the way we look at our homes. She is an author, an architect, and has been called a `cultural visionary.' She was chosen as a Newsweek top newsmaker in 2000 and a US News & World Report innovator in American culture in 1998.

This oversized and gorgeous book is organized into three sections: space, light, and order. The author explains one design principle at a time, showing how and why it works, and how you can incorporate it into your home. The author's goal is to guide you into making your home more comfortable and, at the some time, filled with character and beauty. No matter what the style or size of your home, you can apply each of the 27 design concepts.

This book, with its beautiful photographs, will teach you how to be a master of illusion. Sarah Susanka's mission is to create homes with thoughtful design, because, as she believes, your home affects the quality of your life. Would we not all like to have a home infused with delight and inspiration!

This book is fun to own. Lots of good ideas that can be realistically applied. The pictures are beautiful and the writing truly energizes and inspires one to look with new eyes at the way space is used not only in ones own home, but also in public buildings and spaces which one occupies as daily life is lived. I refer to this book often, and would recommend it to anyone interested in beautifying and simplifying their environment.

Architect and visionary Sarah Susanka presents Home By Design: Inspiration For Transforming House Into Home, a tour of thirty beautifully designed homes with the author's twenty-seven key insights into what gives each dwelling its special aesthetic panache. Full color photographs by Grey Crawford and floor diagrams of each home illustrate the text, which turns a keen eye toward the unique character and flow of each construction. Home By Design is a beautiful book to simply page through for ideas, and an inspirational resource for the novice do-it-yourself enthusiast, as well as having value for the experienced architectural designer as well.

This book has wonderful design ideas if you are working with an architect designing a new home, if you are or remodeling an old one. If you already have a home and want to incorporate her ideas, it might be a little difficult. It is a very educational book with beautiful photos, however, I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't planning on doing any major renovation or construction.

Too often books like this one forget that architecture is about an experience--light, views room to room, walking within a designed space. Susanka illustrates the essentials of a three dimensional living space. This is a terrific book that forges beyond floorplans and elevations or even scale models. She says well-designed space is what a home is, and maybe she's right. Certainly her concise text and fabulous photos make clear that architecture is a place where we should feel at home, and shows how spaces can be made comfortable, gracious, and attractive.

We are in the process of building a house and this book has been exceptionally helpful for framing what we really want.

I found this book to be well laid out and full of good ideas for not only planning the construction of a new house but for doing renovations as well. Reading this has mad me want to buy her other book about Small Homes.

GREAT!