Customer Reviews

Southwest Home Plans: 138 Sun-Loving Designs for Building Anywhere

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are looking for a book with ideas of "pueblo style" or southwestern adobe style homes, this is not it. The cover is misleading, leading you to believe this book contains many if not all, this style. There are only a few (count 3 or 4) plans in the true pueblo style.

Although the book does have a few Pueblo-style plans like those featured on the front and back cover, very little of the book is devoted to them. Most of the houses it contains are what I would term as fairly traditional, nonsouthwestern houses; their tile roofs seem to be the basis for their inclusion. I have yet to find a good collection or two of southwestern plans. Most of the floor plans were unappealing to me as well.

It's the best I've found for true SW style homeplans, but many of the plans are not SW -- just houses with tile roofs. They're all 2,000 sq. ft & up, many twice that size, which puts them out of reach for me (too expensive to build)

However I just wished there had been more real life photos instead of the monochrome sketches to help actually visualize what the house would look like after construction. Definitely useful for someone planning to build adobe style.

We have purchased six SW building plan books. This is one of the most useful.

As the cover of this great paperback book states in large letters: "138 Sun-Loving Designs for Building Anywhere !" and then the cover lists the following building styles in large yellow lettering with a turquoise diamond shape next to each one: "Santa Fe, Pueblo, Territorial, Spanish, Mediterranean, Southwest Courtyards". So this book, per its own cover, was never meant to be only Santa Fe designs, despite what some of the other reviewers have written about it. There are approximately 26 plans that have the traditional Santa Fe styles with the flat looking roofs (Even though if you were a bird you would see that those roofs do indeed slant, usually to the back of the house, to provide for snow and water run-off.)and have the exposed "vigas" - the traditional round rafters that stick out above the windows and porches. This book even includes a brief glossary of Southwestern architectural terrms. Several of these two dozen or so plans are less than 2,000 square feet, while other have 2,000 or more sq ft and some more than 3,000. There is even one plan of a smaller house that has a walk-out basement so that the home's lower level is also "sun-loving" and does not seem like a dark dungeon. All of these plans are (were) for sale and can be customized for a reasonable price. And speaking of a reasonable price; this book is now on sale through Amazon for less than one dollar, so please try it ! You probably will like at least one of the plans.

Great options available if you want to design your own custom plan or use one in the book. I needed som ideas.

This book is a duplicate of Southwest Inspirations but has a different cover. Both are published by the same company but have different names. That is disgraceful and Amazon should be more vigilant about the material it offers.