Backroad Home: Simple Country Designs of Cottages, Cabins, Barns, Stables, Garages and Garden Sheds with Sources for Blueprints, Kits, Building Accessories, Catalogs and Guide Books (Paperback)

~ Donald J. Berg (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you're dreaming of moving to the country, retiring to a smaller house or just getting away from big home mortgage and maintenance costs, this is a book that you should take a look at. It's a sourcebook and guide to the best small, simple, inexpensive and easy-to-maintain country homes. Seventeen of America's best country architects and designers contributed 86 plans of vernacular-style cottages, cabins, backyard barns, garages and garden sheds. Home sizes range from just over 2,000 square feet for a traditional New England farmhouse and a gracious Southern cottage with a wrap-around porch, to just 144 square feet for a tiny getaway cabin. Addresses, phone numbers and website information will help you reach any of the designers directly to order construction blueprints or to see additional home designs.

From the Back Cover

Are you thinking of building a simpler country life? This book is designed to help.You'll find designs for 22 cabins, 42 vernacular-style cottages and 22 traditional barns, stables, sheds and garages. The book's directory lists 144 catalogs and 68 useful websites full of more construction plans, building kits and hard-to-find country building products. There's also information on construction and restoration resources and helpful guidebooks. Start your new home right here.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Donald J Berg; 1 edition (July 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966307526
• ISBN-13: 978-0966307528
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #405,035 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true beacon in the cookie-cutter fog of home design, September 22, 1999

By A Customer

If you are a lover of old houses, their uniqueness, wonderful style and design... If you live in an old house, maybe want to add on or are going to be moving into an older home... If you are an architect, designer, builder or contractor... Or, if you are thinking of building and find yourself sick and tired of the please-not-one-more-cathedral-ceilinged-media-room-approach to home design...

Then look no further - Don Berg's "Backroad Home" is the light at the end of the tunnel. The whole front of this wonderful book provides inspiring, right on the mark designs, blueprints and resorces for older houses, cottages, cabins, backbuildings, barns, sheds and even a charming out-door shower! The back is filled with a perfectly edited compendium of resources for old house design, building and materials complete with addresses, phone #s and yes, when available, email. My copy, and it's sister "American Country Building Designs" both purchased just a few months ago, are already dog-eared, marked up, and coffee cup ringed and we have yet to move into our 1850's farmhouse! Great reading, great writing and great fun. Thank you Mr. Berg for writing a book for "the rest of us"

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Truly Simple Designs, June 4, 2000

By	Spud (Bynum, NC USA) - See all my reviews

The Backroad Home serves as a source book of building plans for all kinds of small buildings. Each of the designs has an illustration along with a floor plan. Text is limited to a few sentences about the design and the address or web site to request catalogs or full plans from. I would have liked more text. I wanted to know more about the design styles. Many of the designs are based on regional architecture like the Amisquam Salt Box or the Pine Island Cottage. While others could be imagined in a field almost anywhere in the country. There are also plenty of barn and outbuilding plans.

A lot of the dwellings do not even qualify for the term house. They are cabins with very small floor plans and only one door. But other plans have three or even four bedrooms and aren't what I would call small.

In the back of the book are even more design sources and a Country Building Directory containing suppliers for things like weathervanes, sundials, antique hardware and brass and copper lighting fixtures. There is a convenient index in the back for referring to specific architectural styles.

I've been searching for plans for small houses for several years. This book has given me access to many new sources. I've finally found a house that's the right size for me and I might even be able to afford it!

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First a dream, then a plan, April 29, 2000

By	GENE GERUE "Author, Find Your Ideal Country Home" (Zanoni, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Buying country land is the beginning of a great adventure. During the year that I recommend you observe and inventory natural conditions before you build, you will have time to decide not only where your buildings will be planted but what their form will be. Here is a book that extols traditional styles and connects you to the architects who have adapted those styles to modern codes. Architect/editor Berg has found seventeen designers who are unabashed proponents of traditional style, most of whom live the country life, so they have first-hand appreciation for what works and looks best. Each offers mail-order plans for simple but elegant inexpensive country homes and outbuildings. Here are drawings of floor plans and exteriors of 86 designs in all, from a 144-square-foot cabin to a farmhouse and Southern-style cottage with wraparound porch, each of 2,000 square feet. This is a sampler; I checked out the Web sites of the designers and found that they offer many more designs. Most offer plan catalogs.

In addition to sourcing working architects' plans, Berg connects the reader to alternate plan sources, including log homes, timber frame, historic, magazine and Cooperative Extension plans, which are hard to find but nearly free. There is also a Resources section of building codes, building book catalogs and on-line resources, plus other books on country building. The Country Building Directory has entries from Acorn Forged Iron to West Coast Weather Vanes. Happy country planning, building and living.