Product Description
The story is all too common in today’s housing market: the basic principles of scale, proportion, balance, rhythm, and consistent architectural styles are often misapplied in new residential construction. Walk around almost any new development, and you’ll find dormers that are bigger than the front door; windows that are out of scale; too few or too many columns; and more. What Not to Build: Do’s and Don’ts of Exterior Home Design shows these problems and more t… More >>
What Not To Build: Do’s and Don’ts of Exterior Home Design
Tags: architectural styles, Build, Design, Do's, Don'ts, dormers, Exterior, exterior home design, Home, housing market, new residential construction, rhythm, scale proportion
#1 by Rebecca Toy on May 11, 2010 - 2:18 am
Ok, it is a fun book to look through, but honestly I can’t see how it could help us select house plans which is why we bought it. The house picture on the book cover is obviously made up from many different houses and not what one would see a sane person build. We know what looks good and what we like and wouldn’t make the blunders this book warns about.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by M. Findlay on May 11, 2010 - 4:44 am
This book looked very enticing in the store. With lots of photos of lots of houses. The format shows digitized versions of the same house with critiques of what NOT to do, accompanied by a photo (obviously the real house) of what any good designer would do. There is minimal text so this is mainly a picture book. However, I found the suggestions to be very basic and mostly obvious. The what NOT to do photos show design elements so bad, you are not likely to need a book to keep you from making those errors. Save your money, take a good friend to dinner and have them critique your design choices. Better on the digestive tract too.
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by crisw on May 11, 2010 - 5:30 am
There is a lot of good information here. However, please be aware that the houses in this book are unlike those you will find on most of the West Coast, so if you are building there you will need to do a lot of extrapolation. Almost all of the homes featured in this book are brick, and the vast majority are styles rarely seen on the West Coast. There are a couple of Victorians and Craftsman bungalows, but no houses with cedar siding, very little Mission-style architecture, etc. Also, there is very little here geared to making a small house look better; most of these houses are gigantic, and the vast majority are two-story.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by B. Orzechowski on May 11, 2010 - 6:47 am
This is a very good book, and it contains a number of points that are essential to anyone interested in building, remodeling, or just understanding what does/doesn’t make a home “work”. I see so many high-end homes, whose owners should have read this book before making huge blunders. I learned at least a dozen “must know” points, and have utilized a number of them in my own home. EG: columns, porticos, window sizes, and roof/siding material rules. My favorite rule is that of SHUTTERS – they should be placed to look as though they close; and they should NEVER be placed next to picture windows.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by K. Weinberg on May 11, 2010 - 9:21 am
“What Not to Build” is an excellent tour through the various choices in the design of houses’ exteriors. The book frequently pairs a photo of what not to build with a photo of a design in which the noted flaws have been corrected. It’s clear and fascinating.
Rating: 5 / 5