Build Your Own Home Theater, Second Edition (Paperback)

Review
The book provides information for the beginner to the experienced home theater owner. -Connected Home, May 2002

How to Design, Build, Remodel & Maintain Your Home (Paperback)

With this comprehensive book, you will learn enough about construction materials and labor to save up to 70 percent on the cost of your home and still have a house mare sound than any ready-built structure.

You will learn enough about creating a plan so that you or a professional builder can translate your dream into a reality.

You will learn enough about good building methods to avoid the "high cost of cheap construction."

Included in this volume is complete and detailed information on all the following topics:

Basic Tools and Use

* Doors and Windows
* Site Selection
* Exterior Finishes
* Building and Zoning Laws
* Interior Non-Bearing Partitions
* How to Read Plans
* Soundproofing
* Preliminary Design Studies
* Plumbing
* Designing for the Physically Handicapped
* Heating
* Air Conditioning
* Dangerproofing
* Electricity
* Cost Control
* Solar Energy
* Staking Out
* Fire Stops
* Introduction to Construction
* Insulation and Energy-Saving Techniques
* Foundations
* Termites and Carpenter Ants
* Ceiling Finishes
* Floor Framing
* Interior Wall Finishes
* Wall Framing
* Floor Finishes
* Ceiling Framing
* Interior Finishes
* Roof Framing
* Saunas
* Plank and Beam Framing
* Site Work
* Sheathing
* High Cost of Cheap Construction
* Roof Covering
* Construction Forms and Contracts

Written simply enough for the layman to understand, with enough sophisticated knowledge and creative ideas for the professional, here's a book no home builder should be without.

Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design (Paperback)

From Publishers Weekly
Coauthors (along with several other writers) of the landmark design guide A Pattern Language, Jacobson and Silverstein join with their architectural partner, Winslow, to further simplify building design by distilling the principles they previously set forth as ten essentials for residential homes.

These fundamentals cover such subjects as making the best use of light; keeping all parts of the house from windows to walls to rooms in proportion; and including "in-between" places like porches, window seats, alcoves and sunrooms in the design of the home. Some of their concepts are fairly abstract; for example, they suggest imagining the home as not just a building but a "site" that contains both indoor and outdoor rooms, and they counsel readers to "let the overall form of the house grow naturally out of the forms of its various parts, rather than being superimposed from the outside." These theories are complemented by more concrete advice about how to measure out a human-sized room, balance private and common spaces and much more. The authors include diagrams and color photographs of 33 actual homes with detailed explanatory captions. While it is aimed predominately at professional designers, this guide is useful for anyone contemplating a new home or making renovations to an existing one; certainly it will change the way readers think about the architectural spaces around them.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Why are some houses such a pleasure to visit or inhabit? This spin-off from A Pattern Language, which has been a design resource for decades, successfully answers that question. California architects Jacobson and Murray Silverstein helped coauthor A Pattern Language, and with partner Barbara Winslow they have chosen ten principles or patterns of house design that they consider most important (and which serve as chapter heads): "Inhabiting the Site," "Creating Rooms," "Sheltering Roof," "Capturing Light," "Parts in Proportion," "Flow Through Rooms," "Private Edges, Common Core," "Refuge and Outlook," "Places in Between," and "Composing with Materials." Each pattern is illustrated with sketches and photographs, as the authors provide beautiful examples of 33 homes by various U.S. architects or designers, mostly in the western United States. The well-organized text and layout combine with the 410 outstanding color photographs and 155 black-and-white illustrations to help the reader visualize these patterns in practice. Highly recommended for public libraries and libraries supporting architecture courses.
David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., BC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.