American Country Building Design: Rediscovered Plans for 19th-Century Farmhouses, Cottages,...

American Country Building Design: Rediscovered Plans for 19th-Century Farmhouses, Cottages, Landscapes, ... | Donald J. Berg | Best old house plans book by far!

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American Country B...

	American Country Building Design: Rediscovered Plans for 19th-Century Farmhouses, Cottages, Landscapes, ... Donald J. Berg Sterling, 2005 - 160 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"Provides an excellent introduction as well as suggestions for using these plans to add architectural detail to your own home...an excellent bibliography."--Victorian Homes

"The best home, barn and landscape designs...in a charming book....[It] contains numerous original illustrations showing a wealth of construction details, site plans and plantings."--Fine Homebuilding

This classic bestseller contains the finest collection of architectural designs from a bygone era--and it's a boon for anyone hoping to construct that dream house or add charming touches to a modern one. Hundreds of illustrations from actual 19th century building plans feature architects' blueprints and drawings, full-color photos, and more. The buildings range from humble farmers' cabins to summer getaway cottages for the rich, and there's plenty of detail work, including built-in shelves, dormers, and turned balusters. With this information, an architect could easily create anything shown on the pages.

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One-of-a-kind book

This was exactly what I was searching for....a history lesson on how to properly plan a site for a home with ancillary buildings on anything over an acre.

Best old house plans book by far!

If you have an interest in house plans from times gone by (perhaps you'd like to build a modern home with old plans to get that special quality that only old fashioned houses possess) this book is a great resource. I have read the majority of the victorian era (1840-1900) house plan books which are available (Bicknell's Victorian Buildings, etc) and found the plans in those other books to be so fanciful and so devoid of useful details (i.e. dimensions, materials lists, etc) that they were of no use except as inspiration. This book still does not offer the level of detail that you would need to build a modern home from the old plans, but the plans it provides are more practical and were created by everyday folks who wanted to build a comfortable, smoothly-functioning home that still possessed style and grace. If you are looking for the reason why old homes seem so comfortable, this book will provide the practical explanations of why those old designs still work today (i.e. hallways centrally located provide efficiency and ventilation). This book is a good buy.

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Great Book for the Right Reader

This is a cool book. My wife and I are buying a 10 acre farmette with an abandoned 1880's style farmhouse, that believe me is in very rough condition. We are planning to renovate the house and construct an additional second story/wing.

This book compiles many different architectural floor plans from the early to mid 1800s. By reading this book, we have a better appreciation for why the house was designed the way it is. For example, the small room off the kitchen on the main floor we determined was actually a "birthing" room (or nursery). Most of the bedrooms were upstairs but this room was on the main floor not only for easy access during the day, but also for warmth (the kitchen generally being the warmest room in the house). You will also note as you peruse through the various plans that room layout was constrained by the need to have access to the chimney/fireplace in selected rooms.

It makes truly fascinating reading. There are several narrative descriptions of the room layouts as they were published in the mid-1800s, giving the viewpoint of the layout in terms of life in that era. One thing that could improve the book is additional narrative for some of the plans from their original published magazines (and why I give it only 4 stars).

Our house did not have a bathroom when it was built, and most of the floor plans in this book do not either. This is not a book for those who are looking for a "new" plan that has an "old" look to it. Most of these plans would just not work well in this day and age (who needs the dairy table room and the ice house off the kitchen anymore?). But it may give you ideas on how rooms were traditionally laid out more than 100 years ago. It is more of a "fun" book than a "working" book, but for our purposes, as we delve into our restoration, it really makes enjoyable reading as it gives a window on architectural design at the turn of the century.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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