AMERICAN COUNTRY BUILDING DESIGN: Rediscovered Plans For 19th-Century American Farmhouses, Cottages, Landscapes, Barns, Carriage Houses & Outbuildings
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Average customer review:Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #372137 in Books
- Published on: 1997-12-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 160 pages
Customer Reviews
A rare find of historic country building plans
I am an architect designing a house for a client -it is a Charleston Style house with the master bedroom in a "carriage house" attached at the rear. This book helped me to create/design a more authentic carriage house. I am a horse lover from way back so I ate up the book front to back! I was pleased to find many examples of architectural details and embellishments. The plans of historic houses and barns are a rare treasure. Would be fun to build one of the farm houses!
Nostalgia and Fun Bits of History
This book is all about 19th century buildings, just like the title says. These are the houses that pushed forth from the established coastal settlements through upstate NY, OH and the Midwest during that century of expansion. I confess that this isn't my preferred style of house, but the book itself is a delight. The illustrations are exquisite; Currier & Ives stuff that make you just want to jump into the scene. And the texts that accompany the plans are full of fun facts. This is not a scholarly text, just a breezy ride back through time with a guide that makes it all come alive. You'd have to be a real curmudgeon not to enjoy this book ...unless of course you were determinedly looking for something else. A note however on the coverage. Although the subject of the book is the 19th century, the early part of the century (Federal and Greek Revival in particular) up to about 1840 is not really treated in this book. This book is about what was built during the industrial revolution, when things -including house plans- were mass produced. Buy it for a couple of hours of light reading and some new perspectives on how we lived and built in the latter 2/3 of the 19th century.
A background of the evolution of early american housing
Donald J. Berg does an outstanding job of showing the evolution of the designs and the backgrounds of the designers of single family housing primarily in the 19th century. The plans and illustrations are excellent for those that want to use them as a guide for present day construction.



