No comments about Popular Mechanics MoneySmart Makeovers: Porches, Decks & Patios (Popular Mechanics MoneySmart Makeovers).

3 comments about Living With Wildfires: Prevention, Preparation, and Recovery.

1. Last summer, my husband and I almost lost our home. We watched the fires close in and only due to luck were we spared. We found Living With Wildfires and purchased it hoping it might make a difference. Well it did! We have since changed our house and made it defensible. We have changed our insurance coverage (you won't believe what you need to do to be covered!) and have made steps to be ready to go if the next fire causes us to have to leave our property. There is nothing out there like it. I thought it a little expensive before I bought it, but I think it is worth every penny. If you live anywhere near where wildfire threatens, you need this book! If you have kids in the area, you really need this book!! It tells you everything you need to know. Thank you Janet Arrowood for writing this book!



2. This book is amazing. This author lives in the mountains and does not do any of the things this suggests. Can you say Hypocrite???

   Why would you buy a book from someone who writes it for money but does not live by the things she professes. I would call the woman and ask her why????




3. Listen, If you want to live in the mountains in the middle of a pine forest, then the only defense is to cut down all the folliage within flames distance of your home. You will then be living on the side of a barron mountain. This is like writing a book about buying home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and how to extract water from the basement after the next hurricane. The best defense is replacement insurance.

1 comments about Inside Out: The Art and Craft of Home Landscaping.

1. Fantastic book! Encourages you to think of the home landscape like the interior of your house and empowers you to think outside the box. Must read for anyone who is planning to landscape their house.

No comments about Step-by-Step Ultimate Yard & Garden (Step-By-Step).

2 comments about Complete Home Landscaping : Designing, Constructing, Planting.

1. I was looking for a comprehensive book that included general landscaping concepts/ideas, walkways and hardscaping ideas, plant information, planting technique, deck/patio elements....pretty much everything including a good balance between great photographs and substantive content. I got it with this book!



2. Whether you are a professional landscaper or a weekend gardener, this book provides a multitude of information in understandable terms and concepts. From plant selection, starting a new lawn or re-doing an existing one, to building pathways, irrigation systems, and rockeries, this book has it all. The authors have included just about everything you may ask about your yard or garden with helpful directions, options, and instructions. All gardeners should have this resource on their bookshelf. It will be used -and often!

3 comments about Bungalow Basics: Porches (Pomegranate Catalog, No. A720).

1. The size (approx. 6x6") makes the photos miniscule. Forget
   using them for ideas - without a microscope.
   
   Tiny in substance at 70 pages as well.
   
   Content/size in no way justifies the price.



2. Although I have bought quite a few books authored by Paul Duchscherer and/or Douglas Keister, I was disappointed with the physical size of this book. It is only about 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" and much of the detail in the pictures is lost because of it. The print is also mini-sized and cannot be read without reading glasses for us "vintage" readers! (It IS, however, the perfect size for a Christmas stocking stuffer!)
   
   I also had some problems with the constant referral in the first (and only) chapter in the front of the book to note the various 48 pictures throughout the book as the different type of porches were described. It was a constant flipping back and forth of pages to see Figures 15, 28 for this or Figures 4-5, 10, 13, 15-16, and 23 for that. The text was well-written but overall this book could have been so much better...



3. I ordered the book to gain insight into renovating my 1920 cottage porch. A complete waste of money and time! If you are renovating look elsewhere for ideas and details.
   
   Jeb

No comments about The Well-Decorated Garden: 50 Ornaments & Accents to Make Your Outdoor Room.

5 comments about Tipis & Yurts: Authentic Designs for Circular Shelters.

1. I understand what it is to be a new tentmaker, but this book puts very haphazard designs out as if the author is an expert. I agree--read Laubin for tipis (the best I've seen yet)--for yurts try Torvald Faegre's 'TENTS--ARCHITECTURE OF THE NOMADS' or anything by Peter Alford Andrews. Don't buy this book--if it could bark, it would.



2. I can only speak to the section of the book about tipis. Having used the Laubin tipi book for 25 years, I have to say that the book in question is filled with incomplete and wrongheaded information. The pictures show a tipi that is poorly constructed, not fully pitched, incorrectly sited, and without a liner or furnishings--a flapping, wrinkled, miserable-looking shell. The methods the author has devised for staking the tipi are laughable: completely different from the traditional methods, needlessly complicated and ineffective. I guessed that these methods would result in a tipi that can not withstand a strong wind, and in fact, the author admits that her tipi has started to collapse in a strong windstorm!! In contrast, the Laubins' tipis have withstood hurricane force winds, because they used traditional methods, which are simple and work beautifully. Otherwise, the plains Indians would have died out long ago. Although she lists the excellent Laubin book in her bibiography, I doubt very much the author has read it herself. This author seems to have pulled many methods out of thin air. She has eliminated a small but important element in tipi design (smoke flap gores), seems ignorant about how to handle the smoke flaps to keep out rain, and does not know how to make a tipi livable. DO NOT TRUST THIS BOOK!



3. I found this book to be very helpful, and full of practical information about building Tipis and Yurts. The designs are not exact replicas of the traditional structures, but have been modified using canvas instead of skins, and 1x2's for the yurt walls. This makes them applicable for a wide variety of modern uses, and easy to construct for the average person. The designs are well thought out, and the instructions are simple to follow. I guess if you want an EXACT replica of a Sioux Tipi, or a Mongolian Yurt, then you might not be pleased with this book. If you are like me however, and don't want to fool around with skinning animals or foraging for 150 identically-sized sapplings for your Yurt walls..... and simply want to build a cool structure using materials that you can buy locally, then this book is great!



4. I had built a yurt and also a tipi before I ever saw this book. I wished that I had read this book before I ever built! Especially the yurt design.... it is a very simple and strong design. If I were to build another one, these are the plans I would follow! The woman who wrote this book deserves alot of credit.



5. You may be fooled by the beautiful backgrounds, but if you want to build a yurt that can be lived in this is NOT the book for you. Details are sketchy, yurts and tents are not set up well, and patterns shown are non historical. Visually beautiful, but non informative.

3 comments about Building Fences of Wood, Stone, Metal, and Plants.

1. I found the book to be alright in terms of it teaching the fundamentals of how to construct different types of fences, but in reality, some of the types of fences discussed are not all that practical (i.e., stone and brick fences).

   If you are merely looking for numerous ideas for one style of fence (i.e., picket fence), you are better off looking elsewhere.




2. A dull looking book with no color photos, it is nicely written but makes assumptions about what the reader knows. So unfortunatley for me there is a lot of missing information. Ok if you have 10 fence books in your library, but not a primary source for designing and building your first fence.



3. This is a general primer on building all types of fences and on growing hedges. The section on stone and masonry is particularly thorough. Great illustrations by Liz Buell, straightforward text and detailed photographs of works in progress make this a good resource for both novice and experienced builders.

1 comments about Country Acres: Country Wisdom for the Working Landscape.

1. This is a visually fabulous coffee-table book about livestock, barns, trees, fields, vegetables, and farming implements. It's sort of a photographic companion to "Charlotte's Web." Rural life has never looked so gorgeous as it does in this book. There are no people in this countryside, no grime, and certainly no dead cars or junk in yards or on sagging porches. (Caution to carnivores: Once you have studied the beautiful and soulful farm animals and their young, you will not want to eat meat again.) Barns, birch trees, fences, snow -- everything is perfect. This is a strange book, one that idealizes the Northeast countryside so powerfully that it's a little strange, really. Best enjoyed by city slickers.