March 2011

Powell, Jane. Bungalow Kitchens. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2000. Print.

I might have been giving a ‘meh’ impression about the last couple of books I’ve posted about, but not this one – I loved it!  I’m more and more impressed with Jane Powell and her books, dreadful puns notwithstanding.  This is the book that I hoped The New Bungalow Kitchen would be, not that I don’t enjoy that book a lot too.

Anyway, Jane Powell has done her usual thorough research and included lots of pictures of original or restored kitchens, along with her trademark “obsessive restoration” and “compromise” sidebars.  She makes a compelling argument for keeping or restoring an original kitchen when it is found in an old house.

The pictures, as usual, are the real selling point, showing how a vintage or retro kitchen can be perfectly usable.  I have to include one here, taken from the Amazon “look inside” feature: 

Holmes, Mike. The Holmes Inspection: Evrything You Need to Know before You Buy or Sell Your Home. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.

Another impulse pick off the library shelves, which was an interesting read but not ultimately useful for me personally.  Mike Holmes definitely has a bone to pick with the home inspection industry, and his rants about qualifications, certifications, and exclusions might be totally true, but aren’t very helpful if you’re a home-buyer trying not to buy a house that will have major problems.

Lots of good checklists of what to ask about when you do get your home inspected.

Storey, Martin, Sharon Brant, and Peter Williams. Classic Knits for Real Women: Versatile Knitwear Designs for plus Sizes. Lafayette, CA.: C&T Pub., 2005. Print.

This is a perfect example of a book I’m glad I got from the library, rather than buying, and I’m glad to have access to a library system that has lots of books like this.  Which is not to say that I liked it – in fact, I “read” it in about 20 minutes, and was done with it.  There were no patterns of any interest to me, and not really any new ideas I could glean from it.  I wasn’t convinced that any of the patterns were particularly suited to plus sizes; as far as I could tell, they were regular knitting patterns sized up.

Andrews, John. Victorian And Edwardian Furniture: Price Guide And Reasons For Values. Antique Collectors Club, 2009. Print.

(Amazon has changed their links again, and won’t give me an image-only link.  So I’ve returned to copying the book cover images from them.)

Having recently bought a 1913 farmhouse, I’ve become aware of the “Edwardian” period of home decoration that followed the Victorian age.  I hadn’t even known it existed, so this book was one of the ways I’ve been learning about it.  Exactly as the title says, it’s a price guide for furniture; what I didn’t realize was that it’s an English author and publication, so it’s hard to know how much would have been the same on this side of the pond.  It has been quite interesting to cross-reference pieces from this book to ones in the 1913 Eaton’s catalog, though!

Edwardian furniture was a little less ornate than the Victorian age, with different, lighter types of wood being popular.  It’s a nice, easy style that I can see being comfortable, between the dark, busy, and cluttered Victorian age and the later Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles that followed.  I’ll need to get this book out of the library again, to scan some of the pictures.