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There are ideas for every taste and budget. Both the room and the patio rely on cozy furniture to invite conversation and conviviality. Great potential for those with a walkout basement: "Sweet Retreat" with a 10x10 walkout room as a portal to a patio. Just as each house has a style of its own, so do these sweet "sheds" display individual personalities. I particularly enjoyed the Norwegian-style "stabbur" (since I'm half Norwegian). From country to zen, from desert to England, the atmospheres shown and described so well in this book provide creative fodder for a special hideaway, using what you have or designing something new. but the takeaway idea is to have a roof over your head (grass optional) with an outdoor rug and a table.
I also love seeing how people interpret sheds and how they fit varying tastes and lifestyle possibilities. I love this book--it reminds me of how I used to pore over the Sears Wishbook when I was a kid, studying all the possible options for inclusion in my letter to Santa. The shed and design ideas help me reimagine my existing garden--despite the lack of shed space--by letting me see how the structures work with the landscape around them. I long for a shed of my own someday, and seeing all these wonderful possibilities certainly has helped me develop a more detailed vision of exactly what I want. So even though I only have space for fences and arbors, the gorgeous photography gives me inspiration for creating views, making plant choices, and understanding scale and color.
There are literally hundreds of wonderful pictures that connect the reader with the details of the illustrated spaces. What I got was a passionate challenge to develop my own design for a backyard get-away that, until this book, I didn't know that I needed. You won't leave it without a thought to what next garden project you'll be undertaking. It's a sensuous, beautifully wrapped, exquisitely imagined, settle-in-front-of-the-winter's-day-fire and dream about spring that you could imagine curling up with the pets book. With this publication, I was expecting to get a view into the lifestyle designs behind out-of-doors structures. The words connect you with the feelings and decisions of the owners, builders and/or designers. Awesome collaboration between Writer and Photographer. This is a dreamer's book.
Too much fluff, not enough real content. I was looking for ideas on how creatively to use an outbuilding's interior space. This book is a disappointment. What I got was countless arty photos of knick-knacks contained within the featured buildings. This one goes on ebay today. So many of the photos are close-ups of decorating details that it's often impossible to get a sense of the overall space.
Pages consist mainly of photographs and illustrations, accompanied by captions and small blocks of text, as opposed to long prose. Since they are aimed at anyone who might pick the book up for a light read, the analysis inside is often more basic and with less jargon than other books on the subject. This is not a how-to-build-a-shed book. Even being the creative person that I am, I took inspiration from several projects presented in this book. They tend to be oversized and of heavy construction, since there is no pressing need for portability. I originally put this text in the comments section by Dennis' review but figured no one would see it there because of his negative attitude.I beg to differ with Dennis.
I was flattered and eager to help contribute to Debra's book. I have been planning a shed of my own in my very modest East Austin home. Subject matter is generally confined to non-fiction, and is usually visually-oriented. My point is that I found the book to be exactly what the author intended it to be.Wikipedia defines a book of this nature as follows:A coffee table book is a hardcover book that is intended to sit on a coffee table or similar surface in an area where guests sit and are entertained, thus inspiring conversation or alleviating boredom. I am the creator of the "Mod Pod". I intend to build ponds similar to those in "Texas Tea House" chapter, create an elevated structure as in the same chapter, create a wall similar to the roof in the Manhatten chapter, and create a sun screen like the Soji-like panels located in the San Fransisco chapter.
Because of this, the term 'coffee table book' can be used pejoratively to indicate a superficial approach to the subject.Dennis, I suggest you sell your used copy (here on Amazon.com) to someone who will enjoy it.Harrison Bates (Sorry Debra, I don't have the book in front of me as I write this, so I don't remember the actual chapter titles).
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