Michael Morris (5) (1947–)

I took this book from the library as part of my preparation before going to inspect a house for sale that I suspected might be old post-and-beam construction. I've read the "Not-so-Big House" books over the last decade, and more recently I've been reading about the "Small House" movement, and looking at floor plans for houses as small as 165 sq. ft. I've also been visiting various ReStore and salvage stores to see how much I can avoid cutting down trees - especially old-growth trees - to build a house. So, as I probably should have suspected, this was *not* a useful book for me at this point in time.

The houses featured are more like barns, albeit richly decorated and furnished ones. The cover of the book says "the appeal of simplicity", and every time I sat down to read more I would end up angrily showing a picture to my husband and saying "Can you see any simplicity here? Because I can't!"

If you want to be inspired by big, colour photos of lofty ceilings and exposed timbers, you may very well enjoy this book. It didn't work for me.… (meer)