Jim Tolpin

This book is exactly what the title claims it to be: a catalog of ways to integrate built in furniture into every room in the home. As a decided fan of nooks, built in shelving, bed alcoves, really almost any built-in furniture, I found something delightful on nearly every page, and I even got a handful of ideas that might actually be practical. Even the ideas that were not practical for us were still delightful (e.g., like the full bedroom width gothic built-in headboard, see the second hit for "gothic" on Amazon's Look Inside tool for the book above to see it).

Many of the built-ins in this book were added after the fact. I appreciated that because I suspect our budget cannot bear to have us build in originally all of the built-ins that I want eventually.

A good read if you are looking for inspiration about built-ins.… (meer)

This book has two general categories of ideas for making a great family home. First, the home must be flexible and able to change with the changing needs of a family. E.g., the shared rooms and play loft which worked great for children may give way to a relatively private room for a teenager. That may eventually turn into a room for aging grandparents or even, eventually, an easy access master bedroom as the home's owners age. The book has many suggestions around this.

The other category of suggestions was around customizing a home to make it unique and memorable. Many of these suggestions included ways to improve children's space: play lofts, built-in desks and beds, an in-bedroom sink to reduce teenage bathroom fights. Lots of interesting ideas. The main downside to this book is that it was organized as case studies. I find books that I prefer books that spend some time extracting more general lessons from the specific examples they present. In so far as this was your standard figure-it-out-yourself case study book, I did not like it as well as I could have.… (meer)