Amazon.com
It takes only a drive through any typical American subdivision to confirm that in recent decades the average house has grown in size, narrowed in style, and shrunk in vision. Jim Tolpin's The New Cottage Home represents a return to a previous school of thought about living space: that it should be no larger than is needed, conservative of resources, rich in detail-- in short, that it should pay homage to honest architecture and fine craftsmanship, not to conspicuous consumption. The 30 cottage homes pictured, all recently built, have the slightly unfair advantage of almost magically beautiful locations, but each has a unique character and many cottage-style nooks and crannies: the converted island pump house with sod roof, the 600-square-foot woodland temple, the salvage-built house on the Kansas prairie, the off-the-grid shingled hilltop house built to take advantage of natural light. Tolpin does an excellent job of pulling together the elements of each that make it a cottage and make it appealing. In his own words, "These houses seem to call as much to the heart as to the head, enriching us more with the highs of nature than with the highs of technology. These are the new American cottages that embody the ancient storybook dream, and the kind of homes that many of us have always dreamed of living in."
From Library Journal
The cottage, as defined in Cottage Style, is "a usually small vacation home"; however, both books show how cottage style can be used for a permanent home as well. Tolpin covers the history of cottages as they evolved from serfs' homes in England to the Cape Cod style in the United States and on into the 20th century. The main purpose is to show how contemporary architects, using modern design techniques, have developed the cottage style for contemporary living. Architects, interior designers, and students will find this book especially useful for its last chapter on designing a cottage home. Amateurs, meanwhile, will find Cottage Style a more accessible volume for personal home design. As usual, the publisher provides numerous photographs to illustrate how to create a cottage look, with examples of window treatments, flooring, and wall coverings, as well as individual examples of various cottage styles from beach house to mountain cabin for every room of the home.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
