Home by Design: Transforming Your House into Home

I bought this book on a friend's recommendation after we had a serious house fire. Our basement and first floor have had to be gutted and taken down to the studs. We're renovating problem areas, moving the washer and dryer upstairs and making the bathroom more wheel-chair accessible. I need lots of help! This book, along with 2 others of Susanka's, have helped me to see the larger picture--thinking of the importance of light, and how we shape interior space and how to relate one living space to another. Some houses in the book are large--but some are small to medium, like ours, and her ideas are clever and always thoughtful.

This book provides a comprehensive design process to create an original home in an economical, sustainable manner. Not much professional jargon and easy to understand fundamental concepts of design. All of her books show how houses that are well-designed can be more economical, as well as sustainable, with a high quality of materials and comfort.

If you want a general coffee-table book, this is it. Lots of pictures, sidebar explanations organized into sections. Slightly arcane, 'Order', for instance, includes these subsections: Pattern & Geometry, Alignments, Rhythm, Theme and Variations, Composition, Expressed Structure, Point of Focus and Organizing Strategy. Turning to them, text discusses architectectual treatments in finishing materials (I get that), stair railings, floor parquetry, hallways to other rooms, and optical illusions.Since I am not an architect, I'll never use these design elements, and you would hardly find a remodel that demanded some of these solutions. But it is fun to 'walk through' these unique homes.This book is ideal for a designer to have on the shelf, for times when a client needs a visual aid to help them see what their home will look like.

The Sarah Susanka books were invaluable for planning our downsized retirement home. This book showcases various architectural principles and emphasizes quality of detail over size of rooms. The photographs are excellent and were extremely useful in developing the plans for our A-frame home. When several windows were not installed according to plan, our builders raised them seven inches so all windows on that side of the house would align. The prow roof was also extended when it did not match our plan. These design elements make a noticeable improvement in the exterior view of our home. Lots of Sarah's ideas were incorporated inside our home as it progressed. I still refer to her books 11 years after our house completion.

Great book. Helpful even without a design background. Sarah Susanka shows the basic elements to maximize and personalize the spaces in our homes.

this book has been not formatted right for the kindle, it also crashes every few pages, I can't even get further than a specific page and it crashes every-time I get to that page but it crashes even before every few pages. then there is a issue that you can't zoom into pictures right and most of the pictures have a "word graphic" so if you try to zoom in only the word get's zoomed in but not the pictures. It's so useless I returned it and I am getting a paper copy nowI would have loved to use it on the kindle just for highlighting and book marking...Amazon fix it, please!

I really enjoyed reading this book and looking at the pictures that illustrated the points she was making. It gave me great ideas on how to set up our new (to us) home in a pleasant, comfortable, beautiful way.

This book will be referred to many times as I draw up my dream house. The author gives good examples and photos of architectural features that will make your new house or remodel look special and well put together.

Probably the best design book I have read! Causes you to think and plan so many aspects of room and house design that you probably wouldn't have thought of. Bought this for myself and others as well.

A long time to download. Too difficult to read on iPhone.