an eco-home for the old-house set
humankind priced out of housing market: San Luis Obispo, CA

book review: 500 Bungalows

500bungalowsthumb Douglas Keister's 500 Bungalows ($12.95) is a neat book. A small but hefty soft-bound volume with hardly any text beyond a brief introduction, it is quite literally what it's title says: a photo essay of 500 bungalows, spanning the various permutations of the Arts & Crafts movement.

I am not usually effusive about books, but this one is terrific. Unlike so many of the big hardbound coffee-table photo books focusing on Arts & Crafts, this one makes no pretensions at all. It is a perfectly simple idea book for painting, landscaping or externally-remodeling your Craftsman or Mission home. If you're contemplating a paint job or adding a bit of "curb appeal" to your home, this may not show you how to do it, but it will certainly give you five hundred ideas. And at less than $15, it's a great gift idea for the bungalow-lover (or anyone eternally working on an old house) on your shopping list.

The only thing that would have made it a little bit better would be perhaps year/architect information on some of the more unique homes - like the amazing Japanese-inspired bungalow (#13) in Pasadena, which looks like Greene & Greene pushed almost to abstraction. Additionally, the form factor of the book suggests postcards; I bet a postcard book, with maybe 50 selected images from this volume, would sell really well. Think about that, Taunton!

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