Second Home: Finding Your Place in the Fun

By Better Homes and Gardens

Including second-home options from lake houses to cabins in the woods, this book guides readers on selecting a house site, remodeling, and decorating. Includes a source list for furnishings and home... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0696211521
• ISBN13: 9780696211522
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Meredith Books
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 2.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.4" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Timely for those considering a move out of city or suburbs

I wouldn't call this book Second Home. I would call this book Getaway Home or Rural Home. More than a handsome style book, this includes lots of information and tips on shopping for real estate, especially if you are considering a move out of the city or suburbs. I learned a lot about how to evaluate a region or a small town and what to look for in services and amenities. This is a very timely book for people who are seriously considering a move away from cities or suburbs at this time.

Really fun

A lot of books on this subject have a travelogue quality as they take you from place to place. This book does that. But it also has a personal quality that is unique. From cover to cover, the author stops to give information that I can use to shop for real estate or even to decorate. What I haven't seen other reviewers mention is the unique chapter (this is what I think is so much fun) that is actually feeding my daydreams with open-ended questions about where I might like to live, what kind of view I really want (and does my husband agree with that or not). That fun chapter has lots of great pictures of homes as well as second-home settings. One question asks something about where I see myself walking in my second home dreams, which is a fun thought--some possible answers, illustrated with pictures, are a golf course, a snow-covered path, a garden, and that sort of thing. It was fun to compare my answers with my husband's. The book has an interactive quality that other getaway and vacation home books do not have. I highly recommend this.

A winner

We live part-time on a big lake here in Missouri, and now I will know what to do when visitors inevitably ask the usual questions, like "However did you find this place?" "How did you know this spot was right for you?" and soon. I can hand them this book to look at and learn from, because it will help them figure out how they can find their own "getaway home." (They'll have to buy their own book, though. I am hanging onto this one!) This book is so beautiful. I'm sure it will end up on lots of coffee tables at our lake and at vacation home spots around the country, because it's the kind of book you can pick up and spend the afternoon with. Thte pictures are worth the book's price. But more than that, the book has all kinds of helpful tips on finding your own place or decorating it. I think there is information on having a second home built, too. I wish I had had this when we were scouring the countryside for our weekend house, because we didn't know where to start. I can think of a few friends who I will give a copy of this book to for Christmas.It's gorgeous.

Fabulously inspirational and helpful

This is the best book on vacation homes that I have found. I have looked long and hard for such a book, and I usually come up with books that are either about building a log home or those about locations that have nothing to do with my life. In contrast, this book does it all. I am so inspired by the homes featured, and my husband keeps grabbing the book away from me. Beyond the great photography are all the helpful tips on choosing, building,and decorating a second home. I can afford to dream about our second home, because this book makes me believe that I can make the dream come true.