The Brand-New House Book: Everything You Need to Know about Planning, Designing, and Building a Custom, Semi-Custom, or Production-Built House

by Katherine Salant

Book Overview

From the first vague ideas to the finished structure, building a brand-new house presents you with thousands of choices -- and possible pitfalls. Yet there's no single expert you can turn to at every... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609805835
• ISBN13: 9780609805831
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The best book out there on the topic

Very helpful. I found this book to be more helpful that all the rest, and I have gone through a ton of them. Sure, the design of the book is unfortunate, but the author's actual imput outweighs that. Shame on those who can't see past it. Great book. Essential. My contractor finally recommended it after I'd read too many other books...and it's great. The Kitchen section was especially helpful.God bless you, Katherine Salant.

Read this book before you start to build or buy a new house.

Finally, there is a book filled with common sense about building a house. I am an architect and have built 2 homes for my family, but as I design commercial and institutional buildings for a living, building a house is not what I do everyday. I really wish I had this book when I built my houses, as it is filled with great practical advice about all aspects of this process. Legal, financial as well as design issues are covered with a straight-forward, no nonsense approach. Read this before you get started and you will be grateful for all it suggests. I am so glad this book was written and will recommend it to all my friends and clients.

Perfect for Those Wanting to Build a House!

My husband and I are in the process of building our first home and we were being overwhelmed by everything going on. We had purchased several other books on building a home, but they were detailed, "how to" build a house books. What we needed was a book that would help us through the process of building when you were working with a builder. This book was excellent!We actually bought two copies and read it together. It provided insight into the process of hiring a builder, obtaining financing, working within your budget, and assessing whether various options were worth it or not. In addition, the book includes examples and advice from experts in the field.This book is perfect for anyone wanting to build a house!

A "Must-Have" for every homeowner

This book's title does not do it justice. If you own a home then this book will guide you through the myriad of maintenance and upkeep activities that confront a homeowner. If your a first-time buyer, getting ready to build your retirement dream and everything in between then this book is a must. The book is well organized, factual, up-to-date and gives numerous resources to extend your research onto specific paths such as countertop materials, floor coverings, etc. The inclusion of comments by resource professionals is very helpful. Ms. Salant deserves a big "attagirl" for her research, organization and writing.

A bit about everything - it's process oriented

This is a book on the process of building a new home. It covers both production homes, semi-custom and custom/architectural homes throught the text.I got a lot out of this book but be aware it tries to cover a lot of ground. It does not attempt to cover specific construction issues and mistakes, but does cover design elements and discusses the trade-offs of those elements in detail (such as solid surface vs. granite counters). It also discusses working with an architect for those interested in that. It discusses how to work with a budget and how to work with your design/build team. It does a review of each major room in varying levels of detail.This is a very practical book and **does** offer a useful and pragmatic discussion about building a house and how best to prepare and execute this process.I have found it to be an execellent companion book to Susan Susanka's books (Not So Big House series) and Sam Clark's book (The Real Goods - Independent Builder). Get these four books and you will be well covered from concept, to process to construction.