Better Houses, Better Living: What to Look for When Buying, Building or Remodeling

This is not a glitzy book (the pictures are black and white), but it is packed with practical, essential, and specific information that you need to know when purchasing or building a house. This is the most useful of a number of house planning books I have purchased.

Easy to read and loaded with valuable tips. For example, we are building a new home and had generated plans with the aid of a home designer and builder. After reading this book, I discovered our dinning room was slightly too small. We planned on a coffered ceiling in the dinning room along with a built-in china cabinet along the wall. None of us had taken into consideration that if we wanted the chandelier centered in the coffered ceiling with the dinning table centered under the chandelier and 36" between the dinning table and china cabinet, then we would need our dinning room extended another 8" from what we had on the original plan. This tip alone was invaluable. There were also many other ideas and suggestions. This book is a must for anyone building, remodeling or purchasing a home.

I am having a house custom built this summer and this book is excellent. The author knows his stuff and provides a lot of useful info. Well worth the $$.

"Better Houses, Better Living" isn't just one more book on what to look for when buying, building or remodeling- it is THE book to have. I haven't found a book this chock full of practical, down to earth, actually useful information in years. While other books address aesthetics and other issues, "Better Houses, Better Lviing" gets right to work from the first page. Additionally, it is highly readable book, not written as if talking to a contractor but in language that is easy to understand and the information is easy to grasp. This is a must for anyone hunting for a new home or planning a new one. It will insure that the move they make won't just be a lateral move, but a better move, a move up and they will end up with a home that works for them. My copy won't spend much time in my home - there are way too many people whose hands I need to put it in.

Written by a homeuser and retired engineer who spent 14 years researching and presenting his home-buying wisdom, Better Houses, Better Living: What To Look For When Buying, Building, Or Remodeling is a solid advice guide to getting the best possible home for one's hard-earned income. 462 black-and-white photographs, 140 references to Internet sites that further detail subjects fleshed out in the book add an extra touch to the core information and tips, which cover such topics as options for wiring a home in the 21st century, kitchen exhaust systems that work (and those that don't), the importance of the locations and types of doors, the pros and cons of various countertops available for kitchen and bath, and much more. Better Houses, Better Living emphasizes practical and functional needs - discussions of aesthetics, or how a home looks and feels, are left to other advice guides. A solidly useful and highly recommended resource, enthusiastically recommended for home buyers and home owners - when applied to the expenses of one's home, the insights gleaned here literally pay for themselves.