Creating an Arts and Crafts Home
by Paul Duchscherer and Linda Svendsen
Gibbs Smith Publisher
A few months ago, I fell in love with American Craftsman bungalows. This isn't one of those affairs that pass in the night, but a full-on obsession and passion for all things bungalow. This sent me off to my local library where I found several books on bungalows made from blueprints and some made from kits bought from catalogs such as a Sears catalog, if you can only imagine. Yes, one day you wake up and order your home from a catalog. I guess this was an early version of prefab homes.
Paul Duchscherer and Linda Svendsen's Along Bungalow Lines features homes across the US that were modeled after the American Craftsman bungalow, but not bungalows when given a strict definition. We learn what a bungalow is and what it isn't plus history of the Arts and Crafts movement which began in England with William Morris and John Ruskin and made it's way to the US, where we put our own stamp on it under the name "American Craftsman". This movement began in the Victorian Era as antithesis to the Industrial Age with its machine-made goods and horrid work conditions. When the movement inspired American architecture, we often seen a mixture of architecture styles found in home-building and that's what Along Bungalow Lines covers, as well as, modern renovations and restoration of the original bungalows built in the late 1800s up until the late 1920s.
I love this book because of the stunning photographs of homes that causes the dreamer in me to swoon and because the authors give readers pointers in identifying a true American Craftsman bungalow by its common features. We see both exterior and interior photographs of homes from the sunnier regions to the colder regions of the US and learn about the works of famed architects and their preferences and inspirations. But in the end, it comes down to the tastes of the homeowner and these days, the return to the Arts and Crafts home has ignited a plethora of magazines and books devoted to this topic. And when you have the house, you need the Arts and Crafts furnishing to go with it.
The authors start with history, then give examples of hybrid bungalows, then delve into actual restoration and renovation work with bungalows, then ending the book with building new American Craftsman style inspired homes that pertain to the technological age where we now ironically find ourselves dreaming of simpler lives. What goes around, comes around again.
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