Books » Small Home & Cottage Books

Tree houses capture the imagination of the child in all of us, and they have never been more popular than they are today. This inspirational yet thoroughly practical guide shows even the most inexperienced weekend carpenter how to design and build a lifetime of memories for the entire family. With more than 200,000 copies of their popular Weekend Project Books sold, David and Jeanie Stiles have become America's First Couple of do-it-yourself woodworking. In Tree Houses You Can Actually Build, they explain basic building procedures through clear, simple instructions and non-technical line drawings that illustrate every step of the project, from the earliest sketches to the final cedar shingle. The authors outline five basic designs that can be adapted to virtually any set of conditions, and throughout the book, they emphasize safety for both adults and children. In addition to line drawings, the book contains a section of full-color photographs highlighting a variety of tree house projects, plus helpful building tips based on interviews with their owners.

Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build shows how average "do-it-yourself" families can easily and affordably bring to life a "Hobbit's Treehouse," a "Pirate's Playhouse," or a "Crow's Nest" in their own backyards! There are a lot of books out there filled with enchanting photos of elaborate treehouses and playhouses built by professionals and costing tens of thousands to build. For the rest of us, there's bit of elbow grease, a lot of imagination, a trip to the hardware store-and Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build.

The Log Construction Manual tells you what you need to know to build your own handcrafted log home shell. This is a comprehensive and thorough guide to how to scribe-fit logs to each other, cut notches, and build roof support systems of large, round, naturally-shaped logs.

The Log Construction Manual is packed with information that is available nowhere else - including the Log Selection Rules, Chambers' brilliant and simple method for choosing which log to use next; detailed instructions for building handcrafted log roof trusses; step-by-step directions for laying out sill logs for any design or floor plan; how to cut state-of-the-art compression-fit saddle notches; methods to keep notches and grooves tight over time; allowing for settling and shrinkage of log walls; scribing tips that pro's use; and much more.

Choose from ideas for stand-alone backyard additions that reflect a variety of architectural styles, from English cottage to backwoods rustic, from Victorian gingerbread to Asian. Includes guesthouses, offices, pavilions and gazebos, childrens playhouses, potting sheds, structures made from kits, and more.

The only step-by-step guide to building log cabins and log furniture-Pioneer style

There are other manuals on building cabins, but W. Ben Hunt's is the only one to show you how to build and furnish an authentic pioneer cabin-the easy, natural way, using only hand tools and the woods around you. Our ancestors used logs and hand tools to build durable, dry, windproof, and protective dwellings; and they fashioned chairs, tables, branches, and bushes. In this day of power saws, lumberyards, and high prices, it's good to know that you can build in the same way.

How to Build a Log Cabin
Part One provides complete directions for building cabins of three sizes: one-room, one-room and lean-to, and three-room. Just follow the clear instructions on every step of construction from choosing the site, clearing the tract, and building the foundation to installing fixtures, heating, and lighting.

How to Furnish a Log Cabin
If you're not ready to build an entire cabin, you can try your hand at some of the small furnishings such as lamps, fences, and candlesticks. Part Two tells all you need to know to build and finish rustic furniture for an entire home: benches, tables, chairs, beds, cots, shelves, candelabras, gates, arbors, wayside stands, even road signs and birdhouses.

"Two Books in One"
There are really two books in one here: Building a Log Cabin, published in 1947, and Rustic Construction, published in 1939. These two classics have been reproduced exactly as they first appeared, with the drawings and photographs that W. Ben Hunt selected and produced for the original editions.

Learn about walls, joists, decks, porches, wood species, tools - everything you need to build your log home. Excellent illustrations. U.S.A.

Treehouses lift the spirits. They inspire dreams. They represent freedom: from adults or adulthood, from duties and responsibilities, from an earthbound perspective. If we can't fly with the birds, at least we can nest with them. With lively writing and beautiful photographs, Treehouses paints a fascinating portrait of this ingenious branch of architecture. It provides a brief history of treehouses, from Caligula through the Medici to Queen Victoria. It shows how to design and build a treehouse, from picking the right tree to shingling the roof. And it tells the stories of dozens of treehouses and the people who built them, from simple platforms nailed together by kids to arboreal palaces constructed and lived in by grown-ups. The centerpiece of the book is a photo essay showing Pete Nelson building a spectacular octagonal treehouse thirty feet up an old-growth fir on Saltspring Island in British Columbia. With two hundred square feet of floor space, cedar paneling, and leaded French doors, the Saltspring treehouse is one of the finest specimens of the treehouse builder's art. Anyone who has ever built a treehouse, or dreamed of it, or read Swiss Family Robinson, will find Treehouses irresistible.

• Decorating ideas to achieve a cottage look that's clean, simple, and light.
• New and remodeled homes that incorporate cottage style via architectural features and easy decorating choices.
• Secrets to creating harmony and simplicity with paint, furniture, fabrics, and accessories.
• Examples of projects in the country, the woods, suburbia, and oceanfront locations.
• Practical ideas and decorating techniques to create a comfortable getaway look.
• Effective color schemes that achieve a serene palette.

On a farmlike compound near New Hope, Pennsylvania, George Nakashima, his family, and fellow wood-workers create exquisite furniture from richly grained, rare timber. Tables, desks, chairs, and cabinets from this simple workshop grace the homes and mansions and executive boardrooms of people who prize such excellence. In this lavishly illustrated volume, George Nakashima allows us in intimate look at his artistry, his philosophy, his life. It is the portrait of an artisan who strives to find the ideal use for each plank in order to "create an object of utility to man and, if nature smiles, an object of lasting beauty."

The author's search for the meaning of life took him as a young man to Paris, Tokyo, and Pondicherry, India. In India, he found the inner peace for which he had been searching and began to find ways to work with timber. He writes movingly about the grandeur of ancient trees and stunning figured woods and explains how he selects and prepares his materials. Above all, he impresses us with his devotion to discovering the inherent beauty of wood so that noble trees might have a second life as furniture. The Soul of a Tree looks at the world through the eyes of an artist and evokes the joy of living in harmony with nature.