Furniture Books

Assume nothing is a must read for any serious collector of pre-victorian furniture. Mr. Weinhagen is a proven expert and his book is a priceless guide filled with a lifetime of tips and tools to properly evaluate potential purchases. This book will educate you faster and make you want to learn more. His case studies are excellent and highly practical.Five stars all the way!!!

This is a really good book. It gives tips and insights that really opened my eyes. Its made going to antique shops and auctions less a matter of blind trust and more an actvity in deriving the history. Some really interesting frauds are out there and this book can help you separate the old stuff from the "created" from the replicas so you can make up your mind on what you want. (Some of the created items are neat but its good to know they may not have started out as one piece)

Hands down, this is my FAVORITE Japanese cookbook. Elizabeth Andoh, an American married to a Japanese, is not only a fine cook, cooking teacher, and journalist in her own right, but is in the unique position of being an American consultant to the Japanese food industry. This is her first cookbook, published in 1980 (it was followed by "An American Taste of Japan" in 1985). It's a primer of "pure" Japanese home cooking -- like Mama used to make, if your mama happened to be Japanese. I learned to cook in the kitchens of Japanese friends, and the flavors of Ms. Andoh's recipes make me swooningly "natsukashii" (nostalgic) for Japan.

The book's 130 recipes are organized in the classic order of Japanese cuisine: soups, rice, noodles, braised and simmered foods, grilled foods, deep-fried foods, steamed foods, mixed and sauced foods, pickles, and sweet things and beverages. No photographs, but crystal clear recipes are complemented by beautiful line drawings that illustrate ingredients and techniques. A section in the front details Japanese cooking techniques and equipment, while a glossary at the back not only translates the names of unusual ingredients, but explains how to choose and store them. In all, it's a wonderful book that I can't recommend highly enough.

I loved this cookbook so much I photocopied the entire (out of print) copy my library had several years ago, which cost me at least three times what I would've paid if I could've bought it new. I'm thrilled to find it used, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Everything I have made from this book over the last 10 or 12 years has been delicious (with the exception of a failed rice bran pickle experiment I forgot about when I went on vacation...whoops). Elizabeth Andoh is to Japanese cooking what Barbara Tropp was to Chinese; passionate, knowledgeable, down to earth, the kind of cook you wish was your neighbor.

If you collect vintage barbie dolls, you will also need vintage houses and furnitures to display your collection.

WOW!
This book helped me turn a trunk full of parts and pieces (That I thought was junk) into a dozen Sets . The excellent photos and parts listings are very helpful when you need to know what exactly came with any given set. This book covers Cardboard and plastic structures and sets for barbie and all her friends and family, an excellent book for any collector.

This book was given to me by someone who knows that we have a vintage sailboat that responds well to TLC and who also knows that I like knots. It is an excellent book: beautiful enough for the coffee-table, and funny enough to read just for the author's anecdotes.

But this is a craft book. It describes 47 projects that can turn a ship into a gallery of engaging personalized details. It also turns those inevitable hours spent on boat maintenance into time that is creative, fun and even rewarding (though I confess, my boat doesn't seem to come out looking quite like the author's).

The best part is the knots - all those complex decorative rope puzzles that so many of us have struggled to recreate are here, and the diagrams and instructions are so clear they actually work!!

This is definitely not a book a yachting family will stow and forget, it earns its keep year `round. Great resource, great gift. Strong recommendation -- to give, to get, or to put on your list for Christmas.

I have just finished reading Linda Buckingham's wonderful new book on ideas and projects for on board boat folks. What a great book! I found not only several great ideas that I can hardly wait to do on board for our own boat but also many, many slick craft ideas for gifts appropriate for anyone living on or near the water. These ideas (not limited to us seafarers) are not the usual crafty dust collectors but are professional looking, useful projects, easy to do with readily available materials. Even if you live nowhere near the water this book is a must if you like to craft quality items. Congratulations to Linda Buckingham on what I'm sure will be a very successful book.

The book tells you everything you wanted to know about fashionable beds, and includes great photography. I highly recommend it as bedtime reading or as coffe table adornment.

The book tells you everything you wanted to know about a fashionable beds and includes great photography. I highly recommend it as bedtime reading or as coffe table adornment.

it's one of my favorite books, it gives me so much inspiration! it's the best book on painted furniture available now.

Florence de Dampierre's The Best of Painted Furniture is a "must have" source book for any decorative paint artist. It is filled with gorgeous photographs of exquisite furniture displayed both alone or "in situ". Each chapter focuses on a different region of Europe, as well as America, with an emphasis on the changing of painting styles from a fascinating historical perspective. It is an inspirational idea book, and is invaluable when trying to capture the feel of a certain era. Famous decorative paint artists from each coutry are discussed and featured, and the evolution of certain styles of painting, for instance chinoiserie, are examined. It is a painstakingly researched book, and the ideas from the past four centuries unfold in a unique and creative way. The author shows how the painted furniture styles of past centuries blend into modern settings, and also examines painted metal and papier-mache furniture, as well as the care of painted furniture, in general. Creative inspiration and practical advice and a healthy serving of decorative painting history gives this book 5 stars, in my opinion. Enjoy!

This book is outstanding. The author takes you through pragmatic advice to making cases, raised panel doors, etc. There are clearly 100's of books out there on the topic. However, the author gives advice like how to deal with the fact that all plywood sheets have some warpage or variations in width. He talks about how to ensure that your cabinets are identical without measuring down to the 1/16 of an inch.

I've recommended this book a number of times, and my friends always come back with thanks.

This book on cabinetry was published by Rodale Books in 1994, before that company veered away from practical how-to literature toward its current interest in spirituality and alternative medicine.
It is truly an outstanding example in its field, describing step by step how to build cabinets using just two power tools: a table saw and a router. I'm an occasional cabinet maker, so I go back to it and review critical chapters whenever the time rolls around to build a new project. The text is clear and concise but not over-simplified, the illustrations are helpful. The minimally experienced home carpenter can make very nice cabinets using the information in this book alone.

We're building a spanish revival eco home and this book was indispensable to us. We incorporated many of the ideas into our current construction. And it reminded us of a lot of details we had forgotten

CALIFORNIA REVIVAL: VINTAGE DECOR FOR TODAY'S HOMES covers a new movement in indoor-outdoor design which blends vintage furnishings, paintings and decorative arts from the Spanish Revival period of the 1920s to 40s. Over five hundred color images with captions and historical text covers pottery, furniture, murals, ironwork and more in an excellent survey of the decor and its incorporation into interiors ranging from homes to public buildings. While this could have been recommended for California collections alone, it's reviewed here for its wider appeal to any in-depth art or architectural library.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is a copy of a catalog full of wicker furniture. If that is what your looking for then by all means get a copy and enjoy all the B/W illustrations of some very finely crafted wicker.

I was given a copy of this book many years ago my by Mother-in-Law, who was the one that started me on my career of wicker restoration and seat weaving.

Over the years, I have restored many chairs that were listed in this book. I used the Heywood Brothers manufacturer's catalog as a guide for repairing chairs and could visualize what the weave was to be, if some of it was missing from the chair I was working on, because of the excellent line drawings. It was also fun to see what names they assigned to each particular piece of furniture.

Through the use of this book, I was also able to date the wicker pieces that I repaired and in so doing, was able to give my customer a bit of historical information, which they truely loved.

My original copy is very dog-eared and worn, so I will probably buy a new copy soon! Kudos to Richard Saunders for compiling all this information and doing so much research to enable the book to be on the market.

Fantastic book on the life and work of a great artist of modern furniture. Well written, lush with photos and perfectly laid out. If you are a serious student of mid-century modern you need to own this book.

Highly recommended book for coffee table or reference! Kagan's New York Collection is stunning, but the Classic pieces are simply awe inspiring. Vladimir Kagan should be respected not only for his legendary furniture designs, but for his extremely kind and grounded personality. To know such a person is a rare occurance. Buy his book, buy his furniture.