Furniture Books

This book has helped me with multiple projects throughout the years. While some of the projects are not things I generally build, the collection of pieces throughout this book provide the fundamentals required to design and create almost anything. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn or simply needs ideas ... one of the best books I ever bought.

I first read this book as a beginner and now five years later I still refer to it and get ideas for more intricate projects. Very well edited so any one can read it. Because it has so many differant writers you get a lot of differant ideas

If you are looking for a book on fine furniture type cabinetry which will never be within the ability of the average homeowner, then get this book--it would look great resting on a coffee table. However, if you are looking for practical nuts-and-bolts information about construction of cabinets then buy Danny Proulx's book: "Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets".

I think the book is great for beginers as well as advanced woodworkers. I am a woods/cabinetry teacher. I have 25 of these books that I use as text books in my advanced woods classes. This is the second school I have used this book in. I have made a work book that covers the first half of the book asking the students to find many of the tips and techniques given in the book. The kids like the book more than an ordinary textbook because it gives information to them that they can use right now. Many of my students make these projects or we modify them to meet the needs of the students. I think it is a great book.

This book has helped me with multiple projects throughout the years. While some of the projects are not things I generally build, the collection of pieces throughout this book provide the fundamentals required to design and create almost anything. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn or simply needs ideas ... one of the best books I ever bought.

This is a very good book. It has many useful information and many beautiful pictures. I am really satisfied.

The cover is a bit deceiving. I wouldn't really call this "Contemporary Thai" as its a bit outdated now (printed in 2000) with examples of more traditional arts and crafts rather than whole interiors. However, it is a good source book to see what fabrics, ceramics, sculptures, table settings, etc. are made in Thailand.

It's a typically and exclusively fantastic book. It helps me study and learn a lot more about contemporary Thai style to start decorating 1 of the rooms in my house in that style. Highly recommend this book to all of readers and Thai-style or Asian-style fans.

I loved this book. It's a feast for the eyes, and is a great introduction to Thai style. While Japanese, Zen and Feng Shui styles have been overexposed lately, Thai style is a secret so wonderful, it won't be a secret much longer.

I bought this book in preparation for a vacation to Thailand. We planned to go on a shopping spree for household furniture and accessories while in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Our decorating style is contemporary with an Asian twist. BINGO, Contemporary Thai caught my eye. This book gave me an excellent introduction to the common handicrafts and furniture styles to look for. It includes an up-to-date resource list with addresses and web sites to purchase items shown in the book. If you covet any items but can't make the trip to Thailand, many of the resources can ship internationally.

After spending a month in Thailand, I realized that Contemporary Thai covers the full gamut of what's available there: Jim Thompson silks, basketry, celadon dinnerware, silversmithing, woodworking, woven textiles ... and the book gives you a glimpse of all these things displayed in gorgeous homes, gardens, hotels and restaurant settings. The quality of the homes and photography rivals what you can find in Metropolitan Home and Elle Decor. And, not only does the book show materialistic stuff (hey, I'm honest enough about what this is all about!), but it gives some cultural and historical perspective as well.

If you like Asian style, take a chance on learning about Contemporary Thai style.

I was in BORDERS BOOKS shopping for some audio tapes, and decided to check-out what was in the Home Decorating Section. I discovered this MARVELOUS book. I was captivated by the photographs on each and every page. For those individuals seeking design ideas, color options or furniture placement this is a MUST HAVE! The photographer did a marvelous job capturing the essence of Thai Design in the modern home. This is definately my next purchase when I go back to the book store.

This book provides simple descriptions about how to make doors and drawers. Although I have made a few in the past this book gave me some new ideas.

This is an excellent resource for coming to understand how to create different types of doors and drawers. Easy to understand and excellent pictures make it easy to use.

This book was great, gave me lots of ideas and helped me build a nice cabinet for my wife. Now she wants me to build the kitchen cabinets. very detailed book with lots of advice for keeping safe, what to look for and pretty much how to do everythng but the staining (I figured that I would look for another book for this).

The other reviewers covered the book well enough. I'm adding my 5 stars. Well written and a good reference.

I coupled it with 2 books from Jim Tolpin: " Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets " and " Jim Tolpin's guide to becoming an pro cabinet maker ". Amazon has them, check them out.

They all fit well together. Enjoy.

The book should just be titled Cabinet Doors. It's very incomplete on the drawer section. Also you'll need another book to fill in the gaps. I was disappointed because it should have covered more information.

I bought this book a while ago and have made several of the items in it including a couple of the cedar chests and the table. Overall this is a great book for beginners. The projects only require a circular saw a sander a jig saw and basic tools. This is a good introduction into woodworking. The stuff isn't fancy but it is homemade and that is a satisfying feeling to know that you made your own furniture.

I bought this book as a gift for my father and was very impressed by the patterns it had. There was a lot of practical things and that is what I had wanted. The price was great too!

That was the main allure for me. I went shopping and bought some nice hand tools to get started in woodworking. I figured that if I wound up not liking it, I would still have useful hand (power) tools for around-the-house type stuff. Well, I got hooked. You'll make some mistakes, and quickly see the value of a table saw, but you will see what you're capable of and hunger for more. Most of the projects are glued and screwed together, with plugs to conceal the screw holes, so "serious" woodworkers don't consider this a serious book. But it is nice because you get gratification fairly quickly. Even though these projects are built of high grade plywood and S4S lumber, they're still sturdier and higher quality than the cheap particle board crap that is sold at Wal*Mart. Give it a try. You'll like it. It will reel you into our world. ;)

It is a well written book with good instructions but I really did not see any of the project that I would want to build. I think a bit more imagination as well as some ways to dress up the projects would have made the book a bit more useful.

I bought this book for my boyfriend and it is well worth the money. There are many many projects - very practical ones like a night stand, table, bench, etc. But there are also projects like a wine cart and an island. ...

Everything that has been said does not need to be repeated. There is an art to finishing. There are many finishes that can be applied. The visual feel of the cabinet or table is extremely important. Knowing when not to refinish or what types of finishes are appropriate to the piece your making may be important to you. It is to me, and this book has helped.

As mentioned in the discription of this text, Jeff has a DVD and Video tapes if you need to "see one make one!" Jeff's one two punch is great. I can watch it and learn one way, then I can read about it to file more stuff in another part of my brain, then I can go ahead and make my mistakes, and check back with Jeff.

Great book for New Woodbutchers that want a guide on the journey through ever more expensive wood projects.

I found "understanding wood finishing" by Bob Flexner to be superior to this book, though I do own and sometimes refer to this book also. Sometimes 2 quality opinions help you average out the proper actions. I purchased them together, no regrets.

A must have for anyone that finishes wood. I refer to this every time I get ready to finish a project.

Perhaps I am the only one who gets confused when about finishing. The instructions on the back of the can never answer all my questions. Here is a complete, concise explanation of what combinations of preparation, staining finishing and polishing combine to give the desired results. Jewitt discusses laquers, varnishes, oils and has perhaps the best explanation of how to French polish shellac I have found.

This book covers hand finishes very well. I have other finishing books, but this one is the best. The topics are thoroughly covered, including diagrams and photos to help. Jewitt doesn't just cover one way to apply a finish such as shellac, he covers different ways to do it. And how to get different appearances from that finish (flat, satin, gloss). It's definitely made a big difference in the final quality of my projects.

If you love the plantings and gracious, homey scenes in Mary Engelbreit's cards and art work, then you will love this book. The photos show steppingstones, garden archways, window boxes bursting with flowers, idylic porches and quaint potting sheds. This idea book helps you picture how to transform your outdoor space with the Engelbreit look.
There are some projects telling how to make a birdbath, wind chimes from a sand pail and sand shovels, a planter box, a painted deck chair, a gardening tote, and to make a garden jacket from vintage tablecloths. The instructions are fairly skimpy, but will get you going if you're handy.
The book is a visual feast with the color photos interspersed with her art.

Mary Englebreit has a very definitive look, and the pages of this book are filled with lovely photos that embody her style perfectly. Pictures aside, this book is not a very helpful gardening tool, since the captions do not indicate what types of flowers or plants have been used to make up the great settings pictured. The book's cover states that the reader will be shown how to obtain "the look", but one can't very well do that if no where does it say what flowers are used, can they? Over all, nice to look at, but not a big help .

THIS IS A DELIGHTFUL BOOK. I HAVE GOTTEN GREAT IDEAS TO COPY. I AM USING THESE IDEAS FOR CHURCH AND HOME PROJECTS. I WISH I COULD AFFORD TO BUY ALL OF MARY ENGELBREIT'S BOOKS. THEY BRIGHTEN UP MY DAYS.

This book is as wonderful as I had expected it to be ! I am truly inspired to create in my "outdoor rooms" now and I now realize just how much work I have ahead of me as well ! The projects are extremely do-able and will make terrific mother's and father's day gifts as well as welcome additions to my own sad little garden. After doing several of the projects in ME's Children's Companion, I can share that her ideas are easily adapted to your own tastes and needs and you don't need to feel obligated to exactly duplicate her wonderful ideas... they're a fantastic spring board for your own creations.

ME has taken her indoor style outdoors. It's an imaginative source for decorating the garden with whimsy. If you are looking for ideas on what to plant and how to keep it alive, this is not the book for you, go directly to Better Homes and Gardens!

this book is very good if you are interested in retro, modern design. I highly recommend this book.

Great overview of MCM style, but not as complete of descriptive as I expected.

This book is filled with spectacular color photos of mid-century modern home interiors. Lots of ideas here for color schemes, furniture layout and incorporating mid-century aspects into any room of your home.

An absolutely stunning book & a must for any mid ce
ntury enthusiast. Fabulous photographs & narration.
Very inspiring.

Could someone possibly put together a better tome on Mid-Century Modern interiors than this exquisite piece by Bradley Quinn? They'd have one helluva tough time trying.

This book is fairly short and slim, yet every single page and photograph has relevance. Each photograph is of some aspect of a home interior and is absolutely fantastic. Not a single wasted shot. I'm assuming that the majority of people interested in this book are admirers of 1950s decor and would like to incorporate elements of this into their homes. What is so wonderful about this book is that the pictures themselves are of contemporary homes that have been decorated in that Mid-Century style, resulting in achieving that look without appearing dated - certainly the effect that I'm striving for! You want elegant beige lounges or loud primary colored kitchens? It's all here. And you just gotta dig the living room on p.42! Wow - have red and yellow ever been used to such devastating effect in such circumstances? And this is just one example of many.

Although it's doubtful that people buy books like these for their text, I think in this case, they'll be glad they did. Quinn discusses at great length the various components that made up the Modern style, providing tremendously useful ideas for home decor. He doesn't get into tedious sociological analysis like so many of these type of books do. Instead, he goes straight to the interesting stuff - how mid-century modern arose within the history of design, the components of the architecture and the lifestyles of the homeowners back then. Each chapter is broken down into a different aspect of decor - color, materials, lighting etc. Why can't all interior design books be arranged in this way?

I can absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking for '50s ideas for their home. I doubt I'd ever need to buy another book on this topic. Unless Quinn sticks in more pictures for a second edition.

A great study of Oil Lamps and will be looking forward to other publications and updates from Catherine Thuro. A wonderful display of illustrations and photos.

Oil Lamps I has become the standard reference book on kerosene lamps. It is by far the most comprehensive and definitive book to cover the kerosene era. More than 1,000 kerosene lamps and accessories are shown in over 900 studio photographs. For the historian, student and collector, there awaits a carefully researched and organized visual record. First published in 1979, this newly released 1998 reprint is complete with an updated price guide. Often the first reference I choose.

This is an updated printing of the original book. I have the older one and it was nice to review the new updated information. This is a great book for any oil lamp collector, and it has a very reasonable discounted price. Betty Lonsdale, Florida

One book can't possibly cover every manufacturer, even the big names. However Thuro has provided history, research and extraordinary detail to offer well over 300 pages of pictures, descriptions, old advertising and assorted information that educates the individual on oil and kerosene lamps from North America.

Of particular interest the author delves into specific new patents such as adding handles or modest change in designs to demonstrate how improvements were made over the years. Thuro covers railroad lighting, ships lamps, whale oil lamps and provides an excellent chronological history of lighting as it progessed through the years.

In addition to dozens of color and black/white photographs, the author provides drawings and old advertisements to give the reader detailed information on dates and lamp design. Values are updated to 2004 but with the changing markets these become fluid rapidly. For education, collecting and identification this book will serve most collectors and dealers well.

This book was a big disappointment. I have several Bradley & Hubbard kerosene lamps, and there is not one word about them in this book. Bradley & Hubbard were one of the largest manufacturers of kerosene lamps during the 19th century, and are very popular with collectors today. The Smithsonian has a collection, with a curator and a web site, of B & H lamps and other items made by them. Strangely, there is one brief mention (with a photo) of a Rayo lamp, and the author fails to mention Rayo lamps were made by Bradley & Hubbard for the Standard Oil Co. I was considering buying Oil Lamps II by the same author, but I'm afraid it would be a disappointment also.

It is so nice to read a wonderful romance novel without all the hot detailed sex scenes that American authors seem unable to write without. The was my first Wesley novel -- but it won't be my last.

I am so happy to have discovered Ms. Wesley. You must read this work of fantasy, romance and historical fiction. It is a treasure and superbly executed! I am in love with her style.

This is one of those charming, clever, and witty English novels that writers -- especially women -- have been turning out since the days of Jane Austen. A lonely 17 year old girl caught up in the blitz meets a man who dies. She searches out his family home and finds contentment and love. The cast consists of mildly eccentric country types in a World War II setting. But the novel didn't teach or tell me anything of value. It's just a story.

The only negative thing anyone can say about Mary Wesley's novels is that there are so few of them! Not one of England's most prolific authors, Wesley is nonetheless one of its most unique writers. Each novel is a gem! (Harnessing Peacocks is my all-time favorite.) This bittersweet fairy tale concerns the intrepid Juno, who, betrayed by her girlhood heroes (a pair of beastly cousins off to fight WWII) in the worst way imaginable for a young, impressionable woman, goes on to survive and prosper, surrounded by love and affection. A triumph of the human spirit, it's a May-December romance readers will hold dear to their hearts.

Juno Marlowe is a very young and innocent 17 year old in the early days of WW2. As a child, she tagged along behind two older boys, cousins, like an adoring puppy and when she came with them to London when they were called up to enlist, accepted that these two arrogant youths had the right to rape her, one after the other, as their introduction to sex. Left alone on a London street during an air raid, she is rescued by Evelyn Copplestone who offers her shelter in his home but who dies of natural causes before she leaves the next day. He had given her an introductory letter to his father who lives on a large farming estate in Cornwall, and is happily accepted as an extra farm hand. When it becomes evident that she is pregnant, it is generally accepted the Evelyn was the father of her expected baby, and so his father is happy to keep her on at the farm.Juno is enchanted by country life and develops a great rapport with the farm hands and neighbours who all accept that she never speaks of the father of her unborn child. The book is filled with wonderful descriptions of local characters and animals and covers the year between the beginning of the story and its' conclusion, with gentleness and understanding without delving too deeply into unnecessary angst and violence. It's a charming, gentle book, just perfect for when one is in the mood for a gentle read.

Practical Design Solutions and Strategies: Key Advice for Sound Construction from Fine Woodworking (Essentials of Woodworking) The book is fine, clear, concise and plenty of photos and great information.

This book contains a myriad of solutions to common furntiure design and construction problems. It presents design examples rather than full plans for projects but that's good because the examples show a variety of ways to approach various elements of the design of doors, cabinets, tables and chairs. I like this approach because it will help me build a vocabulary of options when I design my own projects or want to replicate furniture I only have pictures of and can't inspect.

My only complaint is that this is a collection of articles from back issues of Fine Woodworking magazine that wasn't well edited before being published in the book. It contains several editorial errors such as referring to figures by position on a page when they don't have that position in the book format, deleting a list of suppliers that's referenced in an article and at least one case where I suspect that the captions have been reversed under two pictures. The editors should have been more careful!

I originally read a copy borrowed from the library but I will be buying a copy soon to keep around for reference.

The furniture in this book isn't just built to last. It's built to win. As in, if you hit it with a car, the furniture will win. Or if you drop it out of a window onto the sidewalk, the furniture will win.

You don't have to build everything the way they do. I'm about to make some end tables with drawers, and I'm not going to use dovetails and haunched tenons. I'm going to use dowels. But the important thing is that I now know the right way to do it, and I know my way will at least work, and I know why some other designs won't work. I won't blindly follow plans or make design compromises out of ignorance. And one day soon, I'll make something the right way.

I knocked a star off of the rating because the book is an anthology of previously-published material and kind of a broad-ranging hodgepodge. But it is an excellent hodgepodge nonetheless.

I think books like this should be read not just by people who aim to build furniture but by anyone who uses furniture.

I would not recommend this book to a complete beginner. There are more important books that should be read first (like Tage Frid's books and Taunton Press' "Basics of Craftmanship"). However, assuming that you have a bit of background and experience in woodworking this book is a great way to build your skills in designing great furniture or cabinetry as well as confronting the occasional design decision that creeps into "cook-book" projects.

Since this book is compiled from articles from Fine Woodworking Magazine there is a great breadth of topics and each topic that is covered is explored in depth. However, there are still a great deal of design related topics that are not touched upon. Make no mistake, this is not a textbook of furniture/cabinetry design. It is a collection of design focused magazine articles. Infact, some of the articles aren't even that focused on design. If you want to focus on design and design alone, this isn't the book for you.

Some of the articles are better written than others, although all are well written and applicable to pretty much any woodworker. The way the articles are grouped together is sometimes baffling, but if you just treat this as a thick magazine with no advertising and no fluff, you'll be impressed.

This is a great read and an important book to have in your woodworking library. As a woodworker that builds "stuff", you won't be able to avoid design decisions, and this book is a great way of getting your feet wet and stepping away from the complete construction plans you see in every woodworking magazine.

Taunton Press has two collections of articles on woodworking design in publication. As the title indicated, this collection focuses in the practical issues of furniture design, primarily to do with construction decisions. Speaking as someone who has occasionally 'created' himself into a corner, this is important material. After all, it never hurts to have a good grasp of what it really is going to take to make an interesting idea into a good piece of furniture.

Well illustrated and lucidly presented the six sections are Conceiving Your Projects, Organizing Your Projects, Engineering Furniture to Last, Construction Options for Tables, Construction Options for Cabinets, and Construction Options for Chairs. Each section contains articles of considerable interest. The detailing on table construction and the two articles on chair making are particularly interesting. Both focus on the 'holistic' factors of the project rather than simply covering joinery.

By fitting into the niche that sees design and construction as a process, the reader will come to see how each decision effects the final outcome. This means that what you see in your imagination is more likely to appear in front of you as finished work. While this is not a volume for beginners, taking the time to go through this book and understand the principals will keep you out of trouble and increase your satisfaction with the final product.