Your Ideas - New Book on Small Farmhouse Plans

[djberg]

Can you please give me your ideas on a new book that I'm working on? It should be available on Amazon.com within the next few weeks, but I still have time to make changes. You can download a free preview copy if you don't mind answering three quick questions: What do you think of the book? What do you think that I should change? and How much should I charge for the softcover book?

The new book is a complete reprint of the 1935 booklet, Farmhouse Plans, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with forty small house designs, in a twenty-first century edition with Internet sources of free working drawings and construction details. It's called Prosperity Plans: How to Create a Low-Cost Small Home That Can Grow Over Time.

I thought that today's architects, builders and prospective homeowners could learn a little bit from the USDA booklet's series of fascinating "Growing House" designs created in 1934. That was the time of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl droughts, when American's faced economic horrors that make today's problems seem mild. The Growing Houses all started with attractive cottages, each with a kitchen and one or two multi-purpose rooms. Carefully planned additional stages of construction added more bedrooms and more formal living spaces with very little demolition and little or no disruption of family life. Each stage created a new home that looked as good or better than the one before it.

There's a new forward, photos of the homes and the times, and links to Internet sources of free downloadable copies of the houses' original construction drawings and building details.

Please take a look and let me know what you think:

Free Preview Copy - Prosperity Plans ( https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1065266 )



Thank you!
Don

[highlands]

Don,

See here:

http://images.google.com/images?q=si...tiny%20cottage

for what we did for our farm house.

Good luck with your book.

Cheers,

-Walter

[djberg]

Walter,

Yes, I've watched your house grow on your website. Cool construction! I hope that it's as cozy as you planned it to be - it has been a cold winter in Vermont.

Don

[highlands]

It's wonderful and cozy. I wish we had built it 20 years ago rather than suffering in the old drafty farm house we lived in for so long.

[djberg]

Walter,

Congratulations! It's nice to see that hard work pays off.

And, thanks for the kind words about Prosperity Plans.

Free, downloadable preview copies of the new book are still available:

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1065266

Don

[calliemoonbeam]

Hi Don! Don't know if you remember, but we had a discussion a while back and I said I was one of your biggest fans. I mentioned that I had bought some of your earlier books, including "Shoppell's Modern Houses" and several others, back in the 80s. You said "Oh, so you're the one!" lol

Well, after finding out through that conversation how many other books you had out, I've since purchased several more and have more on my "to buy" list. I think this one will be just as great as the others, and I'm honored to have a first look at it, thank you.

I filled out the review form and sent it in. Good luck with this latest venture and thanks for including us again!

I just went in and tried to see the previews (wanted to see what others had said, lol), and it says "Preview no longer available." Oh well, hope they were all good!

[djberg]

Callie,

Yes, of course I remember you. Thank you very much for your kind words and for going to the trouble of reviewing my new book.

Your comments make perfect sense. I focused on the fact that the 1934 designs in the book were small but designed to grow into bigger, more comfortable homes. I liked the idea that the underemployed architects and down-on-their-luck farmers in the middle of the Great Depression were looking ahead to better days.

But, you're right about the other aspects of the designs. I liked that the little homes were specifically designed for families who ran small farms and that many included root cellars, pantries, mud rooms, wash rooms and work porches. I also liked that they were designed specifically for different regions of the U.S. and included some of the passive solar and shading techniques that you mentioned.

In terms of passive solar, I'm already collecting material from USDA home designs and other sources for a future book. Some people on this forum already sent me some great ideas.

So far, the reviewers have given Prosperity Plans an average of four out of a possible five stars, which isn't too bad. They've given me some good ideas on how to make the book better.

Thanks for your help.

Don

[djberg]

Thank you to everyone who went to the trouble of taking a look at my new book. Free, downloadable preview copies are still available to anyone who is interested:

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1065266

I'd like to respond to a couple of specific reviews.

A.H. in Canada,
Yes, the pages of the reprinted, 1935 book are lopsided in the downloadable version. But, I think, or at least I hope, that will be eliminated in the softcover book. There is a little extra space on the binding side of each page that gives the pages poor alignment in the downloadable PDF preview version. Since eBooks are the thing now, I'm going to try to fix that for the next printing.

And, yes, as you and others mentioned, I should go into more detail about the building and expansion methods. I'm jotting notes for the next edition already.


J.D. in West Central Florida,
Yes, you're absolutely right that the plans don't meet today's building codes (particularly in Florida). I mentioned that somewhere in the book but, possibly didn't stress it enough. I have a big notice about that fact on the resource website (www.ProsperityPlans.net) that accompanies the book. People can download free prints of the original construction plans for the homes. But those were all drawn in 1934 and all need a bunch of changes to meet today's codes and standards.

The 1934 house plans are wonderful for design ideas, but shouldn't be built without updates.

Thank you!

Don