Craig Balzer
Well-known member
Garages, Laura Gross, Creative Publishing International, Vanhassen, Minnesota, 2005 (ISBN: 1-58923-182-1)
This is a soft bound 8 ½ x 11 book with 135 pages. The book has 148 photos so it is well supported with images. All are color and many are absolutely huge: sometimes there is a pair of pages with a total of two photographs on them and virtually no text. There are 7 sketches or diagrams. Every photo has a large caption beneath it; but many are useless or merely lavish in praise.
Cover price is $16.95
The book has 5 chapters. I will again list them because the titles tell you about everything you need to know about this book:
..... Multi-Use Garage – 28 pages (with sections dedicated to Gardening & Lawn Care and Entertaining)
..... Garage Workshop – 24 pages
..... Restoration and Display – 18 pages
..... Conversion to Living Space – 30 pages
..... Approach – 22 pages
That’s a total 94 pages of content and 52 of them (55%) dedicated to making a garage into something it wasn’t designed to be or improving the approach to your house or its curb appeal.
That pretty much sums it up.
The chapter on Workshops showed promise, but . . . . . Its sections include:
- organization and storage (eh);
- workbenches (2 photos and 1 paragraph);
- tool storage (6 photos and 3 paragraphs);
- wiring (1 photo of a sub-panel mostly hidden by a shower curtain? and 3 sentences);
- mobile bases (.5 a page);
- air quality (summary would be: open your windows for fresh air);
- heating (1 paragraph, 1 photo, 1 page);
- lighting 2 photos, 2 sketches, 4 paragraphs (but small ones) on 2 pages
There were a handful of useful ideas:
o You know those ladders on wheels they have in large book stores or libraries. Yeah, the ones that slide the length of the bookcases and give you access to the books way on the top shelf. See how I’m waving hands? Well, that idea is on page 18. It’s an idea I never considered and gives those of us with garage envy a poor-man’s loft: shelving across the very top of the wall.
o Tubular skylights – brings sunlight through the attic or rafters to the point you want the light. The tube is lined with a reflective surface.
o When laying out a drive way, add an extra layer of Dense Grade Aggregate from the curb about 20 feet onto your property. This is the high traffic area of the drive and this effort may prevent damage to the surface layer
o Garage comes from the French garer meaning “to drive”
That’s it – you now have all that is useful from the 100 pages of drivel. Gladiator must have a standing retainer fee with these publishers because their stuff – in full color and often the same photograph – shows up in a lot of them.
To be fair to Laura, the sub-title of the book is: “Inspiration and Information for the Do-It-Yourselfer". Lots of H-U-G-E photos. Very pretty. She took her time designing the captions and enlisted a handful of interior decorators to contribute 3 to 5 (small) paragraphs of their thoughts. Whoopee.
Next up, if anyone cares, is The Ultimate Garage, Jeanne Huber, Sunset Books, Menlo Park, California, 2005 (ISBN: 0-376-01201-3).
Craig I-think-read-too-much Balzer
This is a soft bound 8 ½ x 11 book with 135 pages. The book has 148 photos so it is well supported with images. All are color and many are absolutely huge: sometimes there is a pair of pages with a total of two photographs on them and virtually no text. There are 7 sketches or diagrams. Every photo has a large caption beneath it; but many are useless or merely lavish in praise.
Cover price is $16.95
The book has 5 chapters. I will again list them because the titles tell you about everything you need to know about this book:
..... Multi-Use Garage – 28 pages (with sections dedicated to Gardening & Lawn Care and Entertaining)
..... Garage Workshop – 24 pages
..... Restoration and Display – 18 pages
..... Conversion to Living Space – 30 pages
..... Approach – 22 pages
That’s a total 94 pages of content and 52 of them (55%) dedicated to making a garage into something it wasn’t designed to be or improving the approach to your house or its curb appeal.
That pretty much sums it up.
The chapter on Workshops showed promise, but . . . . . Its sections include:
- organization and storage (eh);
- workbenches (2 photos and 1 paragraph);
- tool storage (6 photos and 3 paragraphs);
- wiring (1 photo of a sub-panel mostly hidden by a shower curtain? and 3 sentences);
- mobile bases (.5 a page);
- air quality (summary would be: open your windows for fresh air);
- heating (1 paragraph, 1 photo, 1 page);
- lighting 2 photos, 2 sketches, 4 paragraphs (but small ones) on 2 pages
There were a handful of useful ideas:
o You know those ladders on wheels they have in large book stores or libraries. Yeah, the ones that slide the length of the bookcases and give you access to the books way on the top shelf. See how I’m waving hands? Well, that idea is on page 18. It’s an idea I never considered and gives those of us with garage envy a poor-man’s loft: shelving across the very top of the wall.
o Tubular skylights – brings sunlight through the attic or rafters to the point you want the light. The tube is lined with a reflective surface.
o When laying out a drive way, add an extra layer of Dense Grade Aggregate from the curb about 20 feet onto your property. This is the high traffic area of the drive and this effort may prevent damage to the surface layer
o Garage comes from the French garer meaning “to drive”
That’s it – you now have all that is useful from the 100 pages of drivel. Gladiator must have a standing retainer fee with these publishers because their stuff – in full color and often the same photograph – shows up in a lot of them.
To be fair to Laura, the sub-title of the book is: “Inspiration and Information for the Do-It-Yourselfer". Lots of H-U-G-E photos. Very pretty. She took her time designing the captions and enlisted a handful of interior decorators to contribute 3 to 5 (small) paragraphs of their thoughts. Whoopee.
Next up, if anyone cares, is The Ultimate Garage, Jeanne Huber, Sunset Books, Menlo Park, California, 2005 (ISBN: 0-376-01201-3).
Craig I-think-read-too-much Balzer