Second Home: Find Your Place in the Fun (Better Homes and Gardens(R))

Rating:
Summary: This is my primer on casual cottage style
Review: What I like about this book is that it blends the practical and pragmatic with the dreamy and romantic. It's a book I keep going back to, either simply to look at and dream with or to get specific tips from. Although the book doesn't go into great detail on any one topic, it covers all the bases about deciding on a cottage/vacation home location and style, gives tips on how to shop around, touches on fianances and taxes, and then shows one glorious yet somehow believable vacation home after another. This is a gorgeous book, but it's more than a dream book. It seems to be written for real people (not the rich and famous!) who are sincerely interested in finding, decorating, even building or remodeling a great getaway home. I "gifted" myself with this, but I now find I'm buying copies as gifts for friends who, like me, long to have a retreat.