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 This week's Home section features a new book: “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations” by Debra Prinzing with more than 200 photographs by William Wright, Clarkson Potter, $30.
Pictured here is a 124-square-foot shed, inspired by midcentury modern architecture, in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. Designed and built by Seattle-based Modern Shed, the shed is owned by Lin Su, who needed more space for entertaining and painting.
The book's author is making several local appearances:
May 31: Local Hero Books, Gifts & Wine Tasting, Ojai, 3 p.m.
June 7: Botanik, Summerland, (805) 565-3831, 1 to 3 p.m.
June 28: Descanso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, 10 a.m. to noon
See more photos
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 How Your House Works: A visual guide to understanding and maintaining your home, by Charlie Wing
About a month or so ago, my favorite table lamp began making a crackling sound near the base. So I unplugged it and pondered my options.
I considered taking it to a nearby electric shop. Then I considered taking it to the tool shop that recently replaced the cord on my power sander. That cost $46, nearly one-third the price of a new sander.
But the lamp would be well worth a fee like that. It cost only $15 at a swap meet, but it's an unusually pleasing blend of red enamel and brass with a mod metal shade and definitely not something to set out with the garbage.
About that time, I picked up a copy of "How Your House Works," a book written by home improvement expert Charlie Wing, and my thinking started to shift away from being rescued by a shop and toward taking charge of my own repair.
There are scads of home fix-it books in print, maybe thousands of them.
What raises this one to the top of the heap are the large, clear color illustrations of what the insides of things in a house look like.
And when you see what's inside a garbage disposal, for instance, you might be able to fix it -- or at least unclog it.
Read the whole review
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 "Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House" by Daniel P. Gregory, with photographs by Joe Fletcher and a foreword by Joel Silver. (Rizzoli; 256 pages; $60)
Reviewed by Robert Nebolon
(Robert Nebolon, a Berkeley architect, designed a contemporary Hermosa Beach home featured previously on this blog.)
Cliff May, the father of the California ranch house, is finally getting his due. Thanks to Daniel P. Gregory’s superb book “Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House,” the work of this prolific Los Angeles-based architect is finally being recognized.
As much as members of the Los Angeles architectural community rave about their modern architectural history (they should; it’s quite impressive), Cliff May seems never to get mentioned. Maybe it’s because of those wagon wheels out in front of his houses.
Yet it’s hard to imagine an architect whose work affects more Westerners on a daily basis than Cliff May. Most of us have either owned a ranch-style house ourselves or had friends who lived in one. These houses are found everywhere.
Gregory’s book explains how May blended Spanish courtyard houses with modern open plans filled with modern conveniences to create an elegant contemporary house well suited for the hot, dry climate found in the Southwest.
Read on »
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 Greening-your-home books are sprouting like alfalfa seeds. New choices this year include:
Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life (Clarkson Potter, February, $18 paper) by Ed Begley Jr. The author shares his eco-experiences and offers advice on what works and what will save readers money.
Green House: Eco-Friendly Disposal and Recycling at Home (M. Evans, June, $9.95 paper) by Norm Crampton. Suggests tips for recycling a variety of household items.
Using Natural Finishes: A Step-by-Step Guide (Chelsea Green, May, $40 paper) by Adam Weisman and Katy Bryce. Addresses the environmental and practical benefits of natural plasters and paints.
Easy Green Living: The Ultimate Guide to Simple Eco-Friendly Choices for You and Your Home (Rodale, April, $25 paper) by Renée Loux. Suggests using nontoxic, environmentally safe products to enhance personal and planetary health.
Black and Decker: The Complete Guide to the Green Home: The Good Citizen's Guide to Earth-Friendly Remodeling & Home Maintenance (Rockport, May, $24.95 paper) by Phillip Schmidt.
Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home (Dutton, April, $24.95) by Christopher Gavigan. Features essays from experts and notable parents.
Green-Up Your Cleanup (Creative Homeowner, March, $16.95 paper) by Jill Potvin Schoff. Explains how to replace toxic household cleaners with natural solutions.
And not a green home book, but notable:
Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fast-Food–Fueled Mercedes, and a Cross-Country Trip in Search of Greener Pastures (Algonquin, October, $15.95 paper) by Greg Melville. The author and a college buddy traverse the country—without using any fossil fuel—to investigate what's being done to preserve the planet.
— Compiled by Publishers Weekly More . . .
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 Why do we elect politicians who pass legislation to benefit the rich? My theory is that we all think we could be rich someday (most of us won't be!) and we want the laws set in place when we get there.
I mean, isn't that one of the main advantages of living in the United States, the idea that a person of average means can become wealthy?
And so perhaps that's why I picked up a copy of Real Estate Tax Secrets of the Rich, a new book by CPA Sandy Botkin. I figured I should know what the rich know about real estate and taxes.
And here's something I learned: When it's time to sell my house, I will be taxed on the sales price minus my "basis," (which includes the purchase price and improvements, and maybe some other stuff) and I'll want my basis as high as possible. According to Botkin, improvements to a house are added to the basis, while repairs are not.
"The main key to whether something is a repair or an improvement," Botkin writes, "is determined by whether it is new or not. New doors would be an improvement, but repairing the door or door handle would be a repair."
The following, he writes, have been held by the courts to be improvements:
• New doors
• New iron grills on windows
• New skylights
• New windows
• New permanent partitions
• New roofs (although some courts have held this to be repairs)
• New floors
• Rewiring
Plus, he writes, I can also include these items that are not necessarily built-in, but which transfer with the house: bookcases, sinks, lighting fixtures, refrigerators, stoves, dishwasher, fire and burglar alarms, cabinets and storage sheds, television antenna and wiring, washers and dryers, and automatic garage doors.
And finally, he said if a repair is part of an overall improvement plan that will add value to the home, and I can prove it was part of a grander plan (maybe tucked inside a home improvement contract), that repair could be added to the basis.
The key to benefiting from the tax secrets of the rich is discussing all these strategies with your tax professional for your particular situation.
And then dahling (channel Katharine Hepburn's accent here), let's do get together for a latte when we're rich!
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 As the phrase "green building" becomes fixed in the American vocabulary, a big question arises: What exactly is it?
The concept of green building has evolved over recent decades. In the 1960s, the back-to-nature movement meant log cabins, sod roofs and wood-burning stoves.
However, the population of the country has nearly doubled since 1960, from 179 million to more than 300 million today. And with housing units increasing from 58 million in 1960 to more than 112 million today (according to the U.S. Census), there is growing awareness that buildings -- how they are constructed, operated and deconstructed -- are a major part of either the problem or the solution to current crises with energy, water, pollution and global warming.
Some estimates say buildings are responsible for 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The focus today is not so much on "getting in touch with the Earth" as saving it from environmental catastrophe.
And a slew of new books aims to help us understand how building green can move that cause along. Among them are "Green Building A to Z: Understanding the Language of Green Building" and "Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies."
Both books have merit, but each provides a different perspective.
Green building is often broken down into three areas of concern: 1) energy and water efficiency, 2) renewable and recycled materials and 3) health and comfort.
That simple, and simplified, shorthand is good to remember when the barrage of green-building terms and abbreviations comes your way: on-demand water heaters, rigid foam insulation, gray water system, CFC, VOC, LEED and LED.
Read on »
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 If you're interested in feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of placement, Amy Hubbard, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, reviews two of them, as seen in the Real Estate section. Hubbard writes:
It wasn't until I read two new books on feng shui that I realized the mirror facing my living-room window was bouncing good energy out into the frontyard, my sink and stove were locked in a power struggle and a hunk of my house was completely missing.
I told my husband this, and he cocked an eyebrow and continued to read the paper.
Reading these books about the ancient art of object placement from a Western (read: "narrow") viewpoint, it's easy to shake your head at some assertions. Neither book sets out to persuade readers of the merits of these beliefs. Rather, the authors assume you have an interest in the subject. And it's tough not to be curious as proponents -- and books on the subject -- multiply.
MaryAnn Russell's stated purpose in "The Feng Shui Factor" is to demystify the Eastern art and make it useful for Western readers. Does she succeed? Partially. Some points remain a mystery. Advice is given without sufficient explanation. For example: If you are living in a home that is next to a hospital, mortuary or cemetery, keep an exterior light on 24 hours a day. Or: Avoid placing pictures of living people on the mantel. Why?
Read the whole review
Read on »
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 When considering a $40 kitchen design book, you must ask the question: Is this any better than the countless -- and less expensive -- magazines at the checkout stand that explore the same subject?
"Lyn Peterson's Real Life Kitchens" is superior to magazines when you read her text: informed, practical and helpful, with none of the breathless excitement -- spectacular, fabulous, must-have, trendy, gorgeous -- some magazines manufacture to capture readers.
However, when you consider some of the photographs, it's the magazine world all over. The rooms you see on the finished pages have that souped-up-model feeling. For a book titled "Real Life Kitchens," you expect a higher degree of reality -- that real people live and cook in these rooms.
If you can accept that the look of some of these rooms may be impossible to achieve in your real life -- unless you've got a line on high-end appliances, never-ending bowls of tulips and strategically placed lighting that emulates streaming sunlight -- and buy the book for the author's knowledge as a kitchen designer, you will have spent your money well.
Peterson is an interior designer and mother of four who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y. She is also the author of "Lyn Peterson's Real Life Decorating" and "Lyn Peterson's Real Life Renovating."
Read on »
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 Remodeling contractors can be infuriating, especially when they stand in your house and respond to your ideas by saying things such as: "That's really going to cost you." Or: "There's going to be maintenance issues with that."
You might reply with a simple: "Thanks for stopping by," but what you're really screaming inside is: "You're supposed to help me realize my dreams, not kill them!"
But after reading "Affordable Remodel," a new Taunton Press book by general contractor and Fine Homebuilding magazine contributor Fernando Pagés Ruiz, it seems more clear to me that many contractors have, as a result of their years in the field, a unique intelligence about what makes economical sense in a remodel and what doesn't.
For instance, adding 6 feet of kitchen space onto the end of the house is monumentally, ridiculously expensive when you consider the grading, foundation, walls and roof that are required. So many tradesmen, so much coordination, so little benefit.
The far more economical way to get a larger kitchen, he explains, is to borrow existing interior square footage from an adjacent space, such as a laundry room or an infrequently used dining room.
Or perhaps you can add a charming bay window, which will give the impression of more space by cantilevering the bay out past the existing foundation.
You can also create the feeling of more space by punching the ceiling up into the attic, which is mostly wasted space here in Southern California.
One idea I really like is capturing the 3 1/2-inch-deep space between wall studs for use as nooks for books, artworks and photos. By installing a wood ledge that extends 2 more inches past the wall, you've got a nice little shelf.
See more book reports
Read on »
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This week's Home section features a new book: “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations” by Debra Prinzing with more than 200 photographs by William Wright, Clarkson Potter, $30.
