Wooden Houses: Wood's Natural Beauty in Architecture and Interiors

With evocative text by Judith Miller and inspiring photographs by James Merrell, "Wooden Houses" explores the decorative potential of wood in our homes. Wooden houses range from Midwestern prairie clapboard houses with wraparound porches to wood-framed barns converted into airy living spaces. Wood has always played a part in consturction, architecture, and interior decoration and has long been valued for its practical benefits. Its insulating qualities, for example,made it an obvious choice for Scandinavian homes, and so the familiar log houses came into existence. But the vast decorative potential of wood has ensured its continued use, as evidenced by 19th-century houses with elaborately carved gables and bargeboards. Indoors, wood surrounds us in many ways. Structural elements such as oak-beamed and vaulted ceilings become features in their own right. Wood can also be used as further embellishement in the form of beautiful paneling or carved and turned banisters and staircases, and in original furniture designs. Whether it is left in its natural state to show the variety of grains and depths of colours, or used as a canvas for paint techniques, wood is a beautiful resource. *A celebration of the natural beauty of wood in decoration, interiors, and architecture. *Includes an introduction to the main architchtural styles.