Historic Millwork: A Guide to Restoring and Re-creating Doors, Windows, and Moldings of the Late Nineteenth Through Mid-Twentieth Centuries

This is an excellent, informative and well made book for the experianced crafstman who is faced with many different challanges with old stock dwellings. Those who are expected to work within tight and restrictive guidelines and yet make everyones dreams realized and we are always expected to be succesfull. Paying this price was worth it for us because of its organization and logical progression. It has helped (along with other documentation) to explain our choices to customers, prove an design point in front of historical committee meetings, and make decisions as to the appropriatness of this element or that one. This is a good advanced tool to have.

This is a great book for those doing restoration work on old houses. The only setback for some might be finding an affordable copy. It took me a while to find one that wasn't super pricey. Lots of good technical and historical information and plenty of photos and illustrations make it a worthwhile purchase.

This was an overpriced bound version of a essentially a shopping list of historic molding catalogs with little valuable meaningful information to a modern millwork or architect. The drawings are generally too small to glean detailed information and the print quality is not particularly sharp due to the poor quality of paper and ink. The quaint border around each page takes up important room for penciling in notes. There is a general lack of insight on how the the historic moldings, doors, and windows were actually made in the factories nor any insight how they could be done in a modern millwork. Fine details are glossed over in this book which are covered in other books dedicated to restoration of period window, doors, etc. The book would benefit from a complete rewrite with input from someone with experience in fine finish carpentry. As some guidance, I'd recommend to the author to not waste others money with this overpriced pamphlet which should be made free to download.

This book is a textbook on the history of millwork through the late 19th and early 20th century. If you buy it, you should at least read it cover to cover once, otherwise I think it would be very easy to miss a lot of the detail contained inside. I have found it valuable to use as a springboard into specific subjects that I want to research deeper, historic catalogues (which you can find online scanned or used for purchase), and design ideas. It is pricey for a casual purchase (which I would recommend against), but it is well organized and the quality of the printing good, despite some saying otherwise.

book doesnt have any actual details of millwork and it is way overpriced for the information it includes. i would not reccommend this book.

Reading other reviews, I'm not sure why we have the overall impression that highly specialized references such as this should be bargain basement priced - the costs of writing and producing a book such as this are not inconsiderable, so I feel compelled to defend the author and publisher in that respect.That being said, I'm perhaps the ideal customer for this book in that my home - former military quarters - was built in 1910 and re-fitted by the military at least twice during its life. Trying to figure out what is original and what is retrofitted is very challenging and this book provides an excellent guide for my purposes.If you want pure gratification from a text with lots of color pictures you should know this is not a coffee table book, likewise, it is not a catalog. Nevertheless, I think the serious restoration-minded reader will be very satisfied, as I am.

It looks like carpentry is finally getting due respect if books like this are being published. As an aficionado of architecture and millwork, I've often wondered why we have largely ignored the rich history of carpentry in this country. While many eighteenth and nineteenth-century pattern books have been re-printed, few new books have been devoted to the history of our craft. This is a fine collection of inspiring material from late nineteenth and early twentieth-century millwork catalogues combined with a rich narrative that will add to anyone's understanding and appreciation of woodwork.

This is a wonderful book detailing how millwork evolved from the 1870s until about 1940. It provides a good overview, and is more of a history without getting really in depth. It could just as easily have been titled "An History of Millwork from 1870 to 1940". There are some molding cross sections and quite a few pages out of catalogs of the time. However there could be many more. On the other hand there are many reprinted catalogs available. If I were doing period work, I would consult this book but definitely have old catalogs on hand to have a large selection of details to pick from. Both the architect and the carpenter can find some use in this book.

good