Work Wonders With Antiques

BOOKS

So, you’ve found this really wonderful antique but don’t know what to do with it. Put it in the living room or den? Or maybe it’ll fit best in the garage with all those other really wonderful antiques you’ve collected over the years.

Caroline Clifton-Mogg’s “Decorating With Antiques” ($40, Bulfinch Press, 1999) says forget the garage and bring them it into the light. This heavily illustrated book explains how to use antiques as eye-grabbing centerpieces and accents or how to build an entire unified style around them.

Besides decorating ideas, Clifton-Mogg points out ways to identify the most popular antique styles, such as Art Deco, Empire and Regency. It’s a classy book that leans toward people with deep pockets, but more modest collectors can also benefit from it.

Exterior Decorator

The premise of Catriona Tudor Erler’s “Garden Rooms” ($19, Time-Life Books, 1999) is that gardens should be approached as extensions of the rooms inside your home. In other words, do some careful planning to make your backyard a cozy, welcoming environment.

Erler describes the steps needed to build garden entrances, create an illusion of an enclosed space and even make a floor for your garden. Along the way, she notes how to best use trellises, fences, hedges, ornamental plants, lighting, furnishings, bird baths and bird feeders.

THE WEB / For Outhouse Aficionados

The outhouse obsession just seems to be growing. Although hard to figure the reason, more and more curious folk are checking into the Outhouses of America Tour on the Web at https://www.mich.com/~jloose/ohindex.shtml, where John Loose, the site’s creator, has been expanding his offerings.

Loose still doesn’t fully explain his fascination, but he continues to document his outhouse love with dozens of stories and photos of outhouses from around the country and beyond. Favorites include those found in Yellowstone Park and near a Cuban beachfront.

Loose features new outhouse poetry and tributes, including the much-clicked history of Thomas Crapper, the man credited with inventing the modern toilet.

Lots of Answers

Another growing, but a tad more traditional, site is HouseNet at https://www.housenet.com, an all-in-one site that covers the home and garden.

Katie and Gene Hamilton, who have written more than a dozen home improvement books, run the site, which covers everything from planting tips to ways to hang holiday lights.

Popular areas include a do-it-yourself section that lets you input info and find out what a job will cost in contrast to what a professional would charge. HouseNet responds to visitors’ requests, so this link, as well as others, is routinely updated with new facts and figures.

* To have a book or Web site considered for this column, send information to: Home Design, The Times Orange County, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Mark Chalon Smith also can be reached by e-mail at mark.smith@latimes.com.