The winter holidays may be a wonderful season, but the long months that follow can be very long indeed. An engaging book can provide a mini-holiday that makes the journey toward spring a bit more bearable, especially if the book provides inspiration for next year’s remodeling projects. Looking over the stacks of this year’s remolding, home-improvement and design books, I found a few selections inspiring enough to recommend.

On top of my list, a brief, readable design guide about small but thoughtful makeovers. Architect Duo Dickinson’s Staying Put: Remodel Your House to Get the Home You Want(The Taunton Press, November 15, 2011), provides a painless approach to put the pleasure back into living at home. With today’s limited budget at the focus of every example, he walks you through typical floor plan revisions in simple language, and with an experienced eye to remove irritations (make the hallway less depressing) and improve livability (add big storage in small places).   

Following another social trend exacerbated by the recession, not only are many of us staying put, but we’re doubling up. Michael Litchfield’s In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats: Your Guide to Turning One House into Two Homes(The Taunton Press, March 15, 2011) explores the many ways and means of adding a complete, independent living area to your existing home. From providing an affordable and dignified place for a parent, to a safe and independent landing pad for an adult child, Lichfield presents the options in terms of basements, garage conversions, stand-alone suites and bump-outs, carve-outs and attics. The author came on the mini-home-within-the-home concept after personal crises caused him to downsize. Perhaps because of this, Lichfield adds a rare human element for a design book by including 26 case studies of not only how and what, but why individuals chose to make a second dwelling unit, and how it all worked out.  

For a contemporary idea book full of beautiful pictures and real-people design concepts, you can’t do better, or have much more fun, than thumbing through the pages of Grace Bonney’s Design Sponge at Home(Artisan, September 6, 2011). The founder of Design*Sponge, a daily Web site dedicated to home and product design, Bonney has gathered an impressive collection of great ideas that will rekindle your enthusiasm for your home, including many projects you can do right now, while the weather remains frightful — why wait for spring remodeling season to begin?

We're always looking for other good book recommendations. Tell us what book you'd like to recieve this holiday season. Post your suggestions in the comments section below!

Handyman Club Life member Fernando Pagés Ruiz is a homebuilder and remodeler with 30 years’ experience and the author of Affordable Remodel: How to Get Custom Results on Any Budget (The Taunton Press, 2007).