Remodeling planner makes home work easy

Before you attempt to remodel or build your dream home, you might want to pick up Sheri Koones' handy guide to home building.

"From Sand Castles to Dream Houses: A Planner for Building or Remodeling Your Home" (Hanley-Wood LLC, $24.99) covers everything you'd ever need to know about renovating and home building.

Koones of Greenwich, Conn., wrote the book after completing a home remodel about six years ago.

"I bought a house that was very tired," Koones said in a telephone interview. "Before I knew it, I was gutting the entire house and renovating it."

Koones discovered the lengthy process of remodeling was frustrating and difficult. She was unfamiliar with terms and soon discovered there was more to it than she realized.

"When I was trying to get involved in the process, I took out every book on home building and none were totally adequate," she said. "I decided with all this research I was doing, I'd write my own book when I finished."

What resulted, after two years of researching, is Koones' handy guide for the average homeowner, written in everyday, simple language.

The book covers selecting a home site, working out a budget, hiring, negotiating and working with architects, general contractors, interior designers and landscape professionals.

In the chapter "Kitchen Essentials," Koones gives information about kitchen layouts, cabinets and and flooring.

In the chapter "Selecting Systems for Your Home," Koones talks about security, lighting and audiovisual systems and gives details right down to components of a telephone system.

"The book has all the information I would have liked to have had when I was remodeling my home," Koones said.

The book, designed to be compact, includes an extensive glossary of terms that helps the layperson understand the language of painters, plumbers and other contractors.

"You can carry it along with you," Koones said. "If you're unfamiliar with a term, you can just look it up."

The book includes a notebook section that allows homeowners to keep track of the project. It has room for taking notes and a place to store clippings or swatches.

"It reminds you to do things you might not have thought about," Koones said. "I kept a diary when I was doing my house. So I took a lot of what I did and put it in my book. I developed a planner for people."

Koones also includes a resource list of relevant magazines, companies, books and Web sites to make finding information quick and easy.

"I love magazines, and I would buy every magazine that had a house on it," she said. "What I did was pinpoint the magazines that would be relevant to the project. There's a lot of information that I wished I'd known."