When Joe Murphy's wife, Linda, spies an ad for a "beautiful 3-story Victorian house in need of some TLC," the couple jumps at the chance for their dream home. Renovating it will allow them to indulge their passion for antiques and to get closer to an era they believe was a better time. Privately, Joe hopes that the project will also fill the void that has opened within their family life. They embark upon a grueling three-year renovation to restore the house to its former splendor, and everything seems perfect...until the morning Joe awakes to find a horse-drawn milk cart in his driveway and...

After Scottish architect Robert Kerr (1823 1904) published this book in 1864, he was given a commission to build what would become his best-known work, Bearwood House, in Berkshire, for the then proprietor of The Times of London, John Walter. Kerr gives a thorough explanation of the elements involved in the planning and building of a 'comfortable English Residence of the better sort' in this book, which is divided into five parts. The first gives a detailed historical account of the 'domestic plan' from the eleventh century to the present day. The subsequent sections leave no corner of a...