The Practical Builder: The Classic 18th-Century Handbook

This 1774 guidebook for English carpenters was one of the earliest "do-it-yourself" manuals ever published. The builders´ manuals and pattern books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered carpenters and other construction workers important resources for designs and techniques. Those unable to afford an architect´s services could feel confident in the good taste of their residence by selecting designs from a pattern book. Employing elementary arithmetic and geometry, the guide´s annotated and meticulously rendered engravings depict cross-sections of chimney-pieces, ceilings, cornices, and other architectural details. William Pain´s manual was one of the earliest such works published in the United States. Printed in Philadelphia in 1797, it helped standardize key aspects of Federal architecture and served as a model for construction at George Washington´s Mount Vernon home. Reprinted from an original 1774 edition, this is the only available version of a splendid reference for architectural historians and those with an interest in classical architecture.