. . . are the designs modern or traditional?
We have tried to present a well-rounded group of designs which would fit with a variety of styles of homes of the sort we have observed during our travels about the country in recent years. We know that not all Americans live in the stark, box-like modern homes at which so many of the designs for do-it-yourselfers would seem to be aimed. Nor do we suspect that everyone lives in Cape Cod cottages, or in homes of elaborate traditional design. Rather, we know that people live in a wide variety of houses built in many styles of architecture- some good, some bad, but all of them homes.

Therefore we have tried to give the widest possible choice of different patterns which would enable as many people as possible to find in the book something which would fit in with each particular style of home. Oftentimes, we might point out, a traditional home can be given a fresh look, a new piquancy, by adding a fence, a trellis, or a shelter with a modern flavor to the design. The starkness of modern homes, too, may be tempered by using some such adjunct, which will soften the severity of the architecture, rather than emphasize it. In the custom-designed house of today these two trends are well established, so that the amateur need have no qualms in following these suggestions.

We have tried to avoid the banal, the numerous cliches of design which we find so tiresome in both the modern and the traditional fields. Particularly in the area of traditional design (and occasionally in the modern mode) we find designs so cluttered and so "gimmicky" that they are obviously-at least to the trained observer-out of key with the homes for which they are intended. Good design is always basically simple and architectural. We have tried to hew to this rule so that our projects will integrate well with the average, simple, well-designed, small home of today in the cities and suburbs.