# Find a book - old home projects manual **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 25, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/find-a-book-old-home-projects-manual/667134 "2013-08-25T16:41:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/find-a-book-old-home-projects-manual/667134/1 "2013-08-25T16:41:39Z")
When I was a kid, we had a fantastic old book of home projects and money-saving techniques, kind of like a big compendium of _Popular Mechanics_ articles. I suspect it was left at the house, which had been built by an eccentric and cheap builder immediately after WWII. Quite a few of the “projects” were evident in the house construction and fittings. I’ve done some desultory searches without finding it. Not sure if the collective Doper intelligence system can do any better, but… [ul] [li]Published 1940-1945, maybe two years more either side.[/li][li]Big book, at least 9x12, maybe a bit bigger, maybe 300-350 pages, heavy.[/li][li]Hardcover in a leather or leatherette cordovan (red-brown) with gold stamping[/li][li]Printed in black with tint blue (and maybe tint brown, too) illustrations.[/li][li]Held maybe 100-200 projects from making a bedroom look like a ship’s cabin to painting car fenders with a brush to building an induction-coil stove to many other fascinating things.[/li][li]Title was something vaguely like “Handy Home Projects” or “Projects for the Handy Homeowner” or something equally generic.[/li][/ul] Anyone? Bueller? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/find-a-book-old-home-projects-manual/667134/2 "2013-08-26T02:58:56Z")
Try this search site: [http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchEntry?ds=50](http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchEntry?ds=50) Play around with various options, for example “popular mechanics” as publisher, maybe projects as keyword or title. Use the date range. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/find-a-book-old-home-projects-manual/667134/3 "2013-08-26T03:18:15Z")
maybe focus on prewar or early war. the war did use lots of resources used to make books.