Estimating Tables for Home Building by Paul I. Thomas (Craftsman Book Company, 1990; 800/829-8123). Softcover, 81/2x11, 334 pages. $21.50. Estimating whole house construction often requires builders to choose between the lesser of two evils. Do you spend an inordinate amount of time considering every item in the house, knowing that you may lose the bid? Or do you shoot from the hip and toss out a price, knowing that you may lose your shirt? In Estimating Tables for Home Building, author Paul Thomas has come up with a system that combines the best of both approaches. According to Thomas, if you know the square footage and the perimeter of a building, you can use the tables in his book to work up a
