Titles: The Not So Big House, Creating the Not So Big House, Not So Big Solutions for your Home
Author: Sarah Susanka
Occasionally described as the JK Rowling of architecture, Sarah Susanka's books all follow a similar theme-- smaller, exceptionally designed homes with personal details are much more pleasant to live in than impersional McMansions.
In the next six or seven months, we'll be going through the process of buying a new home. When we bought our last two houses, our MO was simple-- buy the biggest house we could afford (and it probably still wouldn't be big enough). This time, it's a different situation. We're looking in areas where most of the houses are older and need some remodeling, and we need to resist the urge to buy a house with lots of square footage just because we can. Reading Sarah Susanka's books has helped me open my eyes to the details I need to look for in a home (the flow of the floor-plan or the bones of the house, for example) and has taught me that rooms (just like moms) can be great multitaskers. I had already decided that a formal dining room probably wouldn't get much use by our family, but hadn't realized that a wall of desk space and cabinetry in the playroom could do away with the need for a separate work room for the kids. The books all tend to blend together after a while. I have three more in my reading pile, but I think I'll wait a while before tackling them.
1 comment:
These look like really cool books Shelah. People always wondered how we lived in our 1200 sq.ft. house with three kids, but we did and it was quite comfortable. I would have appreciated a large pantry.... More space isn't always better.
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