WHAT KIND OF HOUSE?

I don't know what kind of house I'll end up with. I'm hoping that I can find something the town eccentric used to live in, or a house made from a barn or an old workshop. If so, I can have a living room like the one above, which is a place to work as well as relax.

I love the way the loft creates a dark shadow space which makes for a great contrast with the white light in the rest of the room.

 In my fantasies the town eccentric also left behind a large, cozy, old-fashion kitchen like the one above.

 Of course there's some nice modern kitchens, too.

I have a lot of books and papers so a hallway like this one (above) would be much appreciated.

It would be nice to have a lawn with old-growth trees in front. I'm a big believer in front gardens rather than front lawns.

But what am I talking about? I can't afford the kind of architecturally sophisticated house you see above. The likelihood is that I'll end up in a tract house that simply has more square footage than the place I'm living in now. *Sigh.*

Well, the one thing I can afford to control is the lighting. Wherever I end up rest assured that it'll be lit like a Hollywood set. It'll be a place to park the lamps I've been accumulating over the years.

How do you like the hanging lamp above? It's a one-of-a-kind item I got from a library book.

THINKING ABOUT HOUSES

Now that Christmas is over my thoughts turn once again to what kind of house I can expect to live in when I move out of L.A. (Sigh!) I'll miss the California ranch style (above).

If I end up with a small house maybe I can convert it into something nice. I like the simple, open-plan living room, above. The blue sofa makes a nice contrast with the varnished wood.

Here's (above) a light and airy living room furnished by Ikea. The curtains unexpectedly turn out to be a potent unifying element.

I like wide living rooms with low ceilings. This room (above) is by Frank Lloyd Wright. 

In California you hear of people converting outdoor pre-fab tool sheds into tiny offices. It would be a place to get work done if the house were too noisy. I wonder what the zoning laws say about this.

Here's (above) another outdoor office. Gee, all that glass would make it hard to heat. It looks great, though.

Wow! I love the way this dark, woody bedroom looks! It would be like sleeping in a cabin in the Klondike.

This unusually dark room raises a question: would it be wise to allow each bedroom to have its own unique look and feel? Would a house with wildly different rooms be a platypus?

A TERRIFIC SMALL LIVING ROOM

I'm still looking for ideas I can use when I find a new house. I'm on a budget so I'll have to make a Devil's Choice: a small house with complex and interesting shapes, or a larger house with boring rooms but decent square-footage. I'd gladly take the small place if I could find something like this (above), but what are the chances of that? 

Is this living room practical? I'm not sure. The open staircase means that sound from the living room goes unimpeded up to the rooms above, and that could cause arguments. On the other hand, it's soooo cozy and artsy. I like the level changes on the floors between rooms, too.

  

I wouldn't have picked some of this furniture (above) myself but I like the color contrast. 

If I were to have a large, simplified color graphic on the wall I might choose something like this (above).

Here's (above) another room in the same house.  Once again the color and dark textures read great against white. 

Maybe I'll get lucky and find something big and cheap (above)...but I doubt it.

That's all I have to say for now. I'll end with this infinitely cool coffee table that dominates the room. I wonder where you'd find something like that? I'd probably have to make it myself.

WHAT KIND OF LIVING ROOM?

What kind of living room do you prefer? Me, I like ones with lots of light, like the one designed by Carl Larsson above. Actually, my source might have mislabeled this picture. It looks more like a sewing room to me, but its nice and cheery, and there are elements that would be nice in a living room. Click to enlarge.

Amazingly, after decades of modernism the classic American living room (above) still holds up as an ideal.  The problem is that this was created for the kind of tasteful New England interiors they were building in 1920, and it looks a little out of place in most modern houses.

 


Some people (above) should have their license to decorate revoked. Really, if you can't do it yourself you should plead with a friend to help you out. 

Maybe more chords would help.

Here's (above) a sculptor's living room. The furniture is islands of marble and there's a forest of tall, awkward sculptures. It's completely impractical, but I like the idea of a house that reflects the vocation of the owner.  One kind of house for the accountant and the blacksmith is tyranny.

Yikes! A modernist nightmare (above)! I'd go nuts if I had to live there.

Funny living rooms (above) are seldom comfortable.

Sometimes people's hobbies (above) dominate the room.

Am I imagining it, or are living rooms dwindling in significance these days? Nowadays living rooms are often showcase rooms and the real action takes place elsewhere, in the rec rooms and kitchens. Some people have even converted their living rooms into offices. 

Some living rooms are absurdly small now.

On the other hand, kitchens have grown enormously. They're cozy, social spaces now.  The kitchens shown above and below belonged to the sculptor, Alexander Calder.

This wall in Calder's kitchen looks like it's hewn out of rock, but I'll bet it's plaster or stucco.

Eames, the designer, favored the austere living room shown above. You can't get much more minimal than that. I think Steve Job's house was like this.

Here's (above) another view of the same room. The sofa is pushed out of the way by a big, wooden slab. I guess Eames liked slabs.

Most hippies had little use for living rooms. Sometimes they didn't even furnish them. For hippies, the important thing was the bedroom, and above all, the sacred water bed.

The exception was rich hippie futurists who were partial to fuzzy living rooms with soft, rounded edges. 

Come to think of it, hippie musicians liked living rooms, too. The rooms were dimly lit and had lots of funny furnishings. 

The last living room I saw and liked was the one in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam." It recently played on the Turner channel. It was funky, but seemed like the kind of place where memorable events would happen.