HOME IMPROVEMENTS

I'm rereading Sarah Susanka's book, "The Not So Big House" and it's inspired me to try a couple of home improvements. For specific ideas I need look no farther than the architectural posts on this very Theory Corner site. Maybe it's time to try some of them out instead of just writing about them all the time.

Hmmmm....well, the obvious thing to do would be to would be to replace my living room windows with big natural wood ones like kind on the book cover above. Yikes! That looks pricey! And beams...they're out for the same reason. Too bad. They look great.

Susanka's right about the appeal of small houses (above) where every inch of space gets used. 

You can do all kinds of things with the big kind of wooden kids blocks (above), and I already have a bunch of those. I once saw a fireplace bracketed with blocks in a shape like this.

I have a level change in my back yard and I'm considering changing the retaining wall so it resembles something the Mayans would have done. I could keep the existing wall and brace the new structure against it.

I picture dumping a pile of maybe four different kinds of old weathered bricks on the ground and making a pattern out of them. Maybe I could I could make a few unique bricks with plaster of Paris. Does anybody sell triangular bricks?

I stumbled on this (above) while I was searching for structural foam on the net. Hmmm...white, textured interior wall panels. That sounds promising. All the walls don't have to look like this, just one small one.

I also came across a site that sells colored glass bricks. They were popular in the 60s and 70s with people who had waterbeds and bongs, which is not exactly my thing. Even so, maybe I can think of a use for them.

When my kids were little I painted the nursery walls with pictures of animals (above). It looked so good that I was always thinking of excuses to spend time in there because I liked staring at the walls. Later on the walls were painted over but maybe I should try something like that again.

Oldtime readers of Playboy like myself imbibed Hugh Hefner's aesthetic which required a large abstract painting in the living room, so maybe I need one of those.

Maybe something along the lines of Gary Panter's "Elvis Zombie (above)."

Or a Fearless Fosdick painting.

Or a Cliff Sterett-type picture. My left sidebar is full of interesting possibilities.

I like this curtain pattern by Lucy Cousin. It's a bit girly but it's cartoony and has a good vibe. It wouldn't fit with a zombie painting, though.

I wonder if there's some way I could use those thin, quarry-cut sheets of rock bricks (above) that you see everywhere nowadays. I'd have to use them sparingly because they appear phony when you look close.

How about a pre-fab Japanese fence for the yard (above)...you can't beat that.

Above, Picasso-type panels on the upper floor railing. Great idea!

Maybe built-in bookshelves... if I could afford it. They sure look good. Interior French doors, too.

I like the idea of out-of-the-way shelves that are designed for irregular piles of paper that haven't been sorted yet. This would be a hard sell for my family who wouldn't understand why I saved all that paper in the first place.

NEW TRENDS IN ARCHITECTURE

Reading architect Sarah Susanka's "Creating the Not So Big House" has opened my eyes to what's happening in home architecture now. According to the author the new trend is to customize everything.

 A client that likes to cook might have the kitchen as the central living space (above) and not the living room. In fact, the kitchen might be at the front of the house, with the front door opening directly into it. In the same way any other previously neglected feature can be emphasized and expanded: the homes office or the rec room or even the consevatory.

Here's (above) a home that subordinates everything to...are you ready for this?...the bedrooms! When you enter the house through the front door, this (above) is what you see...the second floor bedroom corridor leading to the over-sized master bedroom in the back. 

Here's the same house, with the same corridor, showing the view of the front door. Everything inside is subordinated to the bedrooms. 

I like this customizing notion, though if the idea is too esoteric the owner might have trouble selling the house. 

This (above) isn't one of Susanka's pictures. I digress to say that I can't help wondering how far this idea of customized houses will go. To living room swimming pools (above)? To indoor stables for horses? 

Anyway, back to Susanka: as I mentioned in a previous post she mixes good ideas with bad ideas. Here (above) she endorses the notion of the arid reading alcove. Geez, that's an ugly space! I hope she doesn't buy into the belief of some architects that the living room is dead. Living rooms are great when they're designed to be used. I use mine constantly.

BTW, catch those ugly white cabinets! Brutalist living room cabinets are all the rage now, and so are freestanding bedroom wardrobes. Whatever happened to closets? Who starts these silly trends?  

Susanka doesn't mention vertical interior gardens which are more and more in evidence these days. I haven't been able to find good examples on the internet, but they exist, if only in magazines. 

 I wonder if indoor ceiling gardens (above) will ever become practical?  They seem to work in restaurants, but those are probably plastic. 

I'm glad that conservatories (above) are making a comeback. They don't cost much to make and they don't have to be enormous like the kind you see in films about English manor houses. They can be tiny alcoves off the kitchen like the one above.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

I'm also glad that architects like Susanka still believe that the demarcation between inside and outside should be gradual and blurred, and not abrupt like it is in most houses. In the picture above (not Susanka's) the front door is somewhere to the right. You have to pass under a tunnel of trellised plants on the side of the house to get to it. I like that.

I'll end by reiterating that Susanka's books are worth taking a look at even if you find fault with some of her examples. She writes to be understood, which is a rarity in her field, and her enthusiasm is infectious.