Dreaming of The “Not-So-Big House”
I’ve been dreaming lately of the house I want in my future. I’ve visited a couple houses in Kuwait lately, houses I liked a lot, with beautiful spaces, intimate dining rooms, a variety of ceiling heights, cozy seating areas that invited conversation and large, light bedrooms that also had seating areas, grown up retreats with Jacuzzi style bathtubs and places to curl up and read, along with a whole lot of closet space.
I told you a while back about a book we were told about, Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House Book. The book is about making every part of your house work the way your lifestyle needs it to – cutting out space wasted on impressing other people and maximizing areas of the house where people actually hang out.
As she introduces the book, she talks about how you throw a party and everybody ends up hanging out in the kitchen, that the living rooms we create are not welcoming, and she has good ideas how to make all the spaces in your house more welcoming.
She emphasizes also the use of high quality materials and workmanship.
I know that a little bit of heaven for me is getting up every day and looking out on the Gulf. I know that when I am working, I work facing the same view. It gives me such joy. I might get some of the same satisfaction overlooking a forest with wild animals (I know AdventureMan would love to have that not-so-big house be in Africa! Imagine! You’re sorting through your books and an elephant sticks his trunk in!) or the Puget Sound with the Olympics in the background. I know I am addicted to big windows and watching the weather change.
I need privacy. I don’t want other people looking in my windows.
My best friend has a round dining room table, and my sister, and my Chinese friend tells me those are the best for family “energy.” I want a big round family dining table, in wood, like my sister and like my friend.
I love glass brick, and would love to have it in bathrooms and entries and have walls of it letting light stream into and through my home.
I love glass tile, especially the watery shades of aqua blue and aqua green.
(photo courtesy Bedrock Industries)
I love light wood floors, honey oak, birch, even knotty pine planks I had in an old German house where I once lived. I love the feeling of wood underfoot; it is gentle and forgiving, and so classically good looking.
(Photo courtesy Pennington Hardwoods)
I love second floor loft libraries, overlooking the lower living areas of a house.
Dream along with me.
Think about YOUR house. Now, close your eyes and think about what goes into making a house your very own special hideaway. What makes it special for you? What would you do with your living space if time and energy and money were of no importance?
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I have it! The kitchen, living room and dining area (with a round table) are all one room. There is an island in the kitchen with an eating bar on one side and work space on the other. You can interact with your friends as you work with the food. The ceiling of the kitchen area is about 10 feet high and the ceiling of the rest of the room soars from 10 feet to over 20 feet. There are 2 sky lights, a back door with full length window and 3 other large windows in the room. The floors are hickory, giving a nice play of light to medium dark wood tones. I love this heart of my house. I can’t wait for you to see it!
Oh Momcat, it sounds wonderful! I can hardly wait!
It’s funny you ask, because I’ve take many interior design courses, and fallen in love with so many design styles that I could not possibly begin to imagine where to start. Ideally, it would be a cross between minimalist and victorian. 😀
That’s quite a cross, Vixen. You have some ideas how you’re going to do the mix?
I would love to have a penthouse in a metropolis one day. Ceiling-high windows all around overlooking the hustle and bustle of the city. Open space with no walls, rather furniture-as-space-divider kind of style. I would have it done in a postmodern style with classic french Louis XIV furniture and accessories (the best of two worlds 😉 )
I would definitely, certainly, quite essentially have a reading space. A nice leather barker-lounger illuminated by a narrow-range spot light and surrounded by heaps and heaps of books.
ohhh i love the pic with the round table… very cozy!
LOL! I live there already! I don’t have the glass bricks, but the jacuzzi tub, resting in a huge master bath, off the loft master bedroom… yep, it’s not a big place, but I do love it so! 😀
The last one is totally mine – with a big huge living room with cozy couches, a fire place and a window that shows the garden, forest and a lake 🙂
Oh Kinan, your dream sounds like a New York or Chicago factory conversion; I have seen some that maintained those huge windows. Wow. And a cozy library – why am I not surprised? 🙂
Ansam, you are right, the round table makes for really good dinner conversations, everyone gets a share. 🙂
Lofter – No kidding? It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be just right, doesn’t it? Mabrook! (Means congratulations on something very good happening in your life.)
Yeh, Nicole, us Northern types always look for the fireplace to keep us warm during those long winters, and when the electricity goes off for a few days when the snow downs the electrical lines!
Oh, wow, intlxpatr, the second and third pictures remind me so much of my kitchen and bathroom, respectively. Weird… in a good way, of course! 😉 Thanks for grabbing my attention yet again.
We’re building our house right now!!! I wanted a rooftop pool with a rooftop garden and all that good stuff but I think it would cost too much.
There was this apartment that was TO DIE FOR in Minneapolis. It had HUUUUUGE cieling to floor windows … high cielings, all wood floors, it over looked the river and downtown. The view was just gorgeous all year round and especially at night when downtown was all lit up.
That, besides other things, yes 😉
C, that is kinda “One Step Beyond” isn’t it? 😉 I don’t have all those things, not yet, and I am not sure whether we will buy something, build something (that’s what Momcat did) or do some remodel on what we have already. The dreaming stage is a lot of fun!
Chirp – oh, how I envy you! I love building and projects and putting in closets and painting and moldings – you must be having SO much fun! Chirp, the way Kuwait (lack-of) building standards go, I would not want to live under a swimming pool. I’m not so sure, even in Minneapolis, where pipes can freeze and cause havok, etc.
It sounds very Lucas Davenport. If you don’t know him, you need to get acquainted! 😉
OK Nicole, we are dreaming here – tell us the rest!
Nope 🙂
I want a huge garden with lots of plants and good smelling flowers. A play area for the kids. An indoor and outdoor swimming pool. Wooden floors. My kitchen is wooden too. Carpet in the bedroom. Huge closets, huge changing area and everything will be folded neatly in place, arranged according to colour. Two computer rooms. I want a cozy living and dining room. I want a basement. My toilet will have tiny red and golden tiles. Walls will be painted dark yellow, green, red or violet.
WOW, Pearls! I love the specificness of your vision! I have kept a folder of ideas I love for years, and many of them have come true. Do you have a folder like that, with pictures / drawings of ideas you like?