This may well mean, for example, doing away with the near-obligatory but seldom-used formal dining room - some 90 percent of new homes have them - and instead making the area where the family eats 'a beautiful place that enlivens their lives every day.' Frame openings with beams or archways to break things up visually and make the most of less space.Use a series of openings and surfaces to layer space in a way that subtly breaks it into segments.

Recognize the importance of this third dimension.

Allow for variations in height and scale.

'Small' elementsĪrchitect and author Sarah Susanka says size matters less than how space is used and presented in a home. What owners actually crave, she argues, aren't these 'starter castles' but carefully edited homes with spaces that serve the way they really live - and do so in a comfortable, visually enriching way. and no cozy spots, so people feel like fish out of water.' They also have this kind of paper-thin feel to them. 'It's as if someone has taken bellows and blown them up too big. Titled 'The Not So Big House,' that 1998 volume and its sequel, 'Creating the Not So Big House,' have caused a groundswell of support for the idea that maybe bigger isn't better after all.Īnd why not? Because at 3,000 or more square feet, 'an awful lot of new houses today are out of proportion,' Susanka observes. In an age of more, more, more - more bedrooms, more bathrooms, more garage bays (and don't forget the den, the media room and the study) - why would anyone actually want smaller?Įspecially those of us who grew up in cramped old houses or first-generation suburban ramblers and remember the joys of sharing one bathroom with what seemed like 100 family members.īut Sarah Susanka didn't stumble in naming her first book. Best-selling Minneapolis author and architect Sarah Susanka jokes that if she'd named her first volume 'The Small House Book,' no one would have bought it.

Sarah susanka architect