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Further full colour design ideas to appeal to homeowners, interior designers, DIY enthusiasts and self-builders who are eager to use the Not So Big House House concepts to build or remodel a home which avoids wasted space and material and which works for them. Sarah Susanka's first book The Not So Big House created a movement which has redefined the way we think about the space we live in, It spoke to millions of disenchanted homeowners who wanted to downsize their dream home ideas without diminishing the dream or the style. The secret lies in a better use of space: let your activities and lifestyle define your rooms.
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THERE'S A TREMENDOUS POWER to naming ideas and concepts. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
THERE'S A TREMENDOUS POWER to naming ideas and concepts. Read the first page
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this book Susanka explains that Not So Big does not necessarily mean small, just not as big as you thought you needed, and usually about a third smaller than your original goal. Then she lets herself down by claiming "it's a rare space that's too small for comfort, but it's not at all uncommon for one to be uncomfortably big." Guess she's never seen our council homes and the classic working class terraces...some of which - at just 9 feet wide from front to back - are nevertheless now selling for over a million in central London. Some of the houses in her book are quite large by UK standards but a good number of the homes shown are between 500 & 950 square feet, which no one could call large!
The book is aimed at those building from scratch but with very useful tips for conversions and extensions and just generally rethinking how to make better use of your rooms. The author starts with some very interesting examples for defining zones like kitchen, dining, sitting and office areas: not with walls but with "psychological separations" like changes in ceiling or floor heights or "framing" the division where there would otherwise have been a door, all creating a sort of spatial layering effect to make the place seem larger than it really is. Throughout the book there are photographic examples of the clever use of spindles, poles, columns, beams, dropped (internal) soffits and half walls to provide cosiness and separation.
There are some ingenious ways to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot (like most of the back end of a tall fridge pushed into another room and boxed in to look like a cupboard on the back side and only the fridge door showing at the front, within the kitchen) and an old English telephone box on a very small half-landing, used as the entryway between upper and lower floors. The book shows many clever uses of nooks, crannies and bay windows: several alcoves of different sizes in one home, like a breakfast nook, a window seat and smaller alcoves for built-ins and display pieces; a work-studying space created out of an extra wide landing; a mail-sorting area in a dead-end; a platform bed doubling as a table-and-sitting-area; an inglenook with bench seating that can turn into single beds for guests; even a studio-size unit featuring a window seat long enough to become a single bed at night - rather like an alcove bed but with windows on one of the two long sides.
There are bigger-picture solutions too, such as the small woodland retreat with two entryways at different levels, enabling the front area to be very occasionally closed off and used as a spare bedroom, and a shower leading to a bath that can be turned into a sauna. Another holiday home was designed to be built in phases, as money permitted, with very little of the original needing alteration at extension stage and the enlarged building eventually serving as the owners' retirement home. A "thinking outside the box" chapter featured two detached, but small, neighbouring buildings sharing the land between them as a patio, with each divorced parent living in one and their children welcome everywhere. Then there is a cottage rebuilt on the previous one's 500sq feet footprint; every inch of the four new floors is cleverly used.
I've admired all Susanka's books I've looked at, but this one, and "Not So Big Remodeling" are my favourites, so far.
The book is aimed at those building from scratch but with very useful tips for conversions and extensions and just generally rethinking how to make better use of your rooms. The author starts with some very interesting examples for defining zones like kitchen, dining, sitting and office areas: not with walls but with "psychological separations" like changes in ceiling or floor heights or "framing" the division where there would otherwise have been a door, all creating a sort of spatial layering effect to make the place seem larger than it really is. Throughout the book there are photographic examples of the clever use of spindles, poles, columns, beams, dropped (internal) soffits and half walls to provide cosiness and separation.
There are some ingenious ways to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot (like most of the back end of a tall fridge pushed into another room and boxed in to look like a cupboard on the back side and only the fridge door showing at the front, within the kitchen) and an old English telephone box on a very small half-landing, used as the entryway between upper and lower floors. The book shows many clever uses of nooks, crannies and bay windows: several alcoves of different sizes in one home, like a breakfast nook, a window seat and smaller alcoves for built-ins and display pieces; a work-studying space created out of an extra wide landing; a mail-sorting area in a dead-end; a platform bed doubling as a table-and-sitting-area; an inglenook with bench seating that can turn into single beds for guests; even a studio-size unit featuring a window seat long enough to become a single bed at night - rather like an alcove bed but with windows on one of the two long sides.
There are bigger-picture solutions too, such as the small woodland retreat with two entryways at different levels, enabling the front area to be very occasionally closed off and used as a spare bedroom, and a shower leading to a bath that can be turned into a sauna. Another holiday home was designed to be built in phases, as money permitted, with very little of the original needing alteration at extension stage and the enlarged building eventually serving as the owners' retirement home. A "thinking outside the box" chapter featured two detached, but small, neighbouring buildings sharing the land between them as a patio, with each divorced parent living in one and their children welcome everywhere. Then there is a cottage rebuilt on the previous one's 500sq feet footprint; every inch of the four new floors is cleverly used.
I've admired all Susanka's books I've looked at, but this one, and "Not So Big Remodeling" are my favourites, so far.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fabulous book with great insight how to slim down your home space into something more manageable and how to maximise each room's storage space.
Format:Paperback
This book is a gem. Bursting with incredibly clever but utterly simple ideas, it makes any space look lighter, sleeker, yet more welcoming than before. Anyone who is thinking of moving, renovating or building should get this book at least a year before they start, as it provides they most interesting homework ever! I wish I had found it years ago!
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