Whether building or remodeling, when most people want a nicer house they build a bigger house without considering its feel. The result? A growing number of dissatisfied people with oversized houses that are impersonal.
Deciding what you want or need in a home can seem overwhelming. Architect Sarah Susanka helps homeowners define their needs by how they actually live. Her book, The Not So Big House, focuses on today’s lifestyle and the quality and soul of one�s living environment rather than its quantity of space or square footage. She emphasizes comfort, beauty, high levels of detail and design strategies to utilize every square foot.
Susanka reasons: More rooms and bigger spaces do not necessarily give us what we need in a home. A house is so much more than its size and volume, neither of which has anything to do with comfort. Comfort is born of smaller scale and beautiful details. By maximizing space, one can live large in a smaller house without ever feeling cramped.
Think about which rooms you use and enjoy most? Are you drawn more to smaller, more personal spaces than to larger, more expansive ones? At parties, why do you spend more time in the kitchen and family rooms than you do in the formal living and dining rooms?
A Design/Build Team can help answer these questions before you build or remodel. We can insure that the elements important to you and your way of life are incorporated into the feel of your home. Look for future articles with more on this topic.