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Sarah Susanka has a not-so-insignificant idea in Creating the Not So Big House. She contrasts the glamorous, glossy-photo house plans of vaulted ceilings and palatial living rooms with the livable, day-to-day pleasure of cozy window seats and comfortable breakfast nooks, and her conclusion is resonating with families across the country: bigger but shoddier isn't better than smaller and well made. Descriptors like "spacious" and "expansive" fill the real-estate promos, but Susanka seeks the elusive yet affordable qualities that turn a house into a home. And she provides more than mere ideals around which to rally. She selected 25 house designs, from a southwestern adobe to a Minnesota farmhouse to a New York apartment to a Rhode Island summer cottage, and she profiles each home in great and well-illustrated detail.
Her ideas for interior as well as exterior views, airy stairways, diagonal views, and framed openings translate well in an array of different houses appropriate to childless couples and large families, as well as hot climes in Texas and cooler regions in Vermont. There are traditional designs to fit in with Massachusetts styling and contemporary designs to adapt to California cliffs, and they range from country spaces to suburban homes to city apartments.
Susanka selected house plans that are available for sale, because her purpose is to make affordable quality housing accessible to the general public, but they're also presented as catalysts for your own designs, because the house that worked for one person might inspire the plan that would work best for you. Whether you're in the market for a new house, want pragmatic renovation ideas, or are interested in the concept of space-saving abodes from a city-planning, philosophical perspective, Susanka's book is an eye-opener and a mind-expander, providing conceptual and practical tools to assist you in planning your own livable home. --Stephanie Gold --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Susanka's very successful The Not-So-Big House (LJ 9/15/98) nimbly capitalized on the 1990s small-is-beautiful wave that touted voluntary simplicity, downsizing, and contentment with one's lot in life (especially if that lot includes an average, middle-class house in the suburbs). This follow-up features 25 new and redesigned homes thought to embody "not-so-big" principles such as shelter around activity, double-duty rooms, interior and diagonal views, variety of ceiling heights, importance of personal space, and so on. The book's design allows readers to flip through looking for ideas about trendy house typesDPueblo-style, the old farmhouse, Shaker cottage, shingle-style, Fifties retro. Simple house plans and carefully constructed photos of well-appointed space abound. The writing is unchallenging, nontechnical, sunny, even cozy. Couples and architects are referred to by given names (Barry and Susan, Sally and Gary), and each episode follows a rather numbing, prosaic patternDunhappiness with present quarters, lifestyle examination, and problem-solving (unfortunately without expenses listed), concluding with "not-so-big" bliss. While the first book is not required prior reading, this is best recommended for libraries where the first book proved popular.DRussell T. Clement, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Resource,
By
This review is from: Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home (Paperback)
This is a great book for anyone who questions the need to build ever bigger and bigger homes. Written by an architect but easy to digest. Simple but elegant ideas for creating more with less.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Greatest House book, awesome stuff.,
By "weezeradguy" (Poway, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American House (Hardcover)
This is packed with so many great ideas and principles. It'll change everything you thing you want in a house. A must read.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice pictures, but the attitude is always the focus,
By
This review is from: Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home (Paperback)
I liked the way this book looks. It has beautiful photos in it, with a wide variation of house styles, sizes and cool solutions tailored to each homeowner/family. That being said, what intrigued me the most was *why* Susanka chose the houses, and what she saw in them that worked with her "Not So Big" philosophy. I have not read her original book, so none of the information was rehashed in my reading. Perhaps if I had, I wouldn't have enjoyed this book so much. However, I suspect that "Creating the Not So Big House" offers more in the way of practical application of the theory and is therefore valuable on its own. I also figure that since it shows personal interpretations of Susanka's original thoughts on homebuilding, it offers a different "flavor" of the same basic idea.This book also made me want to buy the original, so I can get more of the pure "mindset" part of Susanka's message. Perhaps that was part of the point. :)
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