In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

Small House Design

I gotta small house.
A small townhouse.
With a tiny front yard.
And the back yard is not much either.
General home ideas for redecorating or adding on mean jack to me because they don't fit.

It's not an apartment.
I can tear down the wall.
I can put holes in the wall.
I can tear out the floor.
I can replace a whole room.
I can paint
So decorating ideas for small spaces (ie apartments) don't fit me either.

Maybe I'm just picky.

One of the bad things about owning my house is the deep need for creativity. I don't like to think that hard. I did my thinking bit in grad school thank you. Unlike the folks who show up on This Old House, I don't have this large grand home that can fit these large grand ideas. The small space issues demands extra effort, because the standard sized stuff makes the place feel smaller than it is, and demands more space than it really needs.

I went to Not So Big House for ideas. For those of you not familiar Not So Big House is a book about really cool decorating ideas for small houses. Yet the catch for me is that these small houses have felxability. I have some, but not that much.

Seeing the house on 5th Street, with the European interior reminded me to look to the UK for ideas. UK because my non-English language skills are just enough to to find a bathroom, much less design one. Donde esta el banyo. One of my favorite places to wander is the BBC's home decorating website. Rooms are small, but they are small and really cool. I spent a good amount of time viewing Architect Search looking at the various firms' websites and residental projects.

The other problem besides design is the stuff that goes into the house that makes it small. The refridgerator, the badly fitting oven, the HUGE king sized bed, ya know, stuff. For me I make use of futons. Real easy to get up the narrow stairs. Knock down furniture that can put together in the room it is going to. IKEA is a wonderful store. I came across someone's blog and they mentioned a washer/dryer combo they bought from Compact Appliances. Looks small, but I was trying to figure out where does the hot air from the dryer go?

Lastly, besides the stuff you gotta cram into the house there is just plain living. We got bikes. They take up space, they make marks on walls getting them into their space. When we dump out stuff near the door, it just gets in the way. Two people cannot work at the same time in the kitchen. Two people can't really pass each other in the hall or on the stair. The house is small, and it ain't getting any bigger any time soon.

posted by Mari @ 23.9.04