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9 reviews for:
Outside the Not So Big House: Creating the Landscape of Home
Julie Moir Messervy, Sarah Susanka
3.75 AVERAGE
9 reviews for:
Outside the Not So Big House: Creating the Landscape of Home
Julie Moir Messervy, Sarah Susanka
3.75 AVERAGE
This book contains the exact principles and ideas that I would incorporate into my dream house. Granted, some of the example houses are odd and funky, but the basic ideas are there. I want Sarah Susanka to come to my house and point out exactly what I need to do.
This was a quick read, having read Susanka’s original book. It was good to see the ideas as designed by other architects. We have a smaller home (actually small, not the larger ones she shares) but not big budgets, so seeing the ideas are helpful, particularly the porches these days.
This is gorgeous architecture porn, but it wasn't as useful to me in the sense of things i can do to this house... at least not without a ton of money. If you're looking to do a big home remodel or building your own home this is well worth looking at.
I liked this one better, because it was just a lot of pictures of homes. As much as I like playing fantasy architect and designing my imaginary future home- but I did not get many ideas out of this.
*shrug*
*shrug*
Creating the Not So Big House is a lavishly illustrated book with many different archetype house designs drawn from around the country, giving ideas (and possible blueprints) for building the Not So Big house - or remodeling or adding onto. (Even gives a place to order copies of the blueprints.)
I like the wide arrange of options.
I was ambivalent about the "say everything at least twice" - Once in the text, once in the illustration descriptions, and then usually in the intro/conclusion of each chapter. The repeat got things to stick, even if a little boring - making it easy to understand what the text meant when the illustration giving the example said the same thing word-for-word.
Also, so many of the owners of the example houses are architects or interior designers - yes, they are the ones who have the talent to create beautiful designs, but sometimes this felt very much like "pay the experts advertisement" - on the other hand, for a lot of people to achieve the design, paying the experts (if you got the money) is the best choice.
I dislike the constant "Not so Big House" - but it is the author's call sign so I understood why.
Overall fairly useful, over 200 pages, of ideas of how to live Big in a Small(ish) space.
Final note after reading other comments: This is not a TINY HOUSE book - the footprints vary between 560 square feet (for an apartment) to 3000 square feet with the average of 1900 square feet and the median of 1950 square feet. The objective of the book is to avoid the McMansion and make a house to match your lifestyle. To make a "Not so Big House" when the average size of new construction is 2.600 square feet. And looking around the internet I found a study showing people in very small houses wanted something bigger and in larger houses wanted something smaller, with the sweet point in America being ... just under 2,000 square feet. Looks Ms. Susanka captures the appropriate size well.
I like the wide arrange of options.
I was ambivalent about the "say everything at least twice" - Once in the text, once in the illustration descriptions, and then usually in the intro/conclusion of each chapter. The repeat got things to stick, even if a little boring - making it easy to understand what the text meant when the illustration giving the example said the same thing word-for-word.
Also, so many of the owners of the example houses are architects or interior designers - yes, they are the ones who have the talent to create beautiful designs, but sometimes this felt very much like "pay the experts advertisement" - on the other hand, for a lot of people to achieve the design, paying the experts (if you got the money) is the best choice.
I dislike the constant "Not so Big House" - but it is the author's call sign so I understood why.
Overall fairly useful, over 200 pages, of ideas of how to live Big in a Small(ish) space.
Final note after reading other comments: This is not a TINY HOUSE book - the footprints vary between 560 square feet (for an apartment) to 3000 square feet with the average of 1900 square feet and the median of 1950 square feet. The objective of the book is to avoid the McMansion and make a house to match your lifestyle. To make a "Not so Big House" when the average size of new construction is 2.600 square feet. And looking around the internet I found a study showing people in very small houses wanted something bigger and in larger houses wanted something smaller, with the sweet point in America being ... just under 2,000 square feet. Looks Ms. Susanka captures the appropriate size well.
This is a sequel to The Not So Big House. In many ways, it is more like a continuation of the first book; it does not necessarily stand on its own. (In fact, I would recommend buying the set with both.) This book introduces some new principles, but the bulk of the book is case studies of houses that were inspired by the "not so big" philosophy. The case studies show that "not so big" is not limited to any single style or region.
The new ideas introduced are:
- pay attention to the third dimension (a floor plan does not tell the whole story)
- get over your fear of "too smallness" (we've lost all sense of coziness because we afraid spaces will be too small)
- use visual weight to manipulate the sense of scale in a space
- frame openings to allow large, continuous spaces to have differentiated subspaces
- visually layer spaces
- consider having a theme to unify different spaces within your home.
The new ideas introduced are:
- pay attention to the third dimension (a floor plan does not tell the whole story)
- get over your fear of "too smallness" (we've lost all sense of coziness because we afraid spaces will be too small)
- use visual weight to manipulate the sense of scale in a space
- frame openings to allow large, continuous spaces to have differentiated subspaces
- visually layer spaces
- consider having a theme to unify different spaces within your home.
Outside the Not So Big House is, perhaps somewhat obviously, part of Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big" series; Susanka is listed a co-author although her content seems to be limited to side bars.
In general, when it comes to books like these, I prefer books that are focused on principles rather than case studies. Outside The Not So Big House is a book of case studies. The principles are there but buried. Mostly, the reader is presented with descriptions of home after home.
I suspect that I would have liked this book more if I had read it after a more principle-centric book (such as Messervy's [b:Home Outside|5765870|Home Outside Creating the Landscape You Love|Julie Moir Messervy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328744577s/5765870.jpg|5937606]).
In general, when it comes to books like these, I prefer books that are focused on principles rather than case studies. Outside The Not So Big House is a book of case studies. The principles are there but buried. Mostly, the reader is presented with descriptions of home after home.
I suspect that I would have liked this book more if I had read it after a more principle-centric book (such as Messervy's [b:Home Outside|5765870|Home Outside Creating the Landscape You Love|Julie Moir Messervy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328744577s/5765870.jpg|5937606]).
More tantalizing photos, designs, and stylistic guidance for human-scale houses that just feel right.