Not So Big Solutions for Your Home [Paperback]

Sarah Susanka (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Sarah Susanka's Not So Big Solutions for Your Home explores practical design ideas that can transform any house into a great house that looks, works and feels right for the owner.

Sarah Susanka, whose previous best-selling books showed homeowners how to appreciate and create a house that is beautiful, visually expansive and reflective of how families really live, now offers readers practical, everyday design ideas on everything from selecting a site for a new home to designing a mail-sorting space. Photographs, along with over 150 drawings from Sarah Susanka's own sketchbook, illustrate practical home design ideas for everyday living.

Not So Big Solutions for Your Home is a compilation of over 30 columns written by Sarah Susanka for Fine Homebuilding magazine.
-- Makes architecture and design accessible to people who are not trained in the field
-- Provides a wide variety of practical, accessible, everyday solutions

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Do more with less space" is the key concept of this down-to-earth design guide for both new home builders and remodelers. Not So Big Solutions for Your Home provides simplified design principles in jargon-free language for the nonprofessional contemplating a residential building project. Architect and author Sarah Susanka, well-known for 1998's The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live, offers advice on how to redefine space to create happier living areas that function more efficiently. For example, analyzing the family's television habits and planning set placement in advance may avert future squabbles and smooth out daily living. Thinking of each exterior door as the location of a sequence of common events (such as hauling in the groceries or taking off muddy boots) will help the planner create a neater entryway adapted to the family's specific needs. Throughout, plentiful drawings and photos illustrate simple solutions to such common problems as unused living rooms, dark bedrooms, and crowded kitchens. Readers seeking to remodel on a budget will be heartened by Susanka's contention that it is often best to stay within existing walls and avoid building out. All in all, the book provides a lot of theoretical food for thought for lay people preparing to begin the daunting task of either building a new home or remodeling an old one. --Judy Fireman

From Library Journal

Dubbed "America's Favorite Home Architect" by Fine Homebuilding magazine, where her "Drawing Board" column appears, Susanka here presents a small compilation of 31 essays from the column that offer a number of solutions to household design problems both big and small. Throughout, she stresses the importance of practical designs that increase a home's aesthetic appeal and allow homeowners to use their houses in the most efficient way. Susanka offers an eclectic mix: tips on site selection, mud room design, planning to fit specific furniture, creating a family room that works, personalizing with tile, and planning window seats, pantries, TV placement, and floor plan changes. Most of the projects are major undertakings, but several could be done inexpensively. Certainly, most homeowners could find something in this title to increase their enjoyment of their home. Susanka's previous two books have sold over half a million copies, so there's sure to be reader interest in this title. Recommended for most public libraries.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Taunton Press (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561586137
• ISBN-13: 978-1561586134
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > How-to & Home Improvements > Home Design > House Plans

More About the Author

Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big" message has become a launch pad for a new dimension of understanding--not just about how we inhabit our homes, but also about how we inhabit our planet and even our day-to-day lives. As a cultural visionary with an incredible ability to understand the underlying structure of the American lifestyle, Susanka is providing the language and tools that are redefining how we live.

Thought leader, inspirational keynote speaker and acclaimed architect, Susanka is the author of nine books that collectively weave together home and life design, revealing that a "Not So Big" attitude serves not only architectural aims, but life goals as well. Her books have sold well over 1.5 million copies. Susanka's most recent book, More Not So Big Solutions for Your Home, was released in February 2010.

Through her Not So Big House presentations and book series, Susanka has helped readers understand that the sense of "home" they're seeking has almost nothing to do with quantity and everything to do with quality. She points out that we feel "at home" in our houses when where we live reflects who we are in our hearts.

In her book and presentations about The Not So Big Life, she uses this same set of notions to explain that we can feel "at home" in our lives only when what we do reflects who we truly are. Susanka unveils a process for changing the way we live by fully inhabiting each moment of our lives and by showing up completely in whatever it is we are doing.

Susanka's inspiring "Not So Big" keynotes and presentations have been sought out by renowned conferences such as West Coast Green, the Housing Leadership Summit and PCBC. Major corporations including Johnson & Johnson, Lowe's, Target, Best Buy and Herman Miller as well as key government and civic organizations such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Association of Homebuilders, The American Institute of Architects and The National Trust for Historic Preservation regularly invite Susanka to address their conferences. Universities, art museums, leadership conferences, health care groups and wellness centers seek her "Not So Big Life" lectures and workshops.

Susanka is regularly called upon for her insights as a social commentator and trend-spotter by USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times; magazines such as Newsweek, Better Homes & Gardens, Reader's Digest and AARP; and television programming such as "Oprah," "Good Morning America," "Charlie Rose," CNN, HGTV and "This Old House."

Fast Company named Susanka to their debut list of "Fast 50" innovators whose achievements have helped to change society, Newsweek magazine selected her as a "top newsmaker" for 2000, and U.S. News and World Report dubbed her an "innovator in American culture" in 1998. Susanka was presented with the 2007 Anne Morrow Lindbergh Award by the Lindbergh Foundation for outstanding individual achievement in making positive contributions to our world.

Susanka is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. She was born in Kent, England, and travels from Raleigh, North Carolina. Join her online community at www.NotSoBig.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Depends on what you are looking for..., December 28, 2002

By 

P. Heaphy (West Haven, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not So Big Solutions for Your Home (Paperback)

I enjoyed Sarah Susanka's other books for their beautiful pictures, hopeful text, and "its so easy, it just takes thinking out of the box" attitude. I was hopeful that this book was aimed more for people like me - a simple homeowner looking for some tips (as opposed to an architect or person designing their own home). While there are some "not so big" solutions for everyday living, such as thinking about your recycling area and making use of space under the stairs, there really isn't anything new or awe-inspiring in this book. Much of the book still has to do with initial design of the space, and other big money expenditures. I still rated this book 4 stars as it is a beautiful, eye-catching read, but the information can also be found on HGTV.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Susanka's writing is as good or better than her architecture, September 9, 2002

By 

Christopher M Vaughan (Federal Way, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not So Big Solutions for Your Home (Paperback)

Once again, Sarah Susanka has taken some pretty basic conceptual problems in home design and explained various solutions to them that are eye-opening to say the least. While this book is a compendium of her "Drawing Board" articles out of Fine Homebuilding Magaine, it gives the reader a real sense of what they can do either through new construction or remodeling to improve their lifestyles as well as their homes.
Bravo, keep on writing Sarah.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful Information from a Pioneering Voice, November 20, 2003

By 

Roger C. Parker (Dover, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not So Big Solutions for Your Home (Paperback)

Within a very short time, Sarah Susanka has had a profound impact on the way families approach the design of their home.

Eschewing the "bigger is better" model that drives the profits of developers and mass production builders, Sarah Susanka has introduced a new vocablary of user-centered design that focuses on the details that make for a pleaant living experience.

Her "smaller is better" philosophy is based on often overlooked details like window size, providing built-in spaces for daily activities, creating "comfort zones" by varying ceiling heights and room lighting, and a myriad of other simple-in-themselves, but major-in-their-impact details.

Not So Big Solutions for Your Home should be considered required reading for you if you're remodeling or building a house you want to be comfortable in.