Customer Reviews

The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live

5 star:		(88)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

We are just completing the construction of our new home. While this book was certainly not the only source of ideas, it was certainly critical in giving us the courage to abandon the "starter castle" mentality of soaring ceilings and the attendent wasted space. The reaction we are getting certainly bears out the strength of these design concepts.

Given the content of the other reviews, I have to be clear about the intentions of this book. It is not a book about building inexpensive houses. It is written by an architect, and architects are generally not consulted when price is the ultimate consideration. It is not a book of house plans, nor a how-to book on house design. It is a book about a design philosophy which considers the house as a place to live rather than as a monument to impress ones neighbors. The philosophy is not terribly original; why does it have to be? It is a return to basic principles of good design.

We began this project with a very clear idea of the style we wanted, and someone concerned with style alone might not recognize this book's influence on our home. On the other hand, anyone who compared our home to the starter castles on our block would see the difference immediately. Every room is comfortable and constructed on a human scale. I would recommend this book to anyone in the process of constructing a new home. If I had the money, I would send anonymous copies to a number of builders and designers in the area. This book deserves a wider reading.

Although the concept of 'The Not So Big House' is not a revelation to many people, sometimes we need reminding that 'more' is not always 'more, and this book is a wonderful source for inspiration, both philosophicaly and practically. The book begins by showing some examples of when people put their money into building a small home with character, and others that put their money into square footage. The second of the two is only too familiar in my area (Colorado). Here there has been a trend for the last ten or so years of developments being built with large (4000+sq.ft) homes that have absolutely NO design qualities what-so-ever. Even the paint jobs are identical on literally thousands of homes. These developments are not communities. Personally I see them more as the large scale slums of the future. Really ugly. The majority of the book however shows examples, home by home, of how people have built with minimal square footage, using well thought out floor plans, and delicious design details, to create a feeling of comfort, coziness, spaciousness and drama without pretence. Some of the homes were clearly built by people who had quite a bit of money to spend on custom cabinetry, stonework and refined plaster molding. Probably not within the budget of many people even if they do choose quality over quantity. Others are very simple, light filled, and within the budget of pretty much anyone who has it in their budget to build thier own home in the first place. Just a note that this is not an interior design book. This is a book for those seeking a different way of living 'in space' and creating an environment for family life and enjoyable pasttimes. Much of the interior decorating is really quite boring. But the homes themselves are very inspirational. The use of wood work reminds me of older homes, built up to and including the Arts and Crafts movement. The authors are pining for homes to be built the way that they used to be, and by the time you have finished this book, you will be too. I do believe that beauty, and quality of life, is in the details, and a properly designed home makes use of the square footage it has and requires much less 'room' than is commonly thought necessary these days. If you feel this way, or think you might like to, this book is for you.

Susan Susanka presents her ideas on how to build a better home. Half way through the book she presents her trinity of compromises that the architect, builder & home-owner have to make...price, quanity & quality of the proposed home. I think this is the gem in the book. As many have noted, this is definitely not a book for a "small" or "cheap" home; and this should be obvious as nobody who is limited to building a "small" or "cheap" home would hire an architect to design it! Though she never states it, I estimate that the houses she designs cost over $500,000 to build so consider that when you read this book.

I value this book for the ideas it presents; however, it is definitely a coffee-table book rather than a reference for an architect or home-builder. Not until the last two super-homes does Susan even mention a number. Nowhere in the book does it actually talk about the square feet, total price, price for materials, cost/square foot, material trade-off possibilities, building codes, or anything that is actually needed to design or build a house (or even remodel). The lack of details and thoroughness was disappointing and the reason I only gave her three stars. I suppose this book can be considered a "theory" book rather than a "practical" book, but it seems to me that a well-written book could contain both.

On the plus side, the pictures were very nice; there were floor-plans for each of the houses and Susan has a very nice and clear writing style.

"The Not So Big House" is the best treatment I know of on efficient use of available space in a house design. Sarah Susanka favors built-in storage near the points of use, which is efficient in both use of square footage and on time spent getting things out of storage to where they're needed. Of course built-ins raise the cost of a house, which leads to Susanka's central thesis: a small, well-designed house with attention to detail will be costly -- but, in her opinion, worth it. She suggests toting up the square footage vs. time spent in various home spaces, and finds that typically formal living and dining rooms are budget busters that are used only rarely. Skipping these formal rooms will free up money for higher quality in the remaining spaces.

Susanka falls down on the job with her limited treatment of ways a prospective home owner can save money on their dream house. Specifically, she mentions only
- smaller size
- less attention to detail (lower quality)
- a cheaper lot
but not, for example
- changing the number of stories (2-story homes save on foundation costs over ranch homes)
- owner labor
- owner functioning as general contractor

The book, filled with excellent color photographs (many by the author) is extraordinarily well laid out. The text continually refers to "the photo above" rather than something like "Fig. 8-3b". Accompanying floor plans show the point and angle of the associated photos, making it easy to build up a mental picture of the overall space from a few choice shots. The lighting, contrast, color balance, and composition of the photos is outstanding.

I must mention that the book is basically a paen to houses heavy on natural interior wood detail. In American homes this is exemplified by the Craftsman style; the feature also applies to traditional Japanese houses. It's a style that I personally like so that's not a detriment for me. If instead your taste runs to French country homes, where every scrap of wood must be painted, you'll probably have some qualms at the author's architectural bias.

Unlike most architecture books which feature carefully decorated rooms you couldn't possibly be comfortable living in, the spaces depicted in Susanka's opus are refreshingly naturalistic. That's not to say that there are photos with kids' fingerprints around the light switches (as in real life). But this book is a rarity in showing bookshelves loaded with paperback books instead of the usual sets of matching leather-bound volumes, each shelf having three books stacked sideways to hold some Object d'Art. And there are actual kids' toys on actual floors!

A final, fairly significant drawback is Susanka's short shrift when it comes to non-design topics. For instance, energy efficiency only gets a couple of pages. There are even shorter treatments of recycled materials, sustainability, and alternate (other than stick-built) construction styles. All of these "peripheral" subjects are crammed into the last (and shortest) chapter.

Summary: This book is a rich resource of ideas on how to design a house that's efficient for your actual lifestyle. You'll need to look elsewhere to figure out how to build it and pay for it. But because design is the spearhead of the architectural process, this is an excellent starting point.

We are on the last stages of building our first(last?) house, and this book showed us the way. Most homes built today try to stretch square footage at the expense of quality ("starter castles" is the term the author uses). We've all been in these big, soulless homes:a marble foyer that feels like a mausoleum, rooms that reach to the roof and waste all the space overhead; and usually in a few years the cracks are beginning to show in the drywall seams, floors are squeaking, and there are still a few rooms that don't have any furniture in them yet...or people. The author makes a great argument for building a smaller home that is higher in quality and more space efficient. Better to fill a smaller space with things of quality and beauty than build big and empty places. We read this book, threw out our floor plans, and started over with a new philosophy. In one month we'll be moving into a better, more energy and space efficient home for having done this--at about $90/SQFT.

Read this book before you build.

(You can also read the author's columns in Fine Homebuilding magazine; many are also on the FH website. The column on "designing an entryway" is a logical place to start!)

After reading this book, I would have to disagree with those who don't think it's a good book for someone building a house on a budget. Although that's not the point of Susanka's work, she wants her reader to change the way they think about homes, and to review their choices in a custom home. Trading square footage for higher quality craftsmanship is the way to go--but you can also cut out the excess square feet and use standard materials and labor and cut your cost. It's up to the builder--that's the beauty of it. She shows you how to choose and some of the possibilities, whether you're on a tight budget or have half a million to spend. I learned a lot from this book, and would recommend it to anyone who is thinking of building a home, or takes a fancy to architecture. There are wonderful pictures in here, many of which have given me ideas for my own home. Definitely worth the cost.

I enjoy reading and re-reading this book, so I think there's a lot of useful content here. I bought this book shortly after remodeling my house, and found that the book expressed many of the ideas and goals of my house remodel. I find myself disagreeing with most of the criticisms I have read, save that many of the photographs are examples of the same "style." I think the author's intended audience is people who are planning to build a new house (or substantially remodel an existing one), and obviously as an architect she is encouraging people to find and work with an architect, to value the importance of design, and to spend money on qualitative aspects of a house rather than raw square footage.

I would note that many ideas in the book are neither original to the author nor to this book; the fact that the book seems to be a big success indicates however that previous efforts to put forth these ideas had not reached many people. An example of a good book in a similar vein (and written in 1985) is: "Modest Mansions: design ideas for luxurious living in less space" by Donald Prowler (now out of print but Amazon might get it for you used, or try the library).

This pleasing-to-read, pleasant-to-look-at book offers a tantalizing glimpse of what is possible when trying to make every square foot count in a home, without compromising practicality or comfort. The homes featured in here are, for the most part, neither sprawling nor overly ritzy; however, many plans will require some serious construction or renovation on an existing home. So if you're looking for some pointers on how to make your own Not So Big House seem Not So Small, but without tearing out a wall or two or adding an extension . . . well, you're bound to be a bit frustrated as you ooh and aah in these pages. But fair enough -- it's an architecture book, not a decorating book.

To this end, Susanka still provides plenty of sound advice and information on the importance of making little things count, from acoustically isolated rooms to the need for private space, and what it means to Look At The Diagonal of A Room. She also points out how to make a good use of light, and how to determine what your REAL needs are when purchasing a home, as opposed to your PERCEIVED needs. If you're out shopping for your first home -- or are building another -- you'd be hard pressed to find a better primer on what to look for if you're trying to make your space matter.

In fact, the homes shown in this book are so much fun to look at that it is sometimes difficult to give each home the time and space that it deserves. Susanka's text is so lively, and keeps things moving so quickly, that you're often left to do a double-take as you wonder whether you're going to get to see other rooms in the house to help pull the whole thing together. Sometimes you do, other times you don't.

There are also times when it would have been helpful to see the individual floorplans for some of the houses shown in here. Again, for some we do, and for others, we just get the layout of the rooms in question. There are instances when readers are offered a glimpse of an intriguing room, and then get to see it several times from a number of different angles at a number of places in the book -- and unless you're paying close attention (I finally caught on, in one instance, because of a row of displayed plates that kept showing up), you're not always aware you're seeing the same room from a different perspective. A more consistent use of floorplans might have made things just a bit easier to negotiate. It might also have been nice to have been given just a bit more indication of how much some of these innovative uses of spaces actually cost the homeowner.

There's really only one jarring moment in the book -- really, now, wouldn't any architect worth his or her protractor know that television's most famous fictional architect is named MIKE Brady, and NOT Robert Brady? (Susanka misquotes the lyrics to THE BRADY BUNCH theme, too. Ah well.....)

But this is all nitpicking, really. Susanka meets her goals in writing this book -- it really IS "A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live" and you will likely find something in here that catches your fancy. Check it out, and leave it lying around for some casual inspiration.

If you want to expand your ideas about what a nice home should be then this book may be for you. And if you are looking for a book full of pictures to help you communicate with your architect during your next meeting, then again this is a good choice. But if you are like me, trying to design you own small house to be space-efficient and comfortable, then you may find that Susanka does not supply you with much worthwhile information. Her concept, I believe, is excellent. And the book makes no claim to be a do-it-yourself guide. But I was still hoping for some more substance behind the glossy photos. There is little information about the process of laying out a house from scratch to fit a site and its occupants. There is no real method for how to go about optimizing your use of space in the overall floorplan, or how to address common problem situations. It is full of many excellent space-saving examples- but by the time I was finished reading this book I never wanted to see another white room with light wood trim again. The 199 pages of this large-font book are full of "architecturally designed" houses that appear to my eye a bit dated. I also think she is too devoted to the upper levels of the budget spectrum. Most people who are building a "Not So Big" house don't have a half million dollars to spend, which her case studies apparently did.

The Not So Big House forces one to reevaluate what is truly a"dream home." Is it a house with empty square footage or onewith charm and character? I agree with many of the reviewers that the book features only one home style--the quasi Frank Lloyd Wright style obviously favored by Ms. Susanka. I like the Prairie Style, but it is certainly not appropriate for most regions of the United States. I would appreciate seeing examples of Colonial, Farmhouse, and Victorian styled Not So Big Houses. While I enjoy the blond trim and floors and white walls of the featured homes, that monotonous interior style is certainly not for everyone. It would help if dimensions for each of the featured rooms and houses were given. Many look large, but I'm not sure if that is due to the photography, the architecture, or just the room dimensions. This would help people see how much square footage is required to achieve the effects illustrated by the book. Additionally, Ms. Susanka refers to a special quality associated with these houses, but she seems to have trouble articulating exactly what that quality is. The Not So Big concept is not really all that innovative. These houses are rearranged, upscaled, and two-storied ranch houses popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of these ranches did not have "formal" dining rooms and had fairly open living areas. Like these ranch houses, Not So Big simply eliminates the dining room and reorganizes the living room under the moniker of "Away Room." Eliminating only the dining room does not reduce square footage by much. I would not want to throw away the dining room for one very important reason: cleanliness. The family dining area collects school papers, magazines, notices, newspapers, bills, etc (which are conspicuously absent in the photographs in the book). If the dining room is gone, suprise guests (which are fairly frequent at our house) would be forced to dine in the clutter of the kitchen. The dining room provides a quick, clutter free place to dine with guests, even if it is just an informal meal of sandwiches. Otherwise, the homes and concepts illustrated are attractive and fairly practical, if expensive. While these are out of the range of the typical home owner, who must settle for paint-grade finish trim, flat, textured drywall ceilings, and fiberboard doors, they do give one ideas for future upgrades and projects. Overall, an attractive book that wins the reader over to small homes.