a place of houses

In the past, I've ranted and raved about the morons who built my home - the layout that makes little sense, the electrical wiring nightmares, etc. I'm feeling a little better today, though. For some time now, my wife and I have been toying around with the idea of building a house of our own, but the cost of land here in town is prohibitive. This hasn't deterred me, however, from reading some books on home design and I recently read one that actually has me inspired to fix up the home that we in now. The book was called "A Place of Houses" by Charles Moore, et.al. It's not that great of a read, really, as I find that it focuses a little too much on their own "modern" designs ad nauseum. It has some good information, but grandstands a bit too much for my taste. It is only worth reading, in my opinion, for some of the architectural theories embedded within.

One chapter includes a checklist for designing your home that I found to be very unique and pretty useful. Instead of focusing on which rooms you want and how big you want them to be, it addresses your needs based more on your lifestyle and the collective use of the family. There are also sections about rearranging existing rooms to breathe life into them, which will come in handy for us, since it doesn't look like we'll be moving anytime soon.

We had already started the obvious home improvement projects that many homeowners do once moving into a new house - adding new fixtures and painting. It has gone relatively smooth thus far, although I've had some problems with the discount bathroom fixtures that I have purchased online. (For example, I have a toilet paper holder that won't stay on the wall bracket, due to stripped tightening screw. The seller sent me a new one, but he sent me the wrong side. So I can either install it upside down with the screw facing upwards, or contact him yet again for a replacement. That's the problem with online orders.)

We've also been trying to rearrange some furniture, which seems to be helping us to feel a little more at home. The first step was to rearrange the living room so that traffic doesn't flow through the center. Instead, the sofa, loveseat, and armoire form their own little pocket of space, with the path to the bathroom and master bedroom running along the side of it. It makes a HUGE difference in the way that the room is perceived, and I find that we are spending more time there comfortably than before. It just feels cozier. We've got a new sofa on order that should help, too.

I also managed to take an old cabinet that I had removed from the kitchen when we first moved in and cut it down to about 6" deep. It now serves as a spice rack that matches the rest of cabinetry perfectly, hanging on the wall nearly within arm's reach of the stove.

Our next big project is to add a built-in dining area at the edge of the kitchen (by rearranging some floor cabinets), and turn the formal dining area into a reading room, anchored by a fancy new electric fireplace and hardwood mantel. The resulting kitchen will be a little smaller, but right now it is full of useless space. I have no idea why they designed it the way that they did. It's as if there was an extra set of cabinets, an island, or an appliance near the center that no longer exists. I don't know why else they would have left such a large space in the center. The new reading area will be perfect for those times when the kids want to watch movies in the living room, and we want to be close enough to keep an eye on them, but separated so that we can also carry on a conversation of our own, or get lost in a good book.

So, we're actually quite excited about our current home, or rather, its potential.