New Homes: Making the Case for Thoughtful Design

Mrs. Wanderer and I are living in our third home. It is an appealing design with many features and elements that we like. For example, when you cross the threshold into the entry space, there is room to set down your suitcase and continue the unload process when coming home from your trip to Grandma’s house. If you are moving in furniture, you will find sufficient area to turn a couch around or a refrigerator or a standup piano. There is a closet for coats but its location fits neatly in the home’s design, tucked unobtrusively in a niche between the entry and a bay window. We love the roominess. The pocket doors to the right and the opening into the sitting room on the left give additional maneuvering area and the large four by four window above the door bathes the space with early morning light. With the location of the beautiful staircase opposite you, the room climbs to the second floor with an expertly crafted flow into the upstairs of the home.

This vision is accurate but it is not true.

What the reality of this entry space does not relay in the above paragraph is that shoes clog the floor when kicked off, suitcases may be in the way as you unload children, groceries sometimes do not reach the intended pantry space as conveniently as they ought, and the coat closet is close but not accessible until after you close the front door. And did I mention there is no light in that closet? These are simple things to fix in the design phase of a home plan, even in the construction process if discussed early with your contractor and loan officer. Often, however, a homeowner doesn’t realize the shortcomings of a home until they have lived and breathed it in for a while. Sometimes, they accept these in exchange for a step up, a change in neighborhood, or they are simply wowed by the appeal of a new home, something different than where they now live. May I suggest that a well-designed home will alter the need for square feet in favor of flow? That a house designed around the way you live will be more fulfilling to your family? That this will reduce the burden on your finances in the long run as your desire to stay rooted in your home will overcome the movement from house to house and the extra expenses that would be incurred as a result? The well-designed home will meet these and more.

One of my hobbies is to visit real estate open house events hosted by local realtors or new construction show homes hosted by contractors or their representatives. This has been a favorite practice for many years. In so doing, I can easily walk into a home and tell you exactly what I like or don’t like with a quick assessment. Many homes are simply tract homes or contractor grade sold on the mass market.  Sometimes they may be remodeled as home trends change with the times or American living habits evolve. These houses rarely exhibit careful design. That is not to say that some of these were not appealing but in the end, I would leave with a list of things I would have changed. These were frequently design issues not simply paint color or fixture choices.  “The walk-out basement was laid out well but the lawnmower garage/workshop did not have a sufficiently secure entry into the home or into the living areas and the kitchenette was too small to accommodate more than a microwaveable meal.” These are issues that could cause the next homeowner thousands in remodeling dollars but had they been designed into the home plan would be relatively modest built-in expenses.

One recently much reported subject in real estate and the evolution of modern living is the small home. Some would say this is a repudiation by younger generations of the American largesse. Others suggest that substance over size is driving this idea with the intended byproduct of freeing the personal budget from overwhelming expense. Reducing one’s carbon footprint is still another concern voiced by the move in this direction. But before we sell the neighborhood down the river or list the vacation home at the lake, let’s take a moment to reflect on a key success of this developing trend. What this movement generally does well is focus the attention of the homeowner on their living routines and the minimum necessary functions they should expect from their home, sweet home. Where can I hang my clothes or how much kitchen do I really need? Can I manage a queen sleeper or do I incorporate sleeping into my sofa plans? Is there a need for multiple divided spaces or can it all be planned into one?  Life is carefully thought through and what is necessary comes to the forefront. My goal here is take a page from this burgeoning trend and apply its focus to how a typical family moves around their home spaces, gaining a better understanding for what the true needs of the family may be. This is not an effort to encourage smaller homes but to gain more enjoyment from the home that your family eventually will choose to eat, sleep, study, and play in, hopefully, for years to come.

A common mistake made in the purchase of homes as well as the design of contractor model homes, is the lack of thought or planning given to future family events. Can the dining area accommodate more than 6? Will there be grown children or parents living in the home? Will this be the home where you and your spouse grow old together? These are just three questions that will help you gain insight into how you will live in your new home. This involves looking further down the road than move-in day or even one year from then. Every future scenario cannot be played out in your mind but a well-designed home can accommodate life more successfully, creating less stress on the movement of the family through it regardless of the ages of its members. This will result in a more joy-filled living environment for your family.

Let’s talk through one of the three questions from the previous paragraph to illustrate how this might work for the choices facing a family we will name the Johnsons. In so doing, we will have a vivid example from which to learn. Mr. Johnson has been married to his high school sweetheart 22 years and they have four children. The oldest is a college sophomore, the second and third kids are in high school, and the fourth was a happy surprise and is 3 years old – three boys and a girl. Here is a family of six, full of energy, hustle and bustle, tightly packed into a 1400 square foot neighborhood tract home built thirty years ago. He and his wife agree they need more house but can’t afford much more than 1800 square feet given their current budget. The discussion soon turns to building as an option over existing home solutions and they begin polling friends and co-workers to locate a trusty banker and dependable contractor with which to work.

My hope for this family is that one of the two professionals is a thoughtful designer and discusses at length the elements of the Johnson’s lives that would lead to a carefully designed home plan. The reality of careful design is that 1800 square feet is likely sufficient room to meet their needs but only when given due consideration from the start.

We will follow the first statement which questioned whether the dining room will be able to accommodate more than six. A family like the Johnsons will have an extended family that participates in their lives – grandparents, siblings and their families, high school buddies, college roommates, etc. Where will the overflow meals be eaten? At a kitchen bar or island? In the living room? On a card table? Will the dining space be carpeted, tiled, or covered by wood flooring to accommodate the extra traffic and invariable food spills? Is the table square or oblong and will there be enough room surrounding it for chairs to be pulled out without hitting the walls? Will the one serving delicious hot casseroles be able to pass behind those seated? Is there easy access from the kitchen or will the server have to cross other living spaces with food and drinks? Do the Johnsons want more than one eating area such as a built-in breakfast nook? Do they want additional furniture in their dining room such as a side boy or china hutch? Or do they want one of those as a built-in? Will they want all members of the family and their guests seated at the same table or will it be acceptable for some to eat in different locations in the house?

When the home’s dining room is not carefully considered, Mrs. Johnson’s parents and her sister’s family will arrive for little Ruthie’s fourth birthday dinner and there will need to be temporary accommodations. The additional four adults will not be able to join the family at the dinner table let alone the two cousins. While the Johnsons prize family togetherness, their new home’s dining space was not designed to feed more than six, at most eight with the added table leaf, but it would be a tight fit.  Only then do they realize that in their hasty decision to buy a new home in an up and coming subdivision with a family friendly layout but not a carefully designed home, they did not plan for family gatherings around the table. They simply did not remember how often they love to break bread with their extended family and the limits that their new dining room presented.

But, we have faith in the Johnsons. Instead, they found and met with a true artist at heart in their contractor, David Biltwell, who long ago crafted a series of handouts full of questions that his future homeowners were required to read and consider before the first dirt was turned. They spent hours talking with each other and their children, thinking of the habits of their lives and how those patterns could best be served. As they talked they began to see a trend developing concerning their dining room. They thoroughly enjoyed Momma Johnson’s love of baking. They saw how that eldest brother James liked coming home from college on the weekends bringing his girlfriend and sometimes his roommate as well. They remembered that Mrs. Johnson’s home décor crafting guild loved to have pie and coffee around her table on Friday nights. Momma and Papa Johnson were frequent guests for Sunday dinner. And at the holidays, their table was seated with other family members and friends. So, as they considered how their new home would look, they rightly created a space for dining that could serve a larger group, that did not have four walls, included built-in china shelving, with easy access to the kitchen and a breakfast nook with which they soon fell in love.

How did this plan look you ask?

“It looked like many hours of home-made meals, laughter, and engaging conversation to the Johnsons. “

The point might be raised that sacrifice of space in other areas of the home would be required for this idea to work well. That may be true and it would be difficult to tell without seeing the final design the Johnsons chose and reviewing their list of priorities. The key takeaway is that you decide where your family needs the space or where you can save. Perhaps a closet near the front door is less important in favor of locker room style cabinetry in a mud room off the garage when you park your car inside and your soccer team enters though the side entry. You decide but I am certain that you will more thoroughly enjoy your home when its carefully crafted design makes putting the weekly groceries away easier, you are not tripping over shoes inside the front door after practice night, and your family can join you around the table for pizza following a homecoming win.

In this series of articles, we will move through the Wanderer home room by room, discussing the successes and failures of each. We will talk about how some excellent design features have been implemented and how, with a little more planning, the everyday success of the Wanderer family could be better achieved. This will be a useful tool to achieve focus both as we design the home we plan to build and as you begin to consider the nature of careful home design and the role it might play in your future.

 

One step further down the road,

Jack