The not-so-big life

Sarah Susanka, author and architect, has written a series of books about the Not So Big House. The premise of her books (which are based, incidentally, on A Pattern Language) is that we don't design for the way we actually live. In other words, the spaces that we create for ourselves should be spaces that we really use. Kind of like the philosophy of the Golden Corral Buffet: take what you'll eat, and eat what you take. In other words, we don't need pretentious McMansions with formal dining and living rooms, game rooms, bonus rooms, etc, etc--because most of us don't really have lifestyles that make those spaces functional. The house that Susanka advocates for is the "not so big" house, a house that unites form and function in a meaningful way.

Sooooo....that's what we've tried to do with our house, which my husband designed. Because I was pregnant and then totally overwhelmed with a 2 year old and a newborn while we were building it, I can't claim much responsibility for the end product. (I literally picked out three things: the tile for the bathroom, the upstairs carpet, and the interior doorknobs.)

I'm hoping, though, that the house will serve as a kind of symbol, or maybe a kind of gateway. The house, such as it is, is mostly finished--but I'm hoping that in completing it and moving into it, we have ushered in a new way of living (new, that is, to us). As Adam's 97-year old grandmother always used to say, "Life is serious business." And I've come to see that she's right. In a larger sense, we are trying, I think, to live the "not so big" life, a life in which the meaningless stuff has been stripped away, while the essentials remain. I'm not claiming that we're successful--I guess some days are better than others. But we're trying.