Interior Design will create our lifestyle

Here is a site called "Apartment Therapy" with some good ideas for exposed closets that caught my eye. Part of the challenge of designing a small house is to stick to our goal of having nothing that we do not find to be beautiful or know to be useful. With that philosophy, we shouldn't need to hide things away in cupboards and closets, but just have them readily available with as efficient use of space as possible. However, something I'm valuing more lately is ease of cleaning, and exposed clutter does not fit with that goal.
Our friend Susan Hunsberger has a business blog called Strategize Organize LLC, which is something I hope to follow more closely now that we're in to the nitty gritty of interior design, which really is our design for the way we want to live!

Mock up of the upper story of our Small House

Very helpful to see the steep angle of the ceiling and walk around under it. There will be no attic- just the unadulterated point of the roof above us. A perfect place to put our hanging iron clothes dry rack from Wales.

Floor plans for a Small House

We just discovered the exterior walls of our house- natural stone buff withthreads of blue orange and greys. I fell in love with it as soon as I laid eyes on it. Then we were told it was from a quarry in Southern Ohio and everything clicked into place! Of course- the stone is the color of the clay chunks of earth in the fields of my childhood , the clay cliffs of the ravine where we played. The price is right and the stone is ours and I will live wrapped in the glow of my girlhood days in the Southern hills of OH. Andy says to lay stone in any other direction than how it lay in the earth is to disrespect the stone. This is what makes him not just a builder but a great builder.
-wendy

Built in Daybed

Evaluating our Space: What Works!

Stuff We Love

Coffee Grinder

"Put your hands to work and your hearts to God"

Matches

Andy's fine woodworking

Familiar stuff

Funky light fixtures

Kitchy fun stuff

Memories

A portrait of the girls and me overlaying a gient chocolate bar label

Decorating with fruit and veggies

Salvaged materials





Practical/Impractical

User Friendly



Fridge on the wall





Hooks



Outbuildings



Indoor processing space





Outdoor processing space

Must Have

Arts and Crafts design

Hooks

More hooks

Outdoor bedroom

Great Features

A room of Arts and Crafts everything

Consistant design era

Old stuff that isn't "improved"

Woodwork that ties the rooms together

fearless decoration

Window bed

Revorie!

Animal Spaces

Joni the dog

Kiki the cat

Integration with the Street

Our neighbors extroverted house

Our hidden house



Hidden space

 

An introverted enterence



Outdoor living space



A porch that is made for naps

We see out, they don't see in

Evaluating Our Space: What Isn't Working



Cleaning Challenges 

Air conditioner dust

Cleaning closed in spaces



Cobweb Collectors




Cords



Curvey toilets



Exposed plumbing




Hard to reach dirt




 

Pipes- hard to clean




Radiators




Caulk





Stove knobs

Space Challenges



Cute cubby holes nobody uses



Front steps nobody sits on

Design Challenges



Computers




Other people's stuff



Health equipment





 

 

 

 

Cool Stuff I Can't Part With

Electric pencil sharpener



First Mennonite organ pipe




Sewing machine, etc

The Unfinished



The between floors problem

Projects in process



Trim



Storage Challenges



Suitcases, sleeping bags and other big stuff




Crafts and Girl Scout supplies




Dressers (there HAS to be a better way)



Future projects



Musical instrument cases



Stuff by the bed




Photo albums

Shoes and Socks 



The shoe pile




The sock pile




Shoes




More shoes




and MORE shoes

Window Dressings





Hannah's Canadian flag



Sara's Che flag



Easy to clean, not very private



Impossible to clean Ikea shades



Map shade



Strategically placed decoration