5 Small Home Ideas Fine Homebuilding

Fine Homebuilding focuses mainly on single-family residential construction that isn't necessarily limited in size. But they do have a feature from time-to-time on small homes. Here's a look at five ideas from some of their recent small home features:

1: Adapt to the Japanese attitude toward bedrooms. "They are bedrooms only at night", says architect Tina Govan, who incorporated a tatami room into her home's 650sf addition.
2: Open to outdoor space where possible. The 550sf "Big-Little House" in a Berkley, CA backyard has two rooms, both of which open onto a deck built around a protected coastal live oak tree.
3: High ceilings. The volume can make a tight footprint feel more spacious, as in these high, open-beamed ceilings in the "Big-Little House" by architect John Hopkins.
4: Use every inch, repurposing if you need to. The unused chimney in this kitchen, designed by architect Jonathan Chambers was converted into a tall, skinny bookcase.
5: Built-in furniture saves space while providing storage. This image is from Not so Big!, an article full of helpful small-space tips from architect Sarah Susanka.

Comments (14)

"They are bedrooms only at night."

And during the day they're apparently just rooms with a bunch of bedding in them. Just like a bedroom.

My family in Japan, who sleep in a tatami room like the one pictured above, actually fold-up their futons and sheets every morning and put them into the closets to free-up room.

So the quote "They are bedrooms only at night" would appear to ring true in most cases, and not like those in the picture above.

heather: Very funny!

I think the bedroom suggestion only works with a very minimalist aesthetic. If you have stuff all over, its still a bedroom.

@heather77: No, you obviously don't know anything about this and have no imagination. These kinds of traditional E. Asian homes tend to have more fluidity and flexibility in terms of layout than typical western homes. Bedding and bed mats are stowed away. Dining tables can be folded up and put away. Screens are used for privacy or to change the layout of a space. People generally sit on mats or cushions on the floor.

Oh, and the principle is the same as having a fold-out sofa for your bed. Put away your bed and you can use the room as a living room during the day.

On the Slow Home web site (http://theslowhome.com) the author wrote once about the need to stop thinking about named rooms (bedrooms, dining rooms, etc.), but to think about the functions you do in your home and then create multiple spaces that would accommodate them, thus allowing for multi-purpose spaces like the use of the bedroom above. It's counter to the way most homes are designed today, but it really makes sense for living in a smaller footprint.

Slowdown, I do understand the concept. In fact, my Korean father-in-law sleeps on a mat in our house when he visits, and rolls it up during the day.

I was just making fun of the fact that the example shown did have bedding strewn about during daylight hours, somewhat contradicting the "only bedrooms at night" quote.

How else to illustrate it? Show an empty room during the day?

I thought Heathers joke was rather funny. :-)

Anyway, I also really love the window seat in the same picture. Wish I could do something like that in my own place...

Indy Jeffrey, I like that idea a lot.

And I too "got" heather77's joke.

I think someone needs to calmdown.

I am loving the idea of putting away the bed at night but seriously, how do you use the room during the day? Do you move furniture into it every morning? It seems like more trouble than it's worth, I don't understand.

Ummm... Heather?? I kinda LIKED your joke.

(ducking away now...)

Slowdown, now you're showing a lack of imagination. There are other ways of illustrating "only a bedroom at night."