Small Is The New Big

I said I'd elaborate.

I could use many sources, but a brand new source came across my desk yesterday - the latest issue of New Old House. (which, by the way, features the home of my favorite design couple, Steve and Brooke Giannetti. Steve is an architect-artist, Brooke is an interior designer, and their personal design style is exactly what I love. But that is beside the point...)

Inside this great magazine is a whole article dedicated to small being the new big. Here are a few quotes...

"We've changed from...conspicuous excess to careful consideration..."

"Now lean is the new luxury. To build lean means adapting our assumptions of what we want and need, to homes that are smaller, smarter, and simpler."

"While enthusiastic about buildling a new old house, (our clients) no longer come to us with a wish list that includes 7,000 square feet, a commercial range, and a soaking tub."

"We are sick of oversized McMansion houses and the budget required to build and maintain them. Today the most frequently requested house size is 2,500 square feet. Architects can design a perfectly comfortable, functional home within such limits."

Their tips - if you want to get in on this new-old aesthetic of smaller is better -

1. Think Smaller. Simply put - less square footage.
2. Get rid of "trophy rooms", such as game rooms, media rooms, and grand foyers. They are, at heart, only for show, and that sort of motive does not meet the true emotional needs of a person.
3. Scrap quirky roofs, curves, and corners in the roof and interior design. Complexity is out. Simplicity is in. And I quote, "A house embellished merely to add interest or curb appeal has a major design flaw, one that substitutes window dressing for real design skill. Traditional styles are simple. They have their own beauty and elegance, and they don't need to be gussied up with excess."

A house is built to meet the physical and emotional needs of a family. A family or home owner who has an emotional need to exhibit their social status, will find he or she can only buy or build for themselves a "McMansion"...they feel driven, after all, to meet this dysfunctional emotional need.

There are lots of definitions of "McMansion" floating around out there. To me, a McMansion is not just a "big house". I love me a big house. I could live in a huge house, and it not be a "McMansion"...it all depends on my motive, design taste, and the honest-to-goodness, every day use of the space. See, here's the thing - my every day life, lived honestly and true to my calling, needs more space. Every room in this house gets used many times a day, every day. More rooms, bigger rooms would be a good thing...a very good thing. The way we live (thirteen for dinner last Saturday, nine today - hospitality goes on here, to people outside our immediate family, as well as our family, every single day. That's the honest truth) the way we live would justify quite a large home.

But we use what we have, to its utter, exuberant limit.

A McMansion is a large space that houses small, inward lives. A McMansion is a home that does not regard human scale - everything is big, most of the public spaces are cavernous. A McMansion is a home that is all out of proportion to the honest, every day use of the space - whole rooms go unused for days (sometimes weeks or months) at a time.

A McMansion supports a lifestyle that the owners want to portray - not the lives they actually live. Big, pretty boxes, full of the props to a life no one really lives - these homes become McMansions because families don't love each other with simple, daily grace, and hospitality is not a way of life. Very little is shared, beyond the occasional party thrown as exhibition.

A McMansion wants you to admire it. A home wants you to take shelter within its cozy rooms, whether they be large or small.

I've seen it coming for years - small is the new big. Get in on this design style...it isn't going anywhere. It is here to stay.

To My Friends, With Love...

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy,
like art, like love.  It has no survival value;
rather, it is one of those things that give value
to survival.


~ C.S. Lewis

Thursday - Saying 'Bye to Summer

The view outside my front door today...Thursday is a bit moody...


Good morning, Miss Thursday!  I see you are a moody sort of day, being that you are a little overcast, but with a hint of sunshine to come?  I'm sure of this - there's never been a Thursday like you, and never will be again.  You are your own day, standing out on the calendar in all your glory.  Thursday, September 16th, 2010.  You'll never knock on my door again.  I want to get to know you.  What special things do you have in store?

The first thing you said to me, while I was still in my pajamas, was this:  "Time to say goodbye to summer."  I'm a little confused, since our temperatures are getting upwards of ninety degrees, but okay.  Whatever you say, Thursday.

So I said goodbye to one of my best crepe myrtles...but not to the canoe.  I will not say goodbye to the canoe until November.  Fall is actually mine and Tim's favorite time to get the boat out.  Cracks me up...we have a boat - Atchley style.  Simple.  Sweet.  You should see it upside down and on top of the Barbie Jeep (my husband's red Geo Tracker convertible).  A hoot n' hilarious sight.

 But enough about me.  I'm thinking you are a "great" Thursday!  So, since you are a moody-great Thursday, it's Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, and more...

...all on one divine, vintage (1959) LP.  Is that a smile I see, Miss Thursday?  Toe tapping?  I think so!  Here, let me pour you a cuppa caramel macchiato coffee.  And take a look at my new favorite magazine.

Hmmmm.  Now you are saying that actually, what you really meant this morning was to tell me to celebrate the changing of the season.  Revel in the last heat wave I'm likely to see until next May.  Take note of the scattered, few bright orange leaves on that crepe myrtle, because soon, that bush will be ablaze - and I'll enjoy that almost as much as the magenta flowers.  You're telling me to chop up the very, very last of the jalepenos and tomatoes and make a fine salsa.

  And while I'm making salsa, you recommend that I have a glass of wine, and propose a toast to the Summer of Grace.  Oh, and water that red lantana, you say.  It's looking a bit bedraggled.  Maybe plant a gorgeous orange mum in that basket, you say?

Coffee does wonders for you, Miss Thursday.

 Rambo-beenie says to tell Miss Thursday that it seems like a day to crunch on tortilla chips and chase the pocket parrot around the room.  Bad Beenie!

Well, I'm off to see what unfolds on this One Special Thursday - and I don't mean laundry.

Quotable Quotes

“Life’s short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.”

Henri-Frederic

Thoughts on the Poor and Needy

my dining room table, a completely unstyled photo, after a day of school today.  this picture represents fabulous wealth...the well fed puppy on the chair, the laptop, the school books, the knitting that sits, casually waiting for the fact that I am so rich I have spare moments to do something creative...

I'm haunted by Ann Voskamp's observations, from her brief trip to Guatemala with Compassion International.  She visited families in the ghettos and slums of that country, a country still reeling from its recent mudslides.

Every day I sweep and cook and straighten with my steam mop and my all natural cleaners and my clean rags that match my kitchen, I'm thinking of a mother in Guatemala I have never met.  Vicariously I visited this mother, through Ann's blog, and the visit changed me.

Utterly impoverished mothers want clean homes, too.  They want all the same things I want, and they work harder than I do, with fewer tools, to accomplish far less.

And some can chalk it all up to an absence of capitalism, and still sleep at night, without doing one thing about the poverty they have seen on their big flat screen TV.

After her visit with this particular family, Ann felt compelled to tell the Guatemalan mother, "You are a good housekeeper", and upon translation, the mother began to weep.

And I've never gotten over it.

and these came in the mail this morning...God has a sense of irony, too.

How do you fight a mudslide?  How do you cherish all the home keeping hopes and dreams that all mothers have in a place that menaces your soul, day in and day out, with its filth and stench and poverty?  Somehow, this mother kept her shack as clean as she could keep it...noticeably different than the shacks that surrounded hers.

And she needed the same affirmation that I need...she needed to be told that her ordinary work did not go unnoticed.

So here I am, in my climate controlled home, blogging to the scent of spiced pumpkin and the music of Acker Bilk.  Feeling absolutely tiny.  My spirituality pales to that of a simple woman, fending off the mud, daily wiping the grime of the ghetto off of her home and her family.

I'm thankful for every blessing I've been given.

I spent some time early this morning getting to know this particular Tuesday, and it is an Acker Bilk sort of Tuesday.  Really.  It is.  See for yourself.

Given.  Given, given, given.  I have not earned a single thing.  This is what irks me about conservative talk radio...as much as I wholeheartedly agree with the conservative philosophy of hard work, and no government entitlement programs.  At one time, I took in a steady, almost daily diet of talk radio, and it made me arrogant and hard inside.  It made me intellectually bright, and proudly skeptical, complete with the strong suspicion that anyone who is poor deserves to be.  It is their own fault.  They haven't worked hard enough to earn the American Dream.

If we take this logic to its inevitable conclusion, then the last and the next heart-wrenching event in your life, Mr. Rush-Fan, is entirely your fault.

Because you deserve hell.  Cut and dried.  There is only One of whom it was declared, "I find no fault in Him" - all your hard work and good intentions mean not one thing....all your righteousness comes from Him, along with every blessing you have under God's sun.

Transitioning the foyer from summer to fall...this means getting the sheaves of Harvest Wheat back out.  I desperately want and need "Harvest" to be more than a time of year to me. 

I'm done with so-called Christianity that is so full of its own self righteousness, that it can't identify itself with the poor and needy.  Yeah, even when they deserve to be poor and needy.  But for the grace of God, there go I.

It is almost time again for cider and fires in the firepit, for S'mores and bonfires in the country with gobs of friends and soup and sweaters.  I am living a dreamy, fabulously wealthy life that I do not deserve.  Do you deserve the lifestyle you have earned for yourself, or do you enjoy the blessings you have been given?   




 

Monday

Good morning, Monday!  You look gorgeous...I am so glad to meet you.  There's never been a day quite like you, and never will be.  You are completely unique, and I think I love you already.  Your sunlight is dreamy.  What other joys do you hold for us today?

I think I am going to light a candle, even in the morning sunshine, to celebrate you, Ms. Monday Morning!  You certainly rate at least a little Pumpkin Spice scented candlelight...you've already been such a blessing, and it isn't even 9 o'clock yet!

How about a little vintage music?  You seem like a Tony Bennett sort of Monday.  Happy.  Classic.  Yes, even though we just met, I can tell exactly what kind of Monday you are!  Tony it is...

I put away my summer blue mugs, and put these out, over the weekend.  It was a few hours of fall nesting.  Perfect for an almost-autumn Monday Morning.  Would you like some coffee in one of these...

...or would you prefer some hot tea in one of these antique peach lustre-ware, depression era glass cups?  (A gift from my Hannah...she found an amazing deal on a whole set of four.  These are typically quite expensive.  But don't let that worry you, Monday.  I trust you.  I'd be happy to pour your coffee or tea in one of these fall-colored beauties!)

The Lord has been good, in allowing me to make friends with such a delightful Monday Morning.  You are something else, and I look forward to getting to know you, finding out all you have in store for me!  What do you say, let's get this party started...

Can It Be?

(including the above pic for no other reason but that I love the outfit...I'm so copying it, this fall) 

Can it be that this weekend is....over?  Already?  Can it be that it is 10:58 on a Sunday night, and tomorrow is Monday morning?

The weekend began Friday afternoon, Hannah, Sarah, and Jonathan in tow, with a short drive to look at a house up for sale, in town.  This house is an adorable bungalow complete with large, open porch and big columns.  Inside are hardwood floors, doors with the original hardware, built in book cases and window seats.  Big rooms, high 10-foot ceilings.  White paint everywhere.  Bright and airy.  

But the exterior of this house is in need of every sort of work.  New roof.  Siding.  Paint.  Windows.  Structural issues.  You name it, this house needs it.  Inside, it needs a whole new kitchen, from the floors up.

A dream to be sure.  My Tim and I could purchase this house and renovate it, true to the style.  If we could sell our current house, this one would be neither out of our price range, nor out of the range of our ability.

But it is out of our range of priority, in this season.  Life is about so much more than finally having that architecturally authentic and interesting home I've always wanted.  Believe me, I have to remind myself.  However, it is always such fun to look.

Then there was our church's ladies' meeting on Saturday.  Oh.  My. 

Law, these women are such fun.  They are twelve ways of sweet and bushels of delight to my soul.  How we laughed, around that lunch table, the tang of basil and tomatoes and olive oil on our tongues.  The glass trifle bowl piled brimful with fresh berries, graciously provided by our hostess (along with lunch!) was pure art - I wish I had brought my camera.

Then there was our college team's football game.  Our team lost, but I still won - any girl who gets to host 13 people for dinner and a game, all hooting and hollering, who gets to sit and listen to daughters and their husbands, sons and their girlfriends, sons and their friends (and those friends' girlfriends) is a blessed and highly favored girl.*

Then there was church...we baptized the sweetest little boy, which was a dream come true for his grandmother, who did the baptizing. 

Pastor Tim, having a very grown up talk with a boy wanting to be baptized...

His young footprints, wet in the carpet, making a path back through the center of the church amongst smiling faces and clapping hands...those soaked barefoot prints were a sight for these eyes.  Oh, the water-logged foot-trails we've made this summer, from the baptismal tank to the back of the church!  It has been The Summer of The Baptism.  May it be so next summer, next week, and forever.

Then, there was time with family - my brother in law's birthday party.  A sweet ending to an equally sweet weekend.  Looking at my sister is like looking in a mirror on a really fantastic hair day.  (She got all the hair genes in the family...not fair.  So not fair.)  She and I both have had people we don't know, but who the other knows, approach us and tell us "...you have to be her sister...you have the same mannerisms, the same laugh, and look so much alike!"

Sometimes I wonder if we are one soul in two bodies.  But then again, we are just enough different, I know it can't be that.  Believe it or not, she's sassier than I.  She don't take no crap, and does not suffer fools or liars or social snobs.  Heaven help the people who have ever done me wrong - if they happen to cross paths with my sister, they'd best turn and look for someplace to hide.  She might tell them where to go and how to get there.

Can't tell you how heartwarming and comforting it is to have a sister like that.  She's every kind of beautiful to me.

The weekend is over, and I have been flawlessly cared for by a mighty God.

Okay.  I think I'm done.  I still don't believe the weekend is over!

~~~~~~~

*that would be me...in case you were wondering who the Blessed Girl might be...