Here’s an arrangement book for our times, when many homeowners are under water mortgages, and the cycle of trading up has stopped or slowed way, way down. In”Staying Put,” architect and writer Duo Dickinson has assembled a great and practical manual to help us create real improvements to our homes. Dickinson, an advocate of well-designed and affordable homes for all, has specialized in residential layout for more than three decades.
This isn’t your normal architect’s publication about layout. There’s no vague language nor design-for-design’s-sake thoughts. It’s a practical, down-to-earth manual that walks anybody through the rational procedure of how to redesign your home to get the home you need, from how to think about your home and overcoming barriers to some listing of”Duo’s Do’s and Don’ts” for the homeowner. On the way, there’s plenty of fine before-and-after photos to help clarify the things. Do read the publication. You will be happy you did.
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The cover says it all. The omnipresent photo of a gorgeous, award-winning home that’s beyond most people is replaced with pictures of a watched, cup of dawn joe plus a to-do list.
Are you currently staying put yourself? Keep Reading for 8 of Dickinson’s suggestions.
Mick Hales
Think about the compass points. The strategies and illustrated examples are wonderfully straightforward. As an example, we see a home that gets overheated, the siding degrades and the front doorway bakes in the sun because it all faces southwest.
Dickinson’s common-sense information: Rework the front of the home with a new broad porch that shades the front doorway and some smaller, yet well-sized windows to make a whole lot more curb appeal whilst decreasing maintenance and energy intake. It is a triple win: more attractiveness and relaxation with less price.
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Avoid gutters. Statements such as”gutters and leaders are devoutly to be averted” may seem like heresy to many, but certainly are the truth. Proving his point, Dickinson illustrates the way the properly-built roof overhang can shed all of the water it has to without the complications, for example ice dams, due to gutters.
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Embrace small moves. Dickinson provides a wealth of simple solutions illustrated with before-and-after photos. He shows how to utilize small moves for big dividends, such as taking out a wall between a kitchen and a hallway to generate space for longer kitchen storage.
Mick Hales
Boost curb appeal. The publication offers solutions to frequent problems with a specific style, such as the way to improve and improve an entry into a split-level home. (See the prior photo of this entrance).
Mick Hales
Open up to the outside. Dickinson provides some excellent examples of how we could use modern doors and windows to strengthen the connection between inside and outside. Our homes, ” says Dickinson, no longer want to be”later-day caves.”
Mick Hales
Find your home. Learning more about the style of the home you’ve got will help you avoid barriers in remodeling and recognize the the best opportunities for improving your specific home.
Mick Hales
Open the inside. Snippets of advice sprinkled throughout the book are similar to refreshing raindrops that clean the cobwebs away. 1 such snippet:”If you walk through a room for to a space, something is wrong.” You know — it’s when that new great room gets inserted onto a modest home, and the outcome is some sort of dyslexic creature that’s two homes rather than one.
So rather than even building an addition, Dickinson suggests you take advantage of everything you presently have. In this example, widening the gap between chambers reinforces this room’s connection with the remainder of the home, raising its utility and spaciousness.
See the room before Duo’s intervention
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Work with everything you have got (before): Keeping the kitchen dimensions exactly the same when vaulting the ceiling radically increases the overall spaciousness of the space, because you’ll see in the next photograph.
Mick Hales
Work with everything you have got (after): Walls, doors, appliances and even the skylight and kitchen sink were all left where they were. This all avoided costly plumbing, electrical and mechanical function and rework.
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Working with everything you have got (plans): Dickinson has included before-and-after floor programs for lots of the examples. These programs help provide that much more context, allowing the reader to better understand what they could be able to do with the home they already have.
More: Staying Put, by Duo Dickenson, Taunton Press, 2011
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