Warm and sunny summer weather provides many outdoor activities: family picnics at a local park, coffee networking meetings, magazine readings on the home wooden deck, and finally, somewhat esoteric ones: open houses.
Yes, that is right.
I like visiting open houses, and I have a hunch that I may not be the only person with this unusual (but surprisingly common) inclination.
Last weekend, coming back from a morning run, I saw the two OPEN HOUSE signages around our neighbourhood.
Maybe it has to do with the profession (architect), design interest, or even snooping tendency( wanting to see how others live).
I admit the affinity for checking out houses and comparing the differences between how I live/ my clients’ (houses I designed) to these open houses is high.
For those less-than-ideal reasons ( especially for real estate agents), my mom and I walked into the house with OPEN HOUSE signage.
The house felt much bigger than I had imagined from the outside.
The entire living room back wall completely opened towards the backyard, coupled with the completely open space concept of living/dining rooms/ kitchen, “should have” created the feeling of positive emotions: open, airy, uplifting…
Although the words, open concept, and lots of windows would be positive elements in design language, I did not feel “positive.”
In fact, the word I would describe at that moment would be uneasiness; the recent, top to bottom, high-end everything completed renovation did not conjure up the uplifting emotions I expected.
Why?
Lots of windows did not help with the feeling of well-being
With the forced isolation during the pandemic, we all recognized the importance of creating a comfortable (both physical and mental) home environment.
The discussion of health/wellness became a huge topic for every design magazine; various plants for living space, dedicated meditation space in tiny condo living, soothing paint colour palettes, lots of daylight…
Although this house had lots of windows towards the backyard and well built wooden deck attached at the living room level did not create the open, airy, bring-outside-in kind of living space.
I did not particularly care to go out.
Through the recently upgraded, spotless windows, I could see the backyard. It did not have a lush green space but a small leftover rectangular area enclosed with 3 neighbouring houses.
The claustrophobic feeling came from the tight, dark, brownish backyard space, which did not entice me to go out, even though the wooden deck was built beautifully.
Too much storage made me feel disorientated.
I can see many readers would disagree with this point. How can having much storage would be a bad thing? Right?
It was a great feature…initially.
Seeing the custom-built main entrance closet with mirrored doors made the “somewhat” right impression. (I am not a fan of mirrored doors…too 70’s)
As I walked through the living room, I noticed more hidden storage spaces and the abundance of storage story continued on the second floor where all the bedrooms were. That is where the every wall surface into storage emphasis kicked in high gear.
The bedroom sizes were small for detached houses, smaller than some of the downtown condo bedrooms I had seen.
I quickly realized the reasons for this unexpectedness; closets took over a significant portion of the bedrooms during their recent renovation.
Clearly, the owner decided to forgo the size of the bedroom in the name of modern living upgrades: a spacious closet.
As a person with a hoarding tendency (lots of clothes, shoes, bags, etc.), I recognized the benefits of having a huge closet space.
However, seeing the king-size bed taking up pretty much the entire bedroom and also seeing the sad small window above the headboard made me feel “sad.”
I could not imagine myself reading a book in that room… or having a phone conversation (ok, zoom call).
At that moment, I realized how lucky I was to live in a house with a big casement window( one big piece of glass without any window mullions) opening out into the lush green backyard…even if the room has a tiny closet!
As I turned more corners of the rooms and found more built-in cabinets in already tight bedrooms, I was no longer the person (and the designer) who saw the benefits of an organization if they impeded with mental clarity.
I needed my bedroom to function as a “breathable” space.
The basement floor has no visual connection to the outside
The best part of my family house is the basement.
It is an ironic statement to make as a person who preaches the importance of daylight.
Years ago, our family went through a renovation to “fix” some parts of our ancient house.
Many things did not work or stopped working: old electrical panel, no air conditioning, squeaking hardwood floor, outdated windows without energy efficiency…and the worse of it all, 70s scary looking red carpeted everywhere basement.
With the big “fix it” renovation project planned years ago, we decided to turn the scary basement into a non-scary, comfortable home office space.
It was an extensive renovation work that required an even bigger budget.
Our primary focus was to turn the entire basement into a functional, usable space that all family members would like to visit.
While our family members talked about each one’s “functional” wish lists (heated floor, ample storage space, white modern bathroom (from dark pink 70’s toilet), mine was an emotional one: daylight.
I wanted to bring more daylight into the dingy, dark basement space, even if the basement is completely renovated with “soothing” carpet colour.
I had to convince my family to increase the budget to allow cutting the parts of the basement exterior wall and connecting two existing tiny windows together; to create a thin but long horizontal window.
My family was not convinced…just to see some extra daylight to spend additional thousands of dollars?
Even the contractor tried persuading me to tackle the work with many negative points: substantial budget increase, delay due to getting the engineer’s approval and potential structural problem during the construction, etc. He had many potential downsides to “getting some light” (his words).
However, there were many benefits over the years from this “getting some light” window.
Noticing seasonal changes-first snow dat in winter, lush green trees in summer-or seeing people passing by while drinking my first-morning coffee became the “absolute must” rituals I grew to love.
My once reluctant family members even agreed that I made the right decision to fight for the window for what would have been a pretty good home office with artificial lighting all the time set up.
My recent open house basement did not conjure up the same joyful moments I had at our family house; they were uneasy, anxious, and uncomfortable.
Even though the basement was completely renovated top to bottom with once again lots of storage spaces, it lacked ONE essential element: daylight. The only spot connected to the outside was the bedroom window, which was tiny.
Even with the many high-quality upgrades made, I cannot see myself (or possibly many others) wanting to spend time in such space…unless spending time means only sleeping.
Final Thought
During the pandemic, we were forced to recognize the importance of mental health and wellness. Another related issue is the significance of our physical surroundings, especially our home settings.
As the recent open house visit illustrates for both myself/mom, our physical setting is not only about functions. It is also about our feelings, thoughts, emotions…qualities we seem to give less significance to when designing our homes.
However, as we have experienced in the last few years, these intangible qualities greatly influence the ever-changing, dizzying speedy life we lead.
While writing this blog post in the sun-filled home space office, I suddenly realized that I am using half of the desk space; the other half is for stacked books and papers for insufficient shelf space:)
What are the features of your home that make you happy?
Life Outside of Design Studio 