101 things Katie Hutchison Studio (KHS) has learned designing homes, Part ten of ten

Newton Kitchen Renovation/Mud Room Addition: Wood floors work well in almost any space.See the full series here.

91.  Use metaphors to communicate design intent to homeowners.

92.  Avoid granite countertops; they’ve been done.

93.  Lighting with the proper color temperature is critical to how warm or cool a space feels.

94.  Pay attention to scale; right-size it.

95.  Wood floors work well in almost any space. (See Newton Kitchen Renovation/Mud Room Addition.)

96.  Design stairs to serve a use beyond vertical circulation.

97.  Reduce clutter and clean windows to increase spaciousness on a dime.

98.  Don’t conceal windows with overly busy or elaborate window treatments.  Roman shades or interior shutters work well.

99.  Provide a consistent interior trim color or clear finish; vary wall color within a harmonious palette. (See Primer: A Recipe for Architectural Charm.)

100. Maximize daylight. (See Common Sense Green.)

101. Practice forgiveness and gratitude.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

The 2011 Idjit Garden season is fast approaching

Vegetable Garden Wheel, courtesy of the Womanswork websiteMy garden planning is behind where it was last year at this time. So much for improvement at Katie's idjit garden. I'm still in the graph-paper scheming stage. I haven't ordered any seeds or started any seedlings with last year's crop.

I have, however, discovered Garden Wheels, thanks to garden design ONLINE. Womanswork creates these nifty planning tools, chock full of plant info and tips.

In addition to the Vegetable Garden Wheel (shown left), I couldn't resist collecting the Herb, Annual, and Perennial Garden Wheels too. I'm planning on mixing edibles and non-edibles in my community garden plots, so here's hoping the Garden Wheels will save me from some of last year's planting blunders.

I'm also looking to Beekman 1802 to get my square-foot gardens steered in the right direction. In partnership with Williams-Sonoma, Josh and Brent, owners of The Beekman Farm in upstate New York, are peddling a Landreth seed collection of heirloom vegetables. They're hoping to inspire 10,000 gardeners to grow the same vegetables at the same time and to share the experience at the Beekman website. I'm not sure if I'll participate, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from the conversation.

If you have suggestions for a well-intentioned idjit gardener, please share them at the Katie Hutchison Studio Facebook Page. It isn't too late to turn a wanna-be gardener, into the real deal.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Photography Exhibit: White on White: Rural Churches of New England

book cover, courtesy of Amazon.com

Photographs by Steve Rosenthal at de Menil Gallery, Groton, MA

April 4- June 5, 2011

(on loan from Historic New England)

Steve Rosenthal's gorgeous black-and-white photography of white churches in  the New England vernacular can be savored in book form or up-close on exhibit.

You may recognize Rosenthal's name from his many credits in architectural photography, but for years he pursued a pet project -- composing breathtaking fine-art photos of a uniquely New England icon. From stoic meetinghouses to elegant Greek and Gothic Revival churches, his collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century, textured, white structures in the New England landscape is a treasure.

Catch the artist's gallery talk Wednesday, April 6 at 7:15 pm at the de Menil Gallery in Groton, Mass. If you can't make it to the exhibit (or even if you can), grab a copy of the book.

Find more examples of stunning New England vernacular photography here.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

101 things Katie Hutchison Studio (KHS) has learned designing homes, Part nine of ten

Brewster Long House: Include clerestory windows and/or a roof monitor, where possible.See Part eight of the series here.

81.  Recommend that homeowners move out during renovations, if possible.

82.  Consider incorporating renewable energy systems.

83.  Provide a generous mud room.

84.  Edit the program and design judiciously. (See Design Process.)

85.  Include clerestory windows and/or a roof monitor, where possible. (See Brewster Long House.)

86.  Don’t let “the tail wag the dog”. (See Don’t overlook intangible value and cost.

87.  People either love or hate pocket doors.

88.  Dismiss bum clients (Don-Draper style).

89.  Don’t forget to provide egress windows in bedrooms.

90.  Design/build arrangements sacrifice the benefits of the competitive bid process.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

The secret behind continuing ed. bliss

I remember an architectural coworker teasing me about my needing time to “take calligraphy classes or whatever”. I wasn’t taking a calligraphy class, and he knew it, but what struck me as so spot-on and funny about his dismissal of my extra-curricular pursuits is that I would have loved to have taken a calligraphy class then or now.

I’ve often pondered what it is about my “non-essential” creative endeavors that captivate me so. I look forward to them the way many anticipate a vacation on the beach or poolside. I find myself completely blissed out in a pin-hole photography class, a creative non-fiction workshop, or a plant-identification field-visit primer. What’s it all about?

mystery-of-being-human books
For a while now, I’ve been turning to books for the answer. There’s been a series of what I’ll call mystery-of-being-human books taking up space on my nightstand over the years, starting first with Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. Then, moving on to My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, This Is Water by David Foster Wallace, The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely,  A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink, and most recently Happiness at Work by Srikumar S. Rao, Ph.D.

Of course, I read other books in between these, but it wasn’t until finishing Happiness at Work a couple of weeks ago that I realized how much overlap there had been in the books cited above, to which I had gravitated. For me, they all seem to support an aspect of some inescapable truths; we all long for sublime connections to people, experiences and/or entities outside ourselves, and it is within our power to realize those connections. David Brooks describes such a drive, identified by current research in neuroscience, psychology, sociology and behavior economics, as “limerence”.  Brooks explains in The New York Times that “… the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God”.

choosing how to perceive
Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, had a transcendent experience in the midst of a stroke, which struck the left hemisphere of her brain. In My Stroke of Insight she writes,

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