Inside the Not So Big House: Discovering the Details that Bring a Home to Life

by Sarah Susanka, Marc Vassallo

Best-selling author of The Not So Big House Sarah Susanka teams up with architectural design writer Marc Vassallo to expand upon the message that has resonated with over a million homeowners and builders across the opting for personalized, well-crafted, thoughtfully designed spaces over superfluous square footage results in a home that comforts and nourishes those who live there. Susanka and Vassallo focus their lens on the tangible and sometimes intangible details that bring an otherwise ordinary home to life. Incorporating such details as dropped ceilings, built-in shelves, pocket doors, window seats, and well-placed alcoves infuses a home with the character of its owners and conveys a uniqueness that's mising in many homes built or remodeled today. From Rhode Island to San Diego, the 23 homes featured here illustrate exceptional attention to detail. Each offers inspiration for those building or remodeling to transform their home into an expression of all that is important to them.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Design, Home Improvement, Reference, How To, Construction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Sarah Susanka is a bestselling author, architect, and cultural visionary. Her "build better, not bigger" approach to residential architecture has been embraced across the country, and her "Not So Big" philosophy has sparked an international dialogue, evolving beyond our houses and into how we inhabit our lives. In addition to sharing her insights with Oprah Winfrey and Charlie Rose, Susanka has been named a "Fast 50" innovator by Fast Company, a "top newsmaker" by Newsweek, an "innovator in American culture" by U.S.News & World Report, and is this year's recipient of the Anne Morrow Lindbergh Award for "outstanding individual achievement, a spirit of initiative, and work that exemplifies great dedication toward making positive contributions to our world."

Sarah is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, and a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. The author of seven books, Susanka resides in North Carolina.

Reviews

[Allison Severson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of beautiful photos! This book is about architectural, permanent details, not organizational details. This book would be perfect for someone remodeling, building, or ready to make some significant changes to a home. So, it wasn't as useful to me as I thought it might be when I picked it up off the shelf, but hopefully in a few years I'll need to pick it up again.

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susanka explains the details that make smaller homes more livable and beloved than cookie-cutter mcmansions. I support the struggle, even as I doubt the impact her books will make on the housing industry. But her, I'd be delighted to be wrong, and to see smaller, better constructed houses replace the big random uglies. Certainly she's influenced the design of my mental dream house.

[Brian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as weighty as the first not so big house, or as informative as some of the other books, this is still a useful volume that nicely crosses architectural theory with lifestyle porn. The interior photography is all gorgeous, each of the houses is obviously meticulously crafted in its original design or a remodel, but the books exists mostly as a companion piece to the first volume to spark ideas and show how some of the concepts can work in practice. I'm grateful i got it out of the library, but I don't think it's one I'd need to own.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely little book with nicely framed photos, and some nice insight into architectural details and their necessity/impact on residential living. My main qualm is that there aren’t many photos of exteriors, making it hard to visualize the actual space that the details occupy (a house isn’t just its parts, but also it’s sum). Also, it can be a little hard to relate to some of the more kitschy details, but I think that’s to be expected (the book is more than 15 years old, and some architectural details/stylings don’t age well).

[Carm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has many beautiful pictures I enjoy looking at again and again. However, I’m not sure the authors Sarah Susanna and Marc Vassallo created this book for ordinary people like me. This book seems to to cater to a designer’s and architect perspective with it’s focus on the importance of design styles and room and house styles. As a consequence the book seems elitist and off on its own tangent without really considering who might be interested in it.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a lot of great ideas for making a small home work, both practically and aesthetically. I especially like the 'Picture This' segments, where she shows two contrasting photos of the same part of a room, one with a particular element and one without, highlighting the benefits of one approach over the other.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved all the examples of making spaces more functional and more beautiful simultaneously. They were both pictured and explained in a way that a novice could understand. A must-read for anyone building a home! Only downside is I wish there was an updated version of this book with more contemporary style

[Betsy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great photos of homes, especially if you like beautiful woodwork over impressive house size and luxury. These homes are luxurious in their own way.
I picked it up at the library because we are decorating an apartment that we will soon move into (downsizing). It does not have beautiful woodwork, and I don't think that will be much of a part of our decorating.

[Amaryah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Not So Big House books are my favorite interior design/architecture books. Even though they are 20 years old they still feel relevant and timeless. I love Susanka’s attention to detail and I swear these are the only designs I’ve ever seen where I actually liked the look of a soffit.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chock-full of built-in storage ideas and indoor architectural beauty. Loved the book! If you are looking for a Tiny Home book, this is not it. There is one “Tiny Home”, but it is 1,200 sq. ft. Although, the ideas could be applied.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A study of the interior archectural details -- trim, niches, built-in bookcases, niches.

[Erika Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty, explained well, learned some things, and got a few ideas for my own house.

[LizR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another reference book I used when designing our new home.

[Rob Melich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book. Interesting points and no window covers.

[Amy Wass · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn’t as helpful as the first not so big book. Ok, but I wasn’t as helped or drawn in.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved all the details and dynamics that go into intentional space design and this book has loads of interesting ideas. The pictures alone are worth the read.

[kavya · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Although there's room for spur-of the-moment ideas, like embedding a purple marble into the trimwork, quality craftsmanship doesn't just happen—it has to be planned."

the book that shows you what every suburban mcmansion is trying to imitate. beautiful pictures, beautiful homes. i do wish, however, that we had more examples that were not living/kitchen/dining spaces, but bathrooms/bedrooms.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I read "The Not-So-Big House", so when I saw this one at the library I picked it up and read it over coffee for the next few mornings. The photos are well-done, though I wish that there were floor plans included with each house so that I could tell what the pictures were showing. This book reads better than the standard architecture book, which usually, for reasons unknown to me, favor ittybitty print and vast expanses of white on each page, making you go over each paragraph with a magnifying glass. The print is appropriate, and each house featured has a section with detailed text focused on and pointing to a photo of a specific part of the design.
This book is different than the original mostly in that it focuses on the details of a design, like how the tiles are laid out or how the trim is installed around the windows, vs the actual floor plans (which was what the original book was mostly about) or the interior design work. It was a good, unpretentious read.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the introduction and the first few chapters (each chapter highlights a separate home). When I felt that I had the general idea behind Susanka's 'not so big house' theory, I skimmed the rest of the book looking for pictures I liked. The photographs throughout the book are beautiful.

I find that I agree with Susanka's basic architectural philosophy - choose/build a smaller house, focusing on the details that make it beautiful. When you don't spend so much on square footage you don't need, you can put that money toward elegant touches like trims, wall niche's, and textured walls. I will probably read more of her books just for the ideas. I love my simple 'not-so-big' house, but it would be nice to add some of the beautiful touches she spotlights.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Sarah Susanka! In an era of McMansions, her devotion to regular sized homes is a delight! I recommend all of her books to those people who have better things to do than clean their huge houses, who do not equate their self worth with the size of their home, and those who care about their heating/air conditioning bills for financial &/or environmental reasons. She has excellent design skills and proposes many unique solutions to make the most of limited space.

This book introduces a variety of houses of different ages and styles showing interesting details in each that give the house character and charm. I highly recommend this book to every homeowner who wants to raise their house above the cookie cutter looks created by home builders today.

[Graeme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for its consistency and clarity in bringing out the details in houses that can give them "the quality without a name" that Christopher Alexander discusses in his books, which we might approximate by calling it "soul" or "life." Most of the houses have the glossy, perfectionistic architectural slickness that I find so objectionable in many houses (at least when they are photographed), but a few are more relaxed and less concerned with aspiration and image.

That is the quality that Sarah Susanka's co-author, Marc Vassallo, tries to bring out in The Barefoot Home: Dressed-Down Design for Casual Living".

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When people come into my house for the first time, one of the first things they notice is the arched opening between the living/dining rooms. It's also the first thing I noticed and it made me want to buy the house right away. Why is that?

This book helps you understand why certain details in a home are so comforting and/or compelling. It also helps you see how you don't have to have a lot of money or an enormous space to have a house that's a real pleasure to live in. The photography and writing in this book is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone who is pondering a remodel/build, since it completely changes the way you look at interior spaces and the way we experience them.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a follow up to The Not So Big House. The idea behind this style of home is that you look at your budget for a house, decide how much you can afford and how much square footage you can get for that price. Then you decrease your square footage by one third and spend the money that you would save on custom details so that you really love your house and it really fits your personality.

This book is a high level idea book for customization. I found some things that I love. Whether or not we will actually spend the money to build them into our house, I don't know, but it is a fun book to look at and dream about.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffers from a error in its titling. In an attempt to generate reader interest, they described houses that are actually quite large(but not, as they might argue, expansive, or behemoth in size) as "not so big". While it is true that they are not so big as some McMansions that are popular with many people, they are also not as small as the tumbleweed or other compactly designed houses that the title might evoke.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book focuses on how to use architectural design elements to give unity and character to a house. Most of its points on furniture involve built-in solutions (bookcases, window seats, cabinets, etc.), and to implement the suggestions from the book in your own house would probably require hiring a local architect. Susanka makes some great observations, but many are not realistic for someone looking to casually improve the look of a house (vs. a large-scale redesign).

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was even better than Susanka's other books on home design in that it was filled with inspirational ideas for adding lovely, built-in architectural details to homes to instill them with character. Such features include dropped ceilings, built-in shelves, pocket doors, window seats, and alcoves, as well as many others. It comes with before and after photos, which are highly revealing, and explanations detailing why these design elements are so pleasing to the eye.

[Angela Boord · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't like this one as much as her original book, The Not So Big House. Some of the houses included in the book just seem ugly to me, and many of the details seem less doable by regular people. On the other hand, there are some gems, and I appreciated that she keeps hammering home that in a kitchen less expensive finishes do not have to equal generic plastic sameness.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my review of the other Susanka book I read. In a nutshell: Her ideas are cool, but more expensive than I'd spend on a "not-so-big" remodel. Also, she assumes you have more space to work with than the average person does where I live. I could see this book being much more helpful in the Midwest, or any other less pricey zip code than mine.

[g-na · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book designed to bring out the importance of built-in architecture in a house - details such as interior rooflines, trim, cubbyholes, bookcases, etc. It's a very important design point, but unfortunately almost every example they have in this book is of a house whose architectural style I do not like

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read quite a few of Susanka's books, and have liked some and not others. I found lots of good ideas in this one which help me visualize what I would like to see in my addition. She does repeat herself throughout her books, but this is something that can't be helped, as she doesn't expect the public to read ALL of them.