The Cottage Company is also an active member of the Built Green program of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. In any event, if you have any interest in home architecture, this is well worth your time. We are proud to be among the first merchant home builders to certify all of its homes under the Northwest Energy Star program (standards achieve a 15 energy cost savings over code). (She specifically says at one point that architects need to sometimes tell clients 'you don't need an addition, you need a cleaning service' when people are trying to find more space.) At the end of the day her ideas are about taking mid 20th century size/style homes and making them more useful via minor architectural changes - overbig homes are going to be too big, and while much of this is useful for the tiny house movement it's not aimed for it.

Like all of Susanka's work, this collection of essays will make you wander around your house and wonder what furniture you can move, colors you can change and other minor adjustments to make your home more livable. The idea that we should be building our houses to model how we live in and use spaces is obvious, but listening to the contractors we're talking to about the remodel still isn't fully absorbed in the trade -things that Susanka comments on such as ceiling heights influencing how we feel in a space (obvious when you think about it) are dismissed because 'soffits are out of fashion'. Susanka's prose is clear and inviting, her ideas are well fleshed out and, just as importantly, humane. This is my 3rd or 4th read of this volume, pulled off the shelf as we contemplate a kitchen remodel.

Small house susanka