Sometimes when you write, the words come, dance themselves onto the page, flit here, glide there, then settle, finding the place where they're most free. And then, sometimes, when you read back over those words that came, you look, then you look again, and you have to smile because you had no idea you wrote that. Those consonants and vowels come together in a beautiful conspiracy and write a story that's deeper than you. They write life far more than you know, better than you could.
It's like a gift with a bow, right there in black and white.
So when I wrote the words A Plan for Living Well at the top of the post on this Monday morning past, I didn't realize just then how those five words encompass so much more than planners, journal pages, and calendars. Didn't realize how those five words are engraved onto the very work my hands have done for the past year, the work that is now just days away from being released into the world. Hours upon hours of planning, drafting, and design have taken place. Hours upon hours of studying - studying books, studying people, studying life. Hours upon hours of creating a plan for living well.
A house plan for living well. Actually, make that four.
If you've been reading here a while, you already know about all this. You've been waiting for the completion of this collection of small house plans. Waiting. Aaaand waaaiting (did we have any idea what an exercise in patience this would be? You deserve a medal).
But I wanted to make sure you were getting something special. Something you couldn't find out there, though goodness knows you've tried. In these plans, I wanted to give you ideas you may have never thought of. I wanted to stretch to the top, grasp what may have seemed out of reach, and offer it to you.
I'd like you to know that I'm not pretending to be something I am not. I'm not an architect. I don't have a slick portfolio of stately houses I've designed. I'm not padded by degrees. What I do have is a sense of place and space, a knowing of the relationship between a person and his or her home.
This knowing came with me through my early years when my father was a builder, when he and I would draw houses on napkins and notepads, when my favorite thing to do was go to a job site and see a house in progress. Then, when I became an interior designer in my twenties, it continued to guide and instruct, forming me into a life-long student of home and a creator of places that feed the soul. Now, in this process of producing my first collection of house plans for the public, I've taken my experience, surrounded myself with professionals who fill well the blanks I have, and together we've created something I am so very proud of.
When my draftsman said to me, "You realize, don't you, that you've gone far beyond what any stock plan offers, here," I knew that I'd done what I'd set out to do. Then when he went on to use the words these plans, high-end, custom, and architecture in the same sentence, I just smiled and thanked him for the compliment, knowing what he meant. He was saying that the homes that are built from these plans will have depth and soul, they will have crafted detail, they will have the feel of a story well told, a story with room for those who would live there.
Not built to impress, instead, they would welcome and envelope - an easy offering for a small house (you know my affinity for those). My goal in this process was to take the idea of small and allow it to live large (for more than just two or three people) - not such an easy offering for a small house! But by designing these houses from the inside out, beginning with the function of and furniture required for each room, then adding in traffic flow, architectural detail and character, purposeful window pacement, and key storage solutions, that goal was achieved.
I cannot wait to show them to you. The Shelter Collection will roll off the presses soon, beginning with the first, Shelter No. 1, which will be followed in succession, every couple weeks (oh, I'm hoping), by the next. Study plans will be available for purchase if you'd like to peruse and dream. Full set plans will be available for purchase as well, with instant PDF download so you can have one built for your very own.
Ah, friends, the perfect note is struck when a house lives well.
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