Above: View from street showing trellis built round tree. Car shed is at right of front door, at left the future added bedroom shown on the plan opposite in tint.
Below: Garden side is a sweep of glass and stained redwood or cedar siding. Wide overhang of roof protects from rain and summer heat, lets in low winter sun.
WHEN a young family today faces the old problem of "how much for how many," frills go overboard.
The way is then opened for a newer and simpler beauty, a beauty that springs from fine proportion, imaginative design and the lovely colors and textures made possible by postwar building materials. Today a house may be small and yet be spacious, convenient, efficient; it can provide, besides mere shelter, the dignity, privacy and flexibility which make for pleasant living. With that as a goal we asked the distinguished firm of architects, Raymond and Rado, to design this small house, suitable for any part of the country and including a future addition that can be built without destroying good work already completed and paid for.
The entire house rests on a concrete slab containing pipes of the floor-panel heating system. You may leave floors concrete and tint them or you may lay other flooring on the concrete-asphalt tile, cork, linoleum or wood parquet. In our version the flagstone path to the front door carries right into the living-room to make the hearth and elsewhere asphalt tile is used.
Now look for a moment at the plan: Once you're inside the front door, notice how you can reach any room in the house without passing through other living quarters. The walls between the living-room and the two initial bedrooms are movable. See how the row of little dormers, visible in the view above left, has been used to light the corridor opposite the bedrooms-a corridor where all the closets are assembled, handy to everyone but not cluttering up the rooms.
Airplane view shows louvered sunshade over east window. Stone walls, stained siding and a lifetime copper roof require practically no maintenance, will grow handsomer in color and texture as years go by.
We've asked Interior Design Editor Harriet Burket to suggest a decorative scheme for the inside of our house just to show you how pleasantly it takes to color, pattern and the charm of easy informal living. Since the initial house before expansion permits all rooms to open into one another on occasion, the individual units have been treated here so that they really can look like one big room. Dark green asphalt tile is the flooring throughout and the leafy print and plain fabrics harmonize with this. Sliding walls covered with gray tweed blend with fieldstone mantel and natural cypress of interior walls. There's no needless decoration here, nothing that doesn't work for you to make life easier, pleasanter, less cluttered. Only furniture that isn't built in is beds, sectional sofa, coffee table, dining table and chairs. Chairs are one of three simple designs, can be used in any room. Fluorescent fixtures, carefully placed for adequate lighting, eliminate little tables, table lamps, shades. Curtains are rigged to slide freely to wherever you want them at the moment-for privacy, shade or a heavenly view.
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