Assortment

Hello

 

Carmella Rayone

Everyone has a story. It follows like a shadow, a silhouette. Here, I write ours.

It's become a story about less. And more. It's about long-term goals and right-now sacrifices, followed by right-now blessings. It's living smaller in order to live larger.

It's taking note of the days and marking down the beautiful (and sometimes crazy). It's happy and hard (life just is) and very, very true.

And it all happens in our 665 square foot home in the foothills of Wyoming's mountains. Yes, 665 square feet for the five of us, just built in 2012. Here, we learn, we love, and we live . . . with less.

Welcome 

Becoming home: Design Philosophy

A house comes to life when it speaks of the people who dwell there; when it becomes a narrative of personalities and interests, a reflection of character, a creative collective. A house has room for life when everything has a place to belong, with plenty of openness between. Either visually or literally, either horizontally, vertically, or cubically, open space is a powerful force greatly influencing the livability of a room. When designing our house, I took these seemingly ethereal elements and applied them to the entire process.

Thinking in black and white, from a bird’s eye perspective, I drew out the spatial designation for every room according to the comfortable minimum of space required, and then built each room around the main pieces of furniture that would ground it. In other words, I designed our house from the inside out. Although my training in interior design and past experience in the home construction world certainly aided in the technical aspects of this, I have to say that many streams of influence and study over the years joined together to form what you see in the photos now. A life-long affinity for small spaces has caused me to be a perpetual student of architects, designers, and builders who work their craft well.

But, before the planning and drawing could even begin, the design really started with many questions. What were the minimum living requirements for our family, realistically? This question lead to more questions, such as: What were the fewest necessary items that we needed in order to have a well-functioning kitchen (keeping in mind that I often prepare for a crowd and enjoy having a beautifully laid table). What was the minimum amount of seating we needed in the living and dining areas, considering our family and friends? How much storage did we actually need in the bathroom? Do we have to have extra sets of sheets and towels? What hobbies or crafts are most important to us, and what was the minimum amount of space they would take? Do we really need that many books? Where will overnight guests sleep? So many questions.

The process of responding didn’t happen overnight or in a sit-up-straight conference session and give neat, tidy answers in numerical order, checking off the boxes as you go sort of way, either. No, it was organic and unfolding with each step that we took, as each consideration was before us. And as we worked through, we came to the understanding that we weren’t paring down to nothing, we were paring down to what really mattered.

 

 

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It’s Good That You’ve come

Hello, friends!

Hello SO many new friends! I’m a bit in awe at the moment at the incredible online welcome this blog and our little house have received over the past few days. Goodness. A string of tweets lead to more tweets, pins, mentions, a guest post at Loving Simple Living on Friday, and several links over at Nesting Place on Saturday.

Um, may I say thank you for coming? Thank you!

I think you all should just come on over for real. We could chat and drink hot tea while we listen to spring rain on the tin roof. We wouldn’t even need background music, really, because the sound of laughter and gentle conversation would fill all the empty places. I’d bake some ham & Swiss roulades to serve with hot bowls of roasted tomato soup. How does that sound? We’d have to eat in shifts, washing dishes in between, because, from the looks of things, there are more of you than dishes on my shelves. But, this would be great, because chatting with friends while hand-washing-and-drying dishes is one of the best past times ever.  Have you tried it lately?

I’d light the beeswax candles just as the sun begins to set and we could watch the twelve ranch horses, turned out for R&R, graze the deeply wet, deeply green pasture. If you hear some faint, squeaky mewing sounds and you wonder about that, they’re coming from beneath one of the beds upstairs. Four new kittens, their eyes just now beginning to pop, have joined us recently. I hope that by the time you get here, Mama Cat will be okay with strangers admiring her babies, so you could have a peek.

 

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As we slid our tired bodies between the white sheets last night and laid there wrapped together in the warm, my husband and I talked of all this that’s going on – this blog, these photos, this little house, you. I asked him if he knew that feeling of what if – what if, now that all these people are here, the words all dry up for me and blow away on the next hot wind? What if I can’t take another decent picture? What if everyone quickly gets tired of all this and leaves on the next train east? He saw all those words for the feeble fears that they were, good man, and spoke of steady, and be, and enjoy the ride.

So, friends, here we are on this Monday! I will write again on Wednesday, then on Friday, like I always do. More pictures and words about the cabin are coming – details, I know you want those – but there will also be life written down. This life about less. I have to say, though, that you won’t find any lists or bullet points or step-by-step instructions about how to de-clutter, organize, purge, or down-size (thankfully, there are already many books and blogs doing a fabulous job of that!). No, I’d rather not tell you how to do this life, I’d rather show you.  

It’s good that you’ve come.

 

 

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Becoming home: a photo tour | 2

Update: Hello Friends! I have news for your Friday! I've written a guest post about our little house over on Lorilee Lippencott's blog, lovingsimpleliving! Have a look!

Excerpt: The light can't help but fill the room. Everywhere you look, there's a window welcoming its arrival. Even if you look up, there's a window there at the ceiling, in that high dormer, not to mention the one in the gable end that breaks open a view of treetops and sky. Continue reading... 

 

 

A private retreat is there for us, just at the end of the hall. It’s diminutive size belies the fullness of what it holds. With the efficiency of a ship captain’s quarters, the space is assigned with careful thought given to the portion of our lives spent there.

I’d like to show you our master bedroom:

 

The room is only 8 1/2 by 13 feet in size; the ceiling is just under 7 feet tall. Here in the before shot, you can see it was a wooden box with a window and door.

 

A coat of primer began to change the feel of the room.

After paint, flooring, lighting, built-ins, and furniture, this is what it became:

 

 

A local carpenter built four cabinet/wardrobes, one for each corner of the room. Here on either side of the bed, the wardrobes were designed with nooks for books, clocks, and nighttime necessities – the perfect stand-in for bedside tables. Vintage porcelain pull-chain sconces offer ambient light for reading. And, how about clothing and jewelry as art, hung on an antique finial?

 

The opposite end of the room has a cabinet in each corner with the writing nook between. A stacked washer and dryer fit just right into the cabinet on the left; the cabinet on the right has floor to ceiling shelves.

 

 

Illustrated pages from a vintage bird book seem to fall randomly across the wall. An antique light fixture illuminates the desk.

 

Just outside the bedroom door is the door that leads to the bath. . .

 

One of our favorite things about this room is the window above the tub – every bath needs a window!

This is the bathroom now:

 

 

 

A pedestal sink, slim cabinet, white walls and ceiling, and white shower curtain help to ensure the feeling of openness. The vintage light fixture, and antique hooks bring old into the new, and the art reflects something of us.  A small antique milking stool holds the toilet tissue.

 

This is our home. It’s just 665 square feet in all. Now you’ve seen the entire lower level (great room photo tour is here), and the loft is next, but I have to admit it’s reveal won’t be for a while – the wheels of wonderful are still churning up there. But, it will be good, that I can say (can you imagine, a boy bunk loft?). In the mean time, I’ve got so much to tell you about the other rooms still. Details. We all love the details, don’t we? I’ll be sharing the details in regular upcoming posts in the Becoming Home series. You may want to subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss a thing!

If you’ve caught wind of this photo tour and are here for the first time, welcome! I’m glad to have you here! Wondering why it is, exactly, that we, a family of five, are living in such a little house? Find out here. If seeing this cabin makes you want to know more about how it came to be, you can read the entire back story here. 

As always, if you have any questions or thoughts, you can leave them in the comments!

 

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