Thursday, September 22, 2011

Your Next Place


By Franklin Schneider

The bungalow is like the little black dress of houses; simple, timeless, and sort of impossible to improve on. (I’m wearing one right now!) And this expanded bungalow in AU Park is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Beautifully compact and deceptively large, it’s a model of sublime design. If Apple made an “iHouse” it would look very much like this.

A wide, welcoming front porch leads to a bright, airy living area with hardwood floors and a fireplace. This leads naturally to a dining room and then to a large kitchen with table space and adorable checkerboard tiling. There’s also a library and/or den on the first floor – all in all, the open, simple floor plan makes for an extremely naturalistic and pleasant living space. Upstairs are three bedrooms and two bathrooms; it doesn’t seem possible, thinking back to how the house looked from outside, that there’s enough room for all these rooms inside. But there is. (So there.) The basement is fully finished, and has a little kitchenette. There’s also a fenced-in backyard for your dog (or kids) to run around in, and a detached garage.



The more houses I see, the more I find myself gravitating towards these sorts of places. A huge house is impressive initially, but once you consider the practical side of having a huge house, it starts to seem a little ridiculous. I read this story recently about Will Smith, who lives in what’s reputed to be the finest house in all of California, a palatial mansion of unprecedented luxury. For some reason, he has a replica of the small kitchen from the 70s sitcom “Good Times” in his house, and it turns out that that’s where his family spends most of the their time. I’m not saying we should all live in the kitchen from “Good Times,” but you get my point. It’s like, I have fifty pairs of shoes, but I only wear maybe four of them. What’s the point of the excess? This house is like your four favorite pairs of shoes.

4527 49th Street NW
$839,000
3 Bedrooms, 4 Baths





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