House gift book

I was going to write about several widely distributed, somewhat recently released, house books, so that you might add them to your holiday gift list. I was thinking of highlighting Deborah Needleman's The Perfectly Imperfect Home and Diane Keaton's House -- both pleasant diversions, but instead, I want to share with you a small-press offering: House and Home, an OrangeArt Miniature. It's a tiny 3-1/4" x 4-1/2" letterpress original by Darrell & Elisabeth Hyder of The Sun Hill Press.

It's full of sunny and/or pithy house-related quotations and intermittent tiny sketches, all bound between faded-blue, house-plan end papers. Within its pages find insight like Frank Lloyd Wright's "No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other." And quips like Joan Didion's, "You have to pick the places you don't walk away from." And heart felt sentiment like Mark Twain's, "[Our house] had a heart, and a soul...we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace..."

Pick up a copy, where OrangeArt Miniature's are distributed, to savor the rest of House and Home's wisdom.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

KHS 2013 New England photo calendar now available

House Enthusiasts interested in savoring the sight of New England vernacular buildings, landscapes, seascapes, and gardens all year might want to consider the new Katie Hutchison Studio (KHS) 2013 calendar. Drop by the KHS Lulu storefront to get a preview of the full-color photos on the 13.5" x 19" calendar. Cyber Monday is just around the corner; hint, hint.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

How-To-Build-Community poster

Why is it that shortly after you a learn a new word, you bump into that new word everywhere -- in conversation, on the radio, on T.V.? Or say you discover a new actor, next you notice that actor hiding in plain sight on the cast of shows or movies you've watched a number of times. Well, I've recently been focused on community -- not just virtual community, but brick-and-mortar community -- and now I'm realizing many other folks are focused on all aspects of community, too. I suppose my heightened awareness of community is, in part, due to the fact that I'm living in a community that's new to me. Like a new word or newly recognized actor, notions of community have migrated from my subconscious to my conscious mind.

Yesterday, at my new-to-me local coffee shop, The Coffee Depot, I dashed off to the restroom before continuing on with my Saturday, and noticed an unusual poster affixed to the restroom wall. Not an all-employees-must-wash-their-hands kind of poster (though there may have been one of those), but a poster titled How To Build Community published by Syracuse Cultural Workers.

It lists forty-four simple actions you or anyone can take to build community. 

Here's what it says:

"Turn off your TV*Leave your house

Know your neighbors

Look up when you are walking

Greet people*Sit on your stoop

Plant Flowers

Use your library*Play together

Buy from local merchants

Share what you have

Help a lost dog

Take children to the park

Garden Together

Support Neighborhood Schools

Fix it even if you didn't break it

Have Pot Lucks*Honor Elders

Pick Up Litter* Read Stories Aloud

Dance in the Street

Talk to the Mail Carrier

Listen to the Birds* Put up a Swing

Help Carry Something Heavy

Barter For Your Goods

Start A Tradition*Ask A Question

Hire Young People for Odd Jobs

Organize a Block Party

Bake Extra and Share

Ask For Help When You Need It

Open Your Shades*Sing Together

Share Your Skills

Take Back the Night

Turn Up The Music

Turn Down The Music

Listen Before You react To Anger

Mediate A Conflict

Seek To Understand

Learn From New And

Uncomfortable Angles

Know That No One is Silent

Though Many Are Not Heard

Work To Change This"

It's common sense. It's wise. It's worth doing.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Studio tour: Pat Warwick, ceramist

Before Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy hit, I had the pleasure of attending several studio tours in my new hometown of Warren, RI. Twice, I dropped in on the studio of Pat Warwick who creates one-of-a-kind ceramic surfaces.

If you're a New Englander, you may recognize Pat's embossed ceramic tiles which depict elegant sea creatures and insects set in simple white tiles. I did. A couple of years ago my sister-in-law picked up a fish tile by Pat in Woods Hole as a gift for us. Then, this fall we received the tiles shown here (on our kitchen counter) as a gift from our art-savvy realtor, Paula Silva. Just lovely.

So I jumped at the chance to drop in on Pat's studio during the recent Warren Walkabout and ART Night Bristol and Warren. The great thing about a studio tour is it shares much of the appeal of a house or garden tour. It offers a rare opportunity to glimpse how someone has shaped their environment to suit, reflect, and enhance who they are, who they want to become, and how they choose to interact with the greater world. Of course, the added advantage of the studio tour is that a piece of the artist's unique world, their work, is generally available for purchase.

I'm already scheming how to incorporate some of Pat's work into my own home, and how her work might make for a nice accent as a backsplash in a client's powder room.

Check out open studios in your area for insight into your local artists and their work. This weekend consider attending open studios at Holliston Mill, in Roslindale, and Waltham Mills. 

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Unfurnished Possibilities

We’ve just moved for the first time in eleven years. So we’ve spent the last month re-acquainting ourselves with the contents of our home. First: sorting, recycling, donating, shredding, selling, and packing. Then: unpacking, sorting, recycling, inheriting, purchasing, and placing. Granted, most find step two a lot more fun than step one. But a rigorous edit of your belongings in step one, can be nearly as satisfying. The real payoff is more room to breathe in your next home.

To me, the space in the photo above, taken in our new place during the home inspection, is ripe with possibility. The few pieces of furniture in the shot belong to the previous owner. This southwest-facing corner is washed with daylight on sunny days. The challenge is to outfit it so as to maximize its intrinsic appeal – daylight from two directions through paired, generous, two-over-one lite, double-hung windows; warm hardwood floors; a relatively tall ceiling; a pleasing neutral paint palette, and well-crafted trim. To do such a space justice, while personalizing it, every piece of furniture, every furnishing and fixture within it needs to be carefully considered. A good editor (of a text or a home) knows when to cut, when to re-arrange, and when to augment.

As I outfit this space to reflect the lives we aspire to live in it, it helps me to look back at this photo of it (nearly) empty, to remind myself of its essence. Alain de Botton wrote in The Architecture of Happiness, “We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced.” Same goes for our interiors: we owe it to our houses that our interiors will not be the inferiors of the bare spaces they have replaced.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast