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11 terrifically tiny homesThese functional-but-small houses prove that bigger is not always better.
6 tips for tiny gardensThis petite patch of green is bursting with space-smart solutions.
6 design tricks for a small homeSee how a few smart strategies made the most of 1,200 square feet.
10 tiny houses you'll love big timeYou can find huge savings in these small living spaces.
5 reasons to buy a small houseLearn some of the benefits of living in less space.
Make a small home work for youLearn how you can live comfortably with less space.
Big ideas from Japan's tiny housesSmall spaces don't always mean squeezing, as these scaled-down homes show.
How to live large in a small spaceHere are 10 tips for making the most of tight quarters.
Big ideas for diminutive dwellingsThese owners and renters have made tiny living spaces work.
"The New Built-Ins Idea Book" Photo by Carolyn L. Bates.
"New Built-Ins Idea Book." Photo by Charles Miller, courtesy Fine Homebuilding Magazine
"New Built-Ins Idea Book."Photo by Mark Samu
"New Built-Ins Idea Book."Photo by Mark Samu
"New Built-Ins Idea Book." Photo by Phillip Ennis Photography
"New Built-Ins Idea Book." Photo by Brian Vanden Brink
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I would love to have one of these small homes, the bigger your house, more junk u buy, people need to simplify
21 knockout built-ins
By Marilyn Lewis of MSN Real Estate
1. A place for family
Homes with great character often get some of their magic from built-ins such as this breakfast nook, from "The New Built-Ins Idea Book," by Sandor Nagyszalanczy. While built-ins can add beauty and utility, they won't necessarily boost your home's resale value. That will depend on the project and on what's standard for homes in your neighborhood. "You want to have what is a typical home for your area, not the best home on the block or the worst home on the block," says appraiser Ken Wilson of Wilson Realty Advisors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. "If you go to either extreme, you're going to have some difficulties either marketing it or in terms of a getting a return on your investment."
The built-ins most likely to give a good return are projects in the kitchens and bath, says Wilson, who's also vice president of the Appraisal Institute. Walk-in closets also often help boost a home's appeal, he says.
21 knockout built-ins
2. Define an entry
The back entry of this Puget Sound beach home in Washington state packs a lot of useful storage and function into a small space. The entry contains a built-in coat rack, seating area with shoe cubbies beneath and storage, including a cupboard, counter and shelves for decorative items. The little entry helps set the welcoming, informal, beach-obsessed tone of the home. Guests move from the back entry into a storage-lined hallway that brings them into the home's high-ceilinged, light-filled interior rooms.
The shelves in this photo were added to finished interior walls. However, when wall studs are deep enough, you can build shelves and shallow cupboards into the wall cavity between the studs so the new shelves don't reduce space in the room. A kitchen wall could be opened to create a pantry, for example, or the wall cavity of a tiny bathroom could be used for a built-in medicine cabinet. Hallways and back entryways are often great places to locate shelving between the studs of interior walls, says architect Ross Chapin of Langley, Wash.
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21 knockout built-ins
3. Storage in an open home
In this open-concept home of hand-carved timbers, a built-in see-through fireplace and hearth are used to divide the living room and dining room. Shelves nestled beneath the stairs create useful nooks for showcasing family photos, books and heirlooms. At left, more bookshelves and display space are built in between the fireplace and wall.
Open-concept home plans are popular with homeowners, but one drawback is that fewer interior walls mean limited room for storage. "Built-ins help us make up for that," says Johnny Miller, owner of OakBridge Timber Framing, which put these built-ins in this Mansfield, Ohio, home. Built-ins help promote and define character in a home, Miller says.
- On our blog, 'Listed': Homeowners still remodeling, rather than moving
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21 knockout built-ins
4. Tucked beneath timbers
The owner of this home asked her builder-designer for lots of windows so she could watch her horses in the fields surrounding the home. OakBridge Timber Framing obliged and, in this room, filled the space between the windows and whitewashed timbers with bookshelves, making a cozy reading nook.
When you reach out in a well-designed home, Miller says, you should find a cabinet or a shelf capable of holding the materials you need in just that spot: a built-in buffet in the dining room, for example, or a window seat or bookshelves in the living room or bedroom.
21 knockout built-ins
5. Low profile
A built-in entertainment center was a perfect, toned-down addition to the master bedroom suite of this home in Sandy Springs, Ga. Space-saving pocket doors separate the master bedroom from the adjoining seating area. The home's owner asked Mosaic Group Architects and Remodelers in Atlanta for a slender, low-profile entertainment center that would complement the room rather than act as a focal point.
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21 knockout built-ins
6. Problem solver
The owners of this Sandy Springs, Ga., home faced two problems when they remodeled this bonus room. They had been unable to find an out-of-the-box entertainment center that could accommodate their hard-to-fit media components and fit into the oddly shaped space under the eaves. Solution: This custom cherry-stained built-in media center. It hides equipment behind glass doors under the television. Cupboards and open bookshelves flank the big screen.
21 knockout built-ins
7. Built-in room dividers
Built-ins make a home yours and give it a particular identity, Chapin says. A bookcase room divider such as this one can help organize the interior of an open-concept home. The divider separates the hallway from the living room (right) and from the kitchen (to the left and out of the picture). The divider contains a lighted display space adjacent to the bookcase, which is open to both living room and hall. A curtained bed alcove, at the far right end of the hallway, adds a tiny "room" and offers privacy and welcoming mystery.
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21 knockout built-ins
8. Same footprint, more living
If you have a growing family but can't afford to sell your home or move up, built-ins can help you live better in the space you have. Chapin tells homeowners who are building or remodeling to think about establishing centers, but not entire rooms, for specific activities. For example, Chapin suggests partially enclosing one end of a living room, as shown here, by adding a ledge for plants and baskets or even lowering a portion of the ceiling. Here, he designed drawers and bookshelves into the space between the ledge supports, creating a den, study space or private retreat within the living room. Cabinet lights under the ledge and new wall paneling add cozy charm and help define the space.
The approach adds charm to a plain, white, boxy room in a cookie-cutter home and can make rooms with tall ceilings feel cozier and less austere. "Remodeling projects like this cost considerably less than expanding the home with an addition," Chapin says.
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21 knockout built-ins
9. Enclosed and cozy
Chapin loves discovering unnoticed nooks and crannies and using them to expand a home's usable space while keeping the building size compact. "Children love enclosure," Chapin says of this seat built into the landing between flights of stairs in a Port Townsend, Wash., home. The desire to be enclosed in a secret space is something humans don't outgrow, he says. "When we are held, we feel safe. We feel we can look out to the world and engage it on our own terms.
"Everybody loves to hang out there," he says of the alcove. "When people come over to visit, that's where they end up." The spot doubles as a guest quarters, making the small house effectively larger.
Among the alcove's charms: built-in lights that make it warm and inviting. Overhead lighting from the stairwell adds even more dimension to this tableau. Chapin says he likes choosing among the wide variety of cabinet lights available at hardware and home stores, but he warns against using incandescent bulbs in an enclosed space, as they can overheat.
21 knockout built-ins
10. Found: A new room
In this 100-year-old home, large hallways join the living room and first-floor bedrooms. The downstairs hall was so large that, by adding bookshelves in one corner, Chapin transformed it into a little library — making it "a place to be" rather than a place "for going through," as he puts it. The bookshelves appear to be built into the wall cavities but they are not. Rather, Chapin built out from the interior walls to add a new layer, including shelves, to the interior.
Personal artifacts and treasures give a home visual interest, liveliness and human scale, Chapin says. These bookshelves, built-in niches and deep window ledges are great places for displaying treasures such as a child's artwork, shells, photographs and books that hold memories or special meaning.
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21 knockout built-ins
11. Magical spot for a visiting child
The addition of a daybed, snugged into a niche at the top of a staircase and surrounded by built-in bookcases, turns potentially wasted space into a reading room. The daybed does double duty, as the best built-ins do, as a guest bed or magical "room" for a visiting grandchild.
Chapin offers other suggestions for growing families who want additional living area but can't expand their home:
- In a bedroom shared by siblings, give each child a private space by installing built-in bed alcoves.
- Divide a shared bedroom into two areas separated by French doors. Use one area for the bedroom and the other for a play area, creating opportunities for separate playtime and more private moments for each sibling.
21 knockout built-ins
12. Outdoor room
This 20-foot-long outdoor room connects a funky old hand-built island cabin (off camera at right) with a new master-suite addition (at left). The massive stone fireplace is the heart of the indoor-outdoor space. Open roof timbers, supports and a built-in bench further define it. Chapin worked to create "a sense of enclosure" here. He got inspiration, he says, from thinking about the role the space would fill: linking areas of the home, welcoming visitors, entertaining guests and offering a place to lounge before the hearth. The outdoor room opens to an exterior yard where cars enter the property, so Chapin used massive wooden doors (right) to close it off from the driveway.
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21 knockout built-ins
13. Making a great porch
The old-fashioned porch is a feature that's been popular for generations, since long before outdoor rooms became popular. Here, built-in planter boxes and porch railings help to define the outdoor space. In an article on his company's website listing six must-have porch elements, Chapin says that a porch is "a unique room that belongs to the household while being open to passers-by. Its magic comes from the fact that it is part interior, part exterior. It is both private and public."
One of those crucial elements is flower boxes. They do two jobs: holding attractive plants and creating a soft boundary between the home's private territory and the public world beyond.
Another important element is the perfect railing. A porch railing that's just the right height lends a comfortable feeling of personal space. "Sometimes people say railings are too expensive and they don't add them. But then they never use the porch because they feel too vulnerable out there," Chapin says.
What's the right height for a porch railing? The answer varies. You might want it higher near a busy sidewalk but lower if you're overlooking a garden courtyard. Remember to check your building code for height regulations. Often, on a porch that's more than 28 inches above ground, a building code will require a railing at least 36 inches tall.
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21 knockout built-ins
14. Packing life into a small kitchen
Three layers of built-ins squeeze a lot of living into this relatively small kitchen. In the background, drawers, cupboards and bookshelves surround a built-in oven. In the middle ground, more cupboards, appliances and a range hood form one leg of a U-shaped work area. The kitchen work area is completed, in the foreground, by an island of green South American soapstone that combines a lower workspace with a raised dining counter. At right, an old butler's pantry was transformed into a built-in bar and wine cooler with cupboard space for barware above the small sink and marble countertop.
The owners of this Atlanta home wanted to expand the living space in their outdated kitchen and add a laundry room, wet bar and mudroom. But historic-district regulations forced them to stay within the home's existing footprint. Built-ins helped them use the existing space more efficiently.
21 knockout built-ins
15. Space savers
In the remodeled kitchen of the Atlanta home, clever storage takes advantage of every possible inch of space. Built-ins frame the kitchen appliances and provide a great spot for hiding a television that swings out for viewing. It's stowed inside the cabinet when not in use to give the kitchen a clean, uncluttered look. Other space savers: A microwave oven is built into a drawer beneath the counter, and the builders installed a swing-out storage system that maximizes the pantry's capacity.
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21 knockout built-ins
16. Quirky
When choosing and designing built-ins, beware the impulse to select an extremely unusual design. If selling your home quickly and easily matters to you, choose built-ins likely to appeal to more buyers.
"If you've got a real particular vision for your home, if your taste is quirky or your vision is particularly strong, it can be a deal-breaker for buyers," author Nagyszalanczy says.
Although this nook is charming, its elevated position could limit the home's appeal for some buyers. "Save the quirky stuff for things you can move," Nagyszalanczy says.
21 knockout built-ins
17. Alcove daybed
There aren't many downsides to installing built-ins. One, though, is the lack of flexibility that some built-ins may impose on your home, limiting the interest of potential buyers. For example, a breakfast nook, however charming, usually accommodates only a few diners. If the nook is your home's main dining table, that could be a drawback for a large family. A built-in master bed could turn off a buyer who prefers a different floor plan. Placing built-in seating in front of a window, for instance, limits access to the view.
Solution: Locate seating in a recessed portion of the room and drop the ceiling directly overhead to install built-in lighting. Such conflicts are less likely to arise when adding storage, because nearly everyone likes a walk-in closet full of built-in shelves and cabinets, or plenty of bookshelves.
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21 knockout built-ins
18. The memorable details
When builder and author Nagyszalanczy shopped for a home in the Santa Cruz, Calif., area 10 years ago, he toured 48 houses before finding the right one. So many were similar, with plain plaster wallboard and gypsum ceilings, Nagyszalanczy says. "The homes that stood out in my mind often were the ones where you walked in and there was some sort of remarkable architectural detail and focus to the room," he says.
- On our blog, 'Listed': Homeowners still remodeling, rather than moving
- MSN Living: Big solutions for small spaces
- Find the cheapest mortgage rates near you
21 knockout built-ins
19. Bathroom shelving and storage
Bathroom storage is a popular addition that returns great rewards. In this often-small and always well-used room, the goal is to find spaces that haven't been well-used and use them to hold extra towels, linens, shampoo and the 48 rolls of toilet paper you brought home from the big box store. One good place to look: above and around the toilet. Also, Nagyszalanczy says to look for projects that can serve more than one purpose: a built-in laundry hamper that doubles as a dressing bench, for example.
21 knockout built-ins
20. Integration matters
One trick to great-looking built-ins is paying close attention to integrating them seamlessly into your existing home, Nagyszalanczy says.
Pocket offices such as this one are extremely popular with homebuyers. This storage and display space uses a previously unused area under the stairs. The project fits beautifully into this home because its style and materials echo cabinets, trim, paint colors and clean lines found throughout the house.
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21 knockout built-ins
21. Dressing-room organization
Built-ins are a great way to add storage that organizes your belongings. Organization makes busy lives manageable and promotes a sense of calm and order.
Here, custom-made dressing-area cabinets in vertical-grain fir are a high-end choice. The flat drawers atop the counter hold jewelry and smaller items. Depending on the dimensions of the space, a custom look can be achieved without spending a lot, especially in kitchens and bedrooms. The key is using less expensive cabinet or closet components from a big-box store for the interiors and facing them with custom-built doors.
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