1950 | American Home - House #11 | Architects: Wallace S. Steel, Builder: Jake E. Boran

If your family is medium-sized, and if your ideas are too big for most moderately priced houses, we think that you'll be as excited about this one as we were. With its 1,o8o sq. ft., it's about the size of the average two-bedroom house yet it has three bedrooms plus a versatile dining-and-everything-else room all in an economical squarish-rectangular shape. It has well-defined areas for children's out-door play and adult's outdoor living, yet it could sit happily on the average suburban lot. The thing that sets this house above most houses of its size is the section including the front entry, kitchen, and the area marked dining. In most houses of this size, a dining room, a real one, is an unknown blessing. The usual "dining area" is more apt to be a builder's designation than an actual fact. The dining area in this house can join up with the living room or remain completely aloof from it, but it's a whole dining room and you could set up a large table in it without going near the living room proper. As the family grows up, the uses of the dining area will grow too. The snack bar which connects with the kitchen is just right for a work table or a hobby table or a fine place for games. That living room seems more spacious than it really is. There's a whole wall of south-facing windows protected by a broad overhang to bring in the sun's warmth in winter and shut out its heat in summer. Social goings-on won't be interrupted, because a big house principle has been incorporated: this doubles as a laundry with plenty of space for deep storage shelves. The house is built with radiant heating coils in the poured-concrete slab floor using circulating hot water from either a gas- or oil-fired boiler. Bedrooms are planned in the best modern way: they are isolated from the rest of the house to assure a maximum of privacy and quiet. Both have two built-in closets, and one also has space for a built-in dresser. The bathroom is conveniently located between the two bedrooms, and as with the rest of the house, shows good planning in a compact area. The bathtub is partitioned into a nook of its own by a fluted glass wall, and the plans call for built-in overhead lighting and a good-sized wall mirror over the linoleum-topped counter and washbasin. The house is located on the lot so that the living areas and open glass walls are protected from the street. Seen from the outside, you'll find that the bevel siding, painted yellow, and the large expanses of natural brick form a most appealing sight.