Marc Vassallo

A barefoot home is a home that is informal and open and has a strong indoor/outdoor connection. All good ideas that I can get behind, but the concept never really gelled for me. The idea of a barefoot was never sufficiently differentiated from all of the other ways of describing a good house. Plus, the case studies were largely vacation cottages. These can provide inspiration for a non-vacation home, but there are a lot of things about them that cannot be translated to a full time home.

Note that I read this book when I was pretty burned out on house books.

Inside the Not So Big House covers much of the same content as Susanka's Home by Design: Transforming Your House Into Home, but through case studies rather than through discussion of the principles involved. Since I prefer a balance which leans toward principles, I did not find this book particularly useful.

A good book of ideas on design elements to make your space look nicer, but not a good source of ideas on maximizing your space.

Beautiful pictures... but if I had to read the word "barefoot" one more time, I might have screamed.