Water features

One of the rooms in the house that hasn’t been mentioned often—yet gets daily use—is the bathroom. With the bathroom being the top water user in the house, the water features installed here are helping conserve water in several ways.

The New Norris House was built with a rainwater cistern and purification system which delivers harvested and treated rainwater to the toilet tank (and to the clothes washer and outside hose bibs as well). Systems like this aren’t common in the U.S., and the system here is being used under a special permit. According to the EPA, one toilet can use 27% of a household’s daily water, and older toilets use between 3.5 to 7 gallons of water per flush. It makes sense to use rainwater instead of fresh water for flushing given those numbers, since fresh water is a finite resource and harvested rainwater, a naturally replenished resource, works just as well.

rainwater cistern (gray container) and purification system (blue cylinders)

The toilet also has the water saving feature of a low flow/dual flush system (Kohler Persuade model). Either .8 or 1.6 gallons are used per flush depending on which button is pressed. This means the rainwater isn’t used up quite as quickly, but if we lived in a house with standard plumbing, this toilet would be using less pure drinking water for flushing as well. Because I’m living in a house where the rainwater is harvested, treated, and reused, I’ve become more aware of water usage and potential ways to adjust no matter where we live next.

Another bathroom water feature that’s probably more common is low flow fixtures. The shower head and sink faucet are both low flow. “Low flow? I don’t like the sound of that.” Admittedly, neither of us are huge fans of the lack of water pressure with the low flow shower head, but because it can cut water consumption by half, it also makes sense to have it installed in the bathroom. And, to save energy on heating costs, the water is heated with a solar water heating and tankless system.

Besides the water features, the design of the bathroom is worth noting. The same design principles used in the house were applied to the bathroom as well; it’s small but makes efficient use of the space. The room is almost 10’ long, with the stall shower at one end, the sink in the middle, and the toilet at the other end. At its widest on the shower end, the room is 3.5’ wide and at its narrowest on the toilet end is 2.5’ wide. Like the bedroom, it has a pocket door to maximize space. For storage, there is a medicine cabinet, a cabinet under the sink, small shelves on the side of the sink, and a shelving unit above the toilet.

Although it’s a small room, I’ve learned quite a bit about conserving water and energy from living in the house. You can also learn more about our project at www.thenewnorrishouse.com.

Fall color, inside and out

Autumn is here, and leaves are turning and falling. The riot of color outside changes a bit every day. Brown, red, rust, orange, yellow, and ochre leaves are mixed with green grasses and shrubs, and collect in piles when they fall.

from green to red to orange to yellow

Last week as I stood on the deck and looked at the trees in the back, it struck me that the colors used in the house are perfect complements to the colors in the fall landscape. Although white is the predominant paint color in the house, there are two other colors used on walls that can’t be seen from the main living area. The bedroom and bathroom each have an accent wall in golden yellow, and the swing space and loft each have an accent wall in reddish orange. Both colors match leaves hanging on to some of the trees around the house; the visual continuity of the outdoor and indoor is pleasing to the eye.

bedroom & bathroom

swing space & loft

Because the colored walls are balanced by white walls, the light coming in through the windows creates a reflection of that color on opposite walls. The photo below shows the effect—the only wall that is painted is the one down the middle, and the color faces the left. The light entering the skylight on the right has a much cooler tone since it is reflecting off a white wall. (View the original photo here.)

The furniture cushions and pillows are a light leafy green and buckskin, with one pillow in a contrasting reddish orange fabric similar to the paint color. The floor and kitchen counters are made of wood, with the floor a red oak and the counter a lighter more yellow oak. Houseplants have leaves ranging from chartreuse to dark green. Tile in the entryway is blue slate (although not visible from the house, reminiscent of the expanse of water on Norris Lake). All these interior colors have easily identifiable foils outside, and bring nature into the house this autumn.

furniture cushion

red oak floor

entryway tile

Living in a small home, Part 2

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single house in possession of occupants, must be in want of plenty of closed storage space.* Although the house has a relatively small footprint, we’ve found the cabinets and closets provide just enough storage space for the two of us (just enough = everything we moved to the house fits, with a bit of room to spare). The house was designed with attention to storage space; there are three closets (bedroom, broom, and 24” wide freestanding wardrobe), and cabinets in the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, swing space, and loft.

Bedroom and swing space

The cabinets were designed and built by students. They’re painted white, which provides uniformity throughout the house, and without any hardware, the cabinet doors have a clean, sleek look. In a way, the beveled edges on the bottom of the cabinet doors in the kitchen and swing space are the hardware; the edges are easy to grasp and pull open. The soft-closing mechanisms mean they are quiet. The cabinet doors (and drawers) under the kitchen counter and in the bedroom have beveled edges too, but they’re opened and closed by spring action. Pressing on the corner of a door releases a spring, and pressing the door on the same corner back into the cabinet housing compresses it.

Beveled edges and spring

While unpacking, it became clear we’d have to come up with some storage locations and strategies that were different from how we stored things before. The bathroom has one cabinet under the sink with some small shelves next to it; before, we had several cabinets and drawers. New strategy: daily use items stay in the medicine cabinet and under the sink, and the occasional items stay in the drawers of the freestanding wardrobe. The bedroom closet has one hanging rod; before, our closet had two different rod heights, so both shirts and pants were on hangers. New strategy: shirts and dresses hang in the bedroom closet, while pants are stacked horizontally in bedroom cabinets instead of hanging vertically. Other solutions were made for the kitchen and swing space too.

Bookshelves in the loft

Adapting to the storage space here as it was designed to be used, and organizing our items to fit within, has meant thinking about space in a different way. And, it means being conscious of what we bring into the house, not filling cabinets just because there’s room.

*With apologies to Jane Austen.