WASTED LIVING SPACE: The Modern Kaisersaal

Can't you just picture lolling all over the couches in this
 cozy living room?  What—you can't?

In upper-class German homes of the last century, it was common to have a chamber known as the Kaisersaal—an off-limits room containing all the owner’s best furniture and possessions, and kept spotless in case the Kaiser happened by for a visit. This, of course, was about as likely as Queen Elizabeth stopping by your place for Pop-Tarts.

Today we chuckle at the silly pretense of the Kaisersaal, but in fact many of us have the modern-day equivalent in our homes—formal, showy rooms that may contain our best furniture, but are seldom used except to impress visitors. Come on, admit it—do you spend more time in your so-called “living room”, or in your kitchen?

The formal dining room: It uses lots of space,
but it doesn't get much use.

That’s what I thought.

Following are some notorious modern-day Kaisersaals and their appurtenances, each with the trait of existing mainly for show:

•  The top Kaisersaal award goes to the living room. For the last fifty years, it’s been steadily declining in usefulness, finally becoming a sort of furniture showroom forbidden to family, friends, and pets. The only people who actually sit in most living rooms are guests you want to impress with your good housekeeping and impeccable taste—in other words, people you’re trying to fake out.

That pretentious tract house must-have,
 the soaking tub, is another space hog
that doesn't earn its keep.

There are two solutions to the living room dilemma. One: if you already have a living room, for heaven’s sake, do your family a favor and let them live in it. Two: if you have the luxury of starting from scratch, either design your new home with a living room that’s actually for living, or else forego it altogether in favor of a bigger family room and kitchen. Those are the rooms that actually get lived in.

•  The beloved “formal dining room” runs a close second in uselessness. Even the most devoted gourmands use their dining room but a few times a month. The rest of us just try to keep the dust off the woodwork. Why waste an entire room just so you can dine like Henry VIII once in a blue moon?  If you’re planning a new home, consider devoting the 150 square feet consumed by a formal dining room to a more functional purpose. And if you’re among the many already “blessed” with a formal dining room, why not resign yourself to a few spaghetti stains on the carpet, and actually eat there every day?

Here's a Kaisersaal two-for-one—a pompous
soaking tub and a fireplace. Hey lady,
watch out for that burning log!

•  The modern tract house master bath, with its space- and energy wasting whirlpool tub, is another Kaisersaal gimmick. Be honest now—do you actually use that big tub, or do you just want your friends to know you’ve got one? If my remodeling clients are any indication, the space consumed by a giant tub would be far more useful as extra storage. But closets just don’t have that Kaisersaal allure, which is why developers keep offering this white elephant, and why consumers keep buying into it.

If this guy stops by,
give him the good bedroom.

•  And speaking of pointless appurtenances, many new homes routinely feature two or even three fireplaces, despite the fact that hardly anyone uses them. If you’re serious about practical living, you can probably get away with one. Or none.             
And by the way—if an old German guy in a spiked helmet stops by, you might want to give him the big bedroom.

HOWDY, FOLKS: The California Rancher Rides In

Long, low, and simultaneously modest and chest-thumping:
The Rancher bespoke American values of the 1950s.

Author's note: This is another in Architext's occasional essays on American residential styles.

America was riding high in the 1950s. The country had recently returned from trouncing the Axis, despite a late entrance into a war whose odds were far from certain. The economy had been launched out of the Depression, first on the strength of wartime contracts, and then by a pent-up postwar demand for consumer goods. As a result, U.S. industry was now far and away the mightiest on earth.  And America’s faith in democracy, so shaken by the Depression years, had been restored to granitic solidity by its great triumphs both overseas and at home. 

What better time for a home style that managed to convey all this and more?

Extremely elaborate examples, nowadays
referred to as "Storybook Ranchers",
featured diamond-pane windows, knee
braces, and other over-the-top rustic details.

That style was the California Rancher, and it became the architectural emblem for a yet-unsurpassed time of prosperity in U.S. history. The Rancher’s design was emphatically native--a melange of homegrown vernaculars ranging from the Spanish Colonial-era hacienda with its full-width porch, to the functional ranch building with its shaggy simplicity, to the bungalow with its ground-hugging lines and low-pitched roof. 

Dutch front doors, shown here with the
ubiquitous crossbuck motif, were a red-hot
fad during the Rancher era.

Ranchers also reflected a classic paradox of the American character: On the one hand, it embodied Yankee modesty with its countrified, aw-shucks motifs;  on the other, it glorified power and consumption with its rambling street frontage and chest-thumping double garage. It simultaneously managed to proclaim:  We’re Americans—we’re real nice folks, but we kick butt when we have to.

The Rancher is a breeze to identify. It’s the first popular style to flaunt an attached double garage, for those two cars Herbert Hoover had promised us decades earlier. But the Rancher’s garage made up for its late showing by being impossible to overlook: it projected well forward of the house, with the huge door itself becoming a broad billboard often tricked out in moldings or x-shaped crossbuck motifs, all underlined by a vast swath of concrete driveway. 

 Rancher loor plans—not to mention front elevations such as
this one—were stretched out to outlandish proportions.

Every Rancher worthy of the name also had a front porch, though few were really usable as such.  Rather, the point was to provide a showcase for all those down-home details:  Bandsawn knee braces sprouting from the tops of posts; crossbucks on the front door; and yet more crossbucks in the gawky wooden porch railings and on garage doors..

The classic Rancher exterior typically  had rough-sawn vertical board-and-batt siding (batts being narrow wood strips that covered the gap between boards), or else rustic horizontal lap siding. Later mass-produced versions used stucco on the majority of the house, reserving the more costly siding for accents on the facade and gables.

Eventually, things settled down to your basic stucco Rancher,
perhaps with a few features such as the wood wainscoting
and false dovecote in the gable of this tract-built example.

A genuine Rancher’s roof was invariably covered in shakes, a material that bespoke America as well: a little uncouth, perhaps, but tough and resilient as all get-out. In classic examples, a false dovecote topped by a weathervane might be found astride the roof ridge, while at each gable end, false beams jutted out to carry the rake boards with unshakable confidence. Rancher interiors emphasized the same plain-spoken, native materials as the exterior: used brick, copper, hammered iron, and coarse woods such as knotty pine.

Functionally, there's little to criticize in a Rancher. The floor plan is straightforward, with rooms methodically strung along each side of a long hall--much like a stretched-out bungalow turned crosswise. The style’s main structural problems stem from the fashion of making the houses ever longer, lower and closer to the ground. Often the effort was too successful--yielding a ranch-size meal for termites and dry rot.

RENOVATION OBLIVION—Or, How To Ruin An Old House

Unlike Americans, Old Worlders don't mind a little
imperfection. The Bishop's House, Sheffield, England,
circa 1554. (Image courtesy Friends of Bishop's House)

A while back, a client of mine asked me to give the once-over to a house he was hoping to buy. It was a charming, well-kept little cottage with all the hallmarks of a history—some gouges here, some settlement there, perhaps a few cracks in the plasterwork. It wasn’t dilapidated by any means; rather,  it had a nice warm patina of long use.

Happily, he did end up buying it. But when I came back a few months later to see what improvements he’d wrought, I was dismayed. He’d systematically gone through the house and replaced anything that showed the slightest trace of wear with brand-new stuff from the local hardware emporium.  Hefty old doorknobs with the burnish of fifty years had been swapped in favor of tinny, glitzy brass ones; ditto the old lighting fixtures and bath fittings. The varnished wood trim (which had a few nicks and scratches, to be sure) had been smothered in a bland coat of bright white latex. And the wood floor—whose dents and imperfections bespoke the foibles of who knows how many sets of grandchildren—had been sanded glassy smooth and coated with a hi-tech sealer.

Lots of remodelers love to tear out
the old kitchen so they can
put in a fake old kitchen.
(Image courtesy jillianharris.com)

So much for a warm patina.

Still, I can hardly blame my client for wanting to make his little cottage sparkle. We Yanks always want everything to “look like new”.  Maybe it’s because the U.S. is a relatively young country, and newness is practically all we know. But just as likely, it’s because advertising relentlessly conditions us to believe that new things—whether cars, clothes, or trendy toys for the kids—are always better than old ones. That goes for houses, too. Those of us who can’t afford brand new ones opt for the next best thing: we buy old ones and then “renovate” them into oblivion.

Yes, it's old and beaten up. So what?

The point, as you’ve no doubt guessed by now, is that new isn’t necessarily better. So here are a few thoughts to consider before you wield that screwdriver or paintbrush at your defenseless old house:

•  Think twice before consigning any part of your home to the junk heap.  The quality of the building materials in most pre-World War II homes—whether hardware, flooring, or lighting fixtures—is generally much better than the stuff that’s available today. In the long run, there’s little to be gained by exchanging quality materials that show some age for flimsy goods that will only briefly look brand-new. 

•  Use that paintbrush sparingly! The lesser durability of today’s paint formulas makes repainting an iffy improvement. Therefore, if your old house has a reasonably presentable coat of oil-based paint on the doors, for example, you’re probably better off living with it than covering it with a latex paint, which won't properly adhere to it in the first place, and won’t have the same shine or durability even if it does.

Too often, repainting over perfectly good
oil based paint will just get you this.

•  Learn to live with a few scratches here and there. Americans are obsessed with keeping their homes pristine; unfortunately, this is a battle that the universe will always win. Home ownership is a lot more fun when you learn to take the odd flaw in stride. That’s not to suggest that you neglect your home, but rather that you learn to accept a reasonable level of imperfection. Europeans, I’m loathe to admit, are way ahead of us on this count: they’re quite comfortable with buildings that are old and timeworn, because they regard age and imperfection as a badge of honor, not as a sign of decrepitude.

•  Finally, remember that any idiot can make a home look new, but only time can produce one with a history.