Make sure Design I-93 will fit on lot

Design I-93 is an exceptionally long, narrow, Craftsman-style house, requiring an unusually deep lot. It might fit nicely on a narrow strip of land previously ignored by builders as being too difficult to build on.

Just be sure the lot is wide enough to accommodate a driveway and deep enough so the house will rest well inside the property line and not outside it! Knowing your setback requirements will be important here.

Eighty years ago, designers of Craftsman-style houses often placed the dining room between the kitchen and living room. I played in plenty of these houses as a kid and can remember bumping my shins on many dining room tables and wishing, even then, that these big, dusty, formal rooms were out of the line of traffic.

I still feel that way. It was annoying then, and it's annoying now to traverse a dining room (one of the most "ceremonial" spaces in a home) on your way to an eat-in kitchen or living room. It disrupts "flow."

And flow -- that elusive quality that good house designs have -- has a lot to do with progressing smoothly from formal to informal rooms, from ceremonial to intimate spaces, as you proceed from front to back in a house.

Insert a formal dining room directly between two more intimate spaces, and flow can feel disrupted.

The master suite looks private, but isn't really. It shares a wall with a secondary bedroom. At least the location of the washer and dryer near the bedrooms is a welcome update. With roots in the early 20th century, Design I-93 could be modernized even more and still retain its architectural flair.

(Reviewed by Emily Smith, house plan collector and consultant. She welcomes your comments and opinions. Send to esmith@netmcr.com or to HPR Services, P.O. Box 1143, Reidsville NC 27323.)