Slideshow

Slide Show: The Simpler Life

July 14, 2010

Asymmetrical shelves filled with books, records, and other beloved possessions lend color and texture to an otherwise minimalist background of white paint, tigerwood flooring, and vapor-proof light fixtures.

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

Using touch latches and drawer-pulls instead of hardware on FSC-certified cabinets yielded a clean aesthetic and saved money. Bovee and Kirkpatrick then used the leftover cabinet wood to craft the coffee table, dining table,

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

The “window” in the railing around the eco-roof also creates a seamless flow between the indoors and outdoors.

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

Kirkpatrick custom-designed shelves so that the couple’s CD and DVD collection would be both accessible and minimally intrusive.

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

“We added the desk at the foot of the bed after a boatbuilder who attended our March open house told us it was a common space-maximizing configuration onboard ships,” says Bovee.

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

With an average flush of just one gallon, dual-flush toilets reduce water consumption by 40 to 70 percent; toilet-sink combinations save even more, and because they automatically cycle clean water through the faucet after each flush, they encourage ha

Photography by Lincoln Barbour

RELAXING at his dining table and sipping green tea on a gray evening in late May, typically soft-spoken designer Matt Kirkpatrick notes—with more than a hint of incredulity—that the average size of a newly built single-family house in the United States in 2009 was 2,438 square feet. “In 1950,” he says, “it was less than a thousand.” Although Kirkpatrick, 31, was born on the cusp of the bigger-is-always-better ...

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