Sqaures, symmetry and the brain splinter

No, none of us really have a splinter in the brain. But stick with me on this one.

One thing that surprises people when they first visit our house is the way it feels. Not the way it’s decorated necessarily, or the flow of the house (although that’s great too), but…something.

After living here as long as we have, I’m convinced that this “something” has a lot to do with how the house is designed. Virtually every room is based on a square. When you walk in, the living room is rectangular–in fact two perfect squares. The dining room, taking out the bay window and built-in hutch, a 13′ x 13′ square. The large windows? Sqaures. The dental moulding on the fireplace surround? More squares. The fabric on our roman shades? Subtle squares. And the result is exceptionally pleasing. It creates a feel that’s comfortable, and that works in a way that’s subtle, but surprising.

So this leads me to my brain splinter. I have this theory that certain things lodge in your brain in ways you’re not immediately aware of. You know something is different, or pleasing, or interesting, but you’re not sure what or why. This concept isn’t limited to how you might feel in a house. I get it in certain cars, looking at artwork, using certain products, and more. It’s a fun idea to chew on, anyway.

Symmetry can have this effect too, and we really played this up in our garage–a freestanding one-car, two-story structure with a very cool room upstairs–that will most certainly be the subject of at least a couple of posts. We built it from the ground up, including doing the majority of the work ourselves. Anyway, its design is hypersymmetrical, and one of the most pleasing spaces I’ve been in.

These ideas are difficult to capture in pictures, but here are a few details that might be interesting.