Wallmart or Dubai?

Does it feel like we are living in the Twighlight Zone these days? Things couldn't be any stranger. I picked up a trade magazine and read about the world's tallest building - Burj Khalifa in Dubai - that stands close to a mile in height at 828 m. Named after the United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan the building is home to the world's first Armani Hotel, designed by Giorgio Armani. Oh, I get it! This is definitely what the world needs now: 160 guestrooms and suites on the 38th and 39th floors along with 144 luxury Armani residences, and 37 office floors. The same day I picked up another magazine in my doctor's waiting room and read about affordable bedding from Walmart and was struck by the irony of these two images in my mind! The ad says Save money. Live better and hints that I can experience luxury at Walmart prices. I don't think that Wallmart would do well in Dubai.

I have always worked in a profession that sells dreams to people. Illusion is a big part of the world of interior design where we blend knowledge with magic and talent with practical skills. Of course I have grown used to very expensive products and to folks who can easily afford a luxury lifestyle. The disconnect for me occurs when one steps out of the rare environment of the wealthy and onto the main street of America. To a certain extent I have become jaded about costs over many years of dealing with high end clients, but if ever there was a quick remedy to forgetting about basics it has been the recent economic slide.

So now the former middle class is looking at Walmart with less disdain. In some parts of our country Walmart is the only place to shop, but I live in Southern California where we have always had a huge variety of regional shopping centers, small chic boutiques and neighborhood shopping areas. Choice abounds out here and admittedly I have never shopped at Walmart. But as we watch all the cool little shops close and the charming restaurants quit and the sales tax shrivel up for the State of California due to radically declining sales of all sorts you've got to wonder: What exactly is going to happen in the future to the resources we have grown used to?

My guess is that there are a lot of Americans trying to get used to the idea that their future is not going to be what they imagined. Therefore it is also logical to assume that the products we buy - everything from sheets and towels to underwear and sports clothes - will have to cost less or no one will be able to afford them. I have long been a kind of thrill shopper at discount stores like T.J. Maxx or Marshall's where I challenge myself to find the best quality item for the least amount of money. I shamelessly only look at the sale rack in these stores! Last week I bought a gorgeous gray sweater that had been tagged by the manufacturer at $160 and I bought it for $23. What started out for me as a kind of hobby game has become standard practice. The fact that I don't walk into Nordstrom's any longer is bad for that major retailer and great for my pocket book.

But I don't want cheaply made items that don't look like quality. I want quality for less.That's the hitch and that is exactly what Better Homes and Gardens is selling in their Walmart ads for The Better Homes and Gardens Collection. My suspicion is that a lot of folks feel the same way about household goods, clothes, cars, and furnishings. The fantasy of Dubai's opulence and the lifestyle of the "rich and famous' that has been served up for generations to the American TV watching public now has to square with Wallmart, Penny's, and Home Depot prices. The truth is that the twain doesn't meet. We need to get real in this country and realize that living within one's means is an honorable thing to do. In many ways a lot of the American population has been pretending - flirting with the ideal of riches and fame - that they are entitled to live a luxury lifestyle. No one is entitled to anything except the right to work for the things we need.

A more realistic and mature view of life might be the unexpected result of our economic difficulties. Wouldn't that be refreshing? As we return to a "smaller" lifestyle perhaps we can look at the tallest building in the world and recognize it for what it is: Fantasy.

Recession Babies

By 1929 my immigrant grandmother had two babies. She recalled that she and my grandfather were extremely careful not to become pregnant again. They couldn't afford it. Times were tough and my grandfather, who was a welder, could not find steady work in Los Angeles during the Depression. Building and construction was down just as it is now so people in the trades had very little business even in sunny California. It might not have helped that he was Italian given the politics of the era. By 1933 her little girls were 5 and 3 years old and her mother - my great-grandmother - came over from Italy to watch them while Grandma got a job in a factory. Our grandfather worked 2 days a week cutting brush for the WPA in famous Griffith Park in LA and randomly would get day work installing pipes around the county. It was an insecure existence.

People were losing their homes left and right, but for some reason my grandparents were able to continue making their $35 a month loan payment to Uncle Pasquale. They managed to never miss a payment during the Depression, which is pretty impressive! Their home cost $4,000 and they paid 7% interest on the loan which they paid off in full. Then when WWII loomed (1939, 1940, 1941) steady work in the Todd Shipyard began for Grandpa. These people got through the depression and came out the other side with no debts. The problem was that in order to do that they lived a joyless life and a life filled with fear. With the girls 13 and 14, my grandparents tried for another baby with the hope of having a boy. My grandmother was nearly 40 years old at the time.
I do not expect that this generation of 20 to 35 year old prospective parents will wait to have children because they have not had to wait for anything in their protected lives. Naturally the way that these young Americans look at life is far different and I have to admit they inherited their unique focus from my generation. We who survived the drug, peace and love, do-what-feels-good way of thinking were more into enjoying life when compared to our parents. We women accepted that we would have to work and actually fought for the right to have a life outside of the home. Women pushed the envelope and banged up against that glass ceiling; protesting for the right to work in whatever profession they chose. Women broke barriers as stock brokers, airline pilots, doctors, business executives and military personnel. Sexual mores were shattered. WWII-era parents were are odds with their Hippie kids and veterans rarely connected with their Vietnam-war-protesting kids. No one understood one another and society was in upheaval. We had race riots, public marches, integration and assassinations. We had the frightening Cold War and the threat of the atomic bomb.

Today's young parents were raised as adored, praised and over-indulged progeny without the threat of a kind of warfare that could touch their lives. We who were never asked how we felt spent time coaxing our kids to express themselves. They were taken to psychologists, tutors, dance lessons, soccer, singing, tap, ballet, swimming and mountain climbing. You name it and we delivered it to them. Much has been written about the self-absorbed generation that we raised. They want it all and don't want to sacrifice. Why should they? We gave them everything so that there was nothing more to crave.

So when the weird sub-prime loans were paraded out the temptation was too great. Why wait when you could have it now? So many young people think that they will become rich and famous that it is shocking. They all expect to go to college and to experience wild financial success, but they skip over the part where one has to pay years and years of dues. Every bride expects a karet diamond and the honeymoon must be exotic or it doesn't count.

I have no particular insight into how this will play out,but I do know that having a baby is a lifetime commitment. Raising a child is a privilege and a serious undertaking if you want to end up with an emotionally healthy person. The reality of raising children in a sour economy means that choices will have to be made about what to give one's children. This crop of parents may become a group who cannot afford to replicate their own childhood experiences. Assuredly their will be disappointment at not being able to give the kids everything that they had, but this odd see-sawing of generations is what has always been in place. There had been years of unusual prosperity post WWII that kind of tweeked reality. Our large middle class fed by that prosperity is threatened today and the rich promise of America evaporating as I write. Surely this generation of hopeful and excited new parents will carve a new path forward. This should be interesting to watch!

Past Hold Answers To Future

A Shotgun house for those of us not from the South is a long,

narrow house usually no more than 12 feet wide with doors at

either end. Very popular in New Orleans, the style can be found

all over the South and as far away as Chicago, Key West and

California. The houses were originally built by middle class folks,

but eventually became a symbol of poverty by the middle

of the 20th century.

There is a theory that the style can be traced from Africa to Haiti and then to the United States. It has a strong connection to the folklore of the South. Superstition says that ghosts and spirits are attracted to these box-like homes because they can pass directly through them. Some people purposely placed doors out of alignment to discourage spirits from passing through! The Shotgun gets its name from the idea that a shotgun blast could shoot straight through the house.The size and simplicity is attractive. From the porch you pass into the living room and then to the bedroom and then to the kitchen and bathroom at the back. Typically there is a back porch as well.

These houses are generally one story and raised above the ground 2 to 8 feet. There is also a Double-barrel Shotgun, which is basically a duplex or two separate Shotgun houses sharing a single common wall. The Camelback is a Shotgun with a second story built above the rear rooms of the structure. Both the front and back porches as sheltered under a roof.

Far away in Sydney, Australia architect James

Fitzpatrick built his version of a Shotgun house on a narrow lot that allowed him just a little over 12 feet fence to fence. With a little more than 893 square feet to work with he had the added challenge of living on a busy street. He basically flipped the house around 180 degrees and accepted the fact that he'd enter his home from the carport instead of a gracious old fashioned porch. By doing this he blocked out the noise of the street.

The view I'm showing you is looking into the length of the unit from the entry side of the house towards the dining and kitchen space. Behind the kitchen wall is one of the bedrooms.

James uses state-of-the art equipment to coax his little space into offering sophisticated amenities. Notice his pioneer plasma TV and the fireplace created by using one of the burner units sold by EcoSmart fireplace. It is a compact burner that uses Denatured Ethanol, an environmentally friendly and renewable fuel. "Storage is a huge priority and you've just got to use every square millimeter of space."

The entry into the master bedroom is a bit unusual and required a walk through the bathroom that also doubles as a laundry. An under-counter type washing machine and clothes dryer combo is hidden under the lavatory counter. In the traditional Shotgun, you have to walk through the bedroom to reach the kitchen and bathroom. In both styles of the end user simply has to accept a couple of unorthodox traffic patterns.

When we look to our past there are hundreds of ideas about our built environment that worked once and can work again. The idea of a narrow little house is not new. Some architects working on the renewal of New Orleans have re-visited this style of house as an affordable replacement for destroyed homes. The model is still viable and attractive whether done in traditional style or ultra modern as shown here. There is new life ahead for the under-1,200-square-foot home both here in the U.S. and abroad. One of my readers actually took the trouble to look James Fitzpatrick up when they were traveling in Australia! James e-mailed me to let me know about his visitors from California! We are one small world, aren't we?

The Circle of Simplicity

Sooner or later each of us must confront exactly what the financial losses brought about during this depressing Recession mean in our lives. It is unpleasant and there is nothing that I would rather ignore more than facing reality at the moment. My beloved husband forced me to sit down and write down every penny that we owe. Like swallowing Castor oil or eating spoiled cheese. But it was the first step in banging out a long-range plan. Now that our old plan doesn't work - because we've lost about two-thirds of our nest egg - we need a completely fresh goal.

One of the good things that can result from this uncomfortable time is a simplification of our life. Author Cecile Andrews wrote a book called The Circle of Simplicity wherein she shares that what she wants to feel more than anything else is gratitude. With the "good life" slipping away, how do you keep a sense of gratitude going? Maybe the secret, as Andrews hints, is in appreciating what you have at the moment. " To feel gratitude is to look at everything in your life and appreciate it, be aware of it, pay attention to it. Our lifestyle, of course, engenders discontent and resentment. Because more is always better you can never be satisfied with what you have. Because commercials are constantly showing up ecstatically happy people with lots of stuff, we always feel that we're just not quite making it. Then, when we see how much money rich people have, we feel envious. All of these feelings make you discontent with your life, causing you to fail to be grateful for what you do have."

And if we were a nation of whiners before, what will we become as more and more challenge is hurled at the middle class resulting in additional losses? The only way to avoid misery is to grasp onto one or two positives in your life. It may just get down to a handful of fresh flowers. It may be the fact that you actually like your husband or wife that keeps you afloat. It could be that you are blessed with healthy children. One thing I know for sure: Your contentment definitely will not be related to how much you own. In the days of our grand-parents and great-grandparents immigrants came to America with the desire to labor hard. It was generally the result of unrelenting work on the part of the entire family that earned them a home. Somewhere along the line, as the New Urbanist James Howard Kunstler writes, we shifted from thinking of home ownership as something we should work very hard for to something we are entitled to as Americans.

Those devoted to the simple lifestyle carefully rearrange their lives to reduce their dependence on "stuff" and thereby change how much money they must have to remain comfortable. One car instead of two. Mommy stays home and saves the cost of child care or a housekeeper. She prepares fresh and healthy food for her family at a fraction of the cost of fast restaurant food. Use of re-purposed furnishings saves money as does growing some of your own food. Simplicity demands that you wear things out and only replace when you cannot repair. We cannot have everything and still remain balanced, healthy and happy. The only way to live within your means is to create a new plan. It has taken me a long, long time to realize this. Read. Study. Count. Plan. Change. Sell. Conserve. Look for a simpler way to live in this complicated time.

Smart Mid-Century Houses

Optimism and hope were dominant features of Post WWII America. There were GI benefits to be had and the country welcomed veterans back to work with extended arms. Industrious developers set about satisfying the huge demand for housing as millions of young people busily started families of four, five and six kids. Women went back to staying at home after spending their war years substituting for men in factories and plants, trying to like being June Cleavor. Some social scientists even propose that the little-woman-staying-at-home syndrome was in part popularized by American culture as a response to men actually feeling threatened by the short-term independence that women experienced while the men folk were away at war. Guys wanted their wives pregnant and safely tucked away at home during the 1950s.

The homes that were prepared for these families were designed to be an affordable reward for service to one's country. You could afford one of the 900 to 1,000 square foot houses on a school teacher's or milkman's salary. Houses built in 1947 in Levittown, New York originally sold for under $8,000 and were designed based on extreme economy. In part this was achieved by eliminating basements and garages and for the first time, laying plumbing pipes right into the cement slab foundations. This concept spread across the country. Arapahoe Acres in Englewoood, Colorado, south of Denver, was the brain child of a Czech emigre Eugene Sternberg who intended to sell his little homes for $10,000 in 1949. His designs were clever and he outfitted them with sliding walls and lots of built-in storage to maximize efficiency of limited space. Los Angeles's Mar Vista Tract, a shady enclave of 52 little homes was designed by architect Gregory Ain and landscape designer Garrett Eckbo. The houses were 1,060 square foot flat roofed structures that used accordion folding walls to encourage homeowners to re-configure space according to needs. Phoenix, Arizona reflects even more innovation postwar planning because of the mostly flat desert terrain. Builders had few obstacles and could build forever. Now on the Neighborhood Historic District lists is Village Grove, a ranch style subdivision built in the late 1950s and Town and Country that featured something called a "car-patio". The ideas was for the carport and patio to be combined.

The houses were modest and not grand palaces. They were adequate and not outrageous, yet new concepts were introduced like the idea of a kitchen opening right into the living room and flexible accordion-like walls. Truth is: We cannot afford the McMansions of the last twenty years. We need our own version of the small, smart houses of the 1950s.