The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
The Practical Built In Funiture
Every Home Needs Built-Ins
EVERY home needs built-in units of various kinds. Even when there isn't a lack of storage space — of which few homes ever have enough — built-ins can be the answer to the problem of cutting the cost of furnishing. And that's not all. Besides taking the place of movable furniture, and saving money in the process, they can utilize otherwise unused space, or substitute order for wasteful untidiness. Furthermore, with built-in units you can remodel almost any interior. You can convert one room into two. You can fill in openings, construct seats, beds, dressers, kitchen counters and so on, utilizing both wall and floor space for storage of all kinds. You can make usable rooms of bare attics and cellars and turn odd corners in the garage into storage or working space.
Often, simple structures can be used as backgrounds for the regular furniture and serve to hide undesirable architectural features. As everyone knows, a house with too much furniture is congested and cluttered, unattractive and unpleasant to live in. By substituting built-in pieces you can get equivalent service and at the same time release floor space.
The success of any built-in unit is determined not only by its utility but also by the way it blends in with the rest of the room. No ell-designed built-in piece should look like an afterthought, or something stuck on in a hurry. In other words, the less a built-in piece looks built-in, the more it enhances the beauty of the room you put it in. The final test is whether or not it appears as though it had always belonged. Is it an essential part of the whole furnishing scheme?
In planning all such additions it is necessary to keep in mind the complete, furnished room. You have to remember that tall units and deep ones will make a room look smaller; that odd-shaped units and projections can give a room an untidy look and throw it out of balance. In many instances this calls for special treatment either to subdue or emphasize certain features.
Another advantage offered by built-in pieces is that space can be economized and clutter reduced by incorporating loose units into the pieces themselves, such as storage boxes in beds, chairs in kitchen counters, and so on.
The only possible drawbacks to permanently attached built-ins are that ordinarily you can't take them with you; they may not suit a new owner of the house, and they need planning for the type of furniture they are to go with and form a background for. Once attached, they cannot be changed around as loose furniture can. For this reason it is advantageous sometimes to make the built-ins detachable or even free-standing.
