IMO there should be a hierarchy of themes in a house and they should support one another. But a minor decorative theme should not be confused with or be allowed to supersede the major organizing theme.

I love it. No to your question, but I wish I were more creative.

Strong architecture, like strong art, always has a clear and pervasive organizing concept--a theme, or a "story", if you like. This is what lifts shelter to be architecture and smearing paint to be a painting! As JDS says above, however, an organizing concept in architecture is three-dimensional and is the basis for how the house is organized and designed. It's not a two-dimensional decorative idea here and there.

Is that called "parti"? Someone was planning a house here a year or more back and brought that word to it, such a wonderful concept.

From Wiki (which every architectural graduate understands): A parti or parti pris comes from the French prendre parti meaning "to make a decision". Often referred to as the big idea, it is the chief organizing thought or decision behind an architect's design presented in the form of a basic diagram and / or a simple statement.

Our story/theme is about family. We wanted our home to offer safe, comfortable gracious living for us, and also for my parents (in their early 80s), our siblings (ages 50-60), our nieces and nephew (5-11 years-old), our aunts and uncles, cousins and their kids. One of my sisters and her family live next door. My parents live with us half the year, soon to be year round.

We took our 1900 sf 1965 suburban ranch with a tiny kitchen, tiny bathrooms, tiny closets, four small bedrooms, no real dining room and insufficient storage into a 3200 sf house with three bedrooms, two offices (both could easily become bedrooms), four baths with no-threshold showers, grab bars, wide doors and aisles, a kitchen big enough to cook in with the kids and allow my folks to sit comfortably when they want to be part of the melee, a dining room big enough for everyone, and enough storage to make things easy to find and access.

Our architect understood our goals. We wanted the house to look like it belongs in our neighborhood, and we wanted to introduce at least a bit of architectural interest. Early on we realized that to get the function we wanted, we needed to tear down half the house and start again from the foundation up. In the rest of the house, we needed all new windows, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, everything to bring it up to code. We made our design choices with respect to windows, stairwell width, stair riser heights, ceiling heights, cabinet configurations all over the house bearing in mind safety, comfort and making spaces as graceful as possible within the limitations of our site and budget.

Our half new build/half remodel will be done in a few weeks, and while we've made plenty of mistakes (oh, what I've learned on the Kitchen Forum--too late!), our story about how we hope our family will use our home has been constantly in mind. It shows in the lighting choices, the colors, tile, wood floors, windows, cabinet pulls, sinks, faucets, walks and driveway and everything else. It's not a very flashy house because that wouldn't fit our context. But with the help of all the pros who've designed and built it, it's going to be a wonderful house to live in.

Nine months ago, it looked like this:

It looked like this one day last week.

Algeasea, the elegance of your house is in its simplicity. I'd take yours any day over the overdone, over gabled, over turreted McMansions. Just lovely.

Thanks, cpartist. It is indeed a very simple house while I have a yen for Arts and Crafts or Craftsman homes. Or English country houses in many shapes and styles. And late 18th century colonial stone houses in the mid-Atlantic states. Part of the 'family' story for my house must be 'appreciate what you have' (and use VRBO and cottage rental websites for holiday theme changes).

I don't really "get" the idea of a theme or a parti or a story. What makes sense to me is GOALS. My goals:

- Build a modest house suitable for the two of us in our retirement years.

- The house must be designed for our habits and lifestyle (which encompasses a number of details not worth mentioning here), it must be low-maintenance and energy efficient, and it must be appropriate for aging-in-place.

- Since we're in the South, the house must include a comfortable outdoor living and entertaining area, including a small outdoor kitchen.

- We don't really have a budget, but we demand good value from every choice.

The word theme makes sense to me in terms of decorating. It seems to me that we're leaning towards a number of squares (in the windows, in open transoms, and in some tile. Seeing that, I'm leaning towards other squares when a choice presents itself.

We're also leaning towards blue in most rooms, though red in the kitchen.

And we favor a nostalgic, vintage look.

Mrspete,

Similar purpose for us. Retirement place in the south, mountains are the plan.

We are working on super efficient, low maintenance and minimum superfluous space. We want space for the kids to come visit but not so much that it feels like emptiness when they're not around. Most rooms will do double duty, we are eliminating what we have in our current house but don't really use(formal dining room, home office, 5 entrances on the main floor alone!).

We have looked at the house we live in now and thought about what spaces earn their keep. We are taking those spaces and finding a way to perform those activities on the main floor and within the limits of the lot we have chosen.

The theme has kind of evolved accidentally and to me is a happy accident. To me it is just fun to think of those opportunities once the usability has been worked out. Maybe theme isn't the correct word, I don't mean like a golf themed basement or a jungle themed playroom, but a cohesive feeling throughout. I found when working for an interior designer many years ago that the structural elements should speak to each other from space to space. And for me that usually occurs all along and yet I don't always see it right away but love when I finally see it.

Annette, I think you and I are on the same page.

FWIW, goals are really objectives and parti/concept/story is the overall organizing concept to translate the goals/objectives into a unified and harmonious three-dimensional solution. Both are important, and both are very different! Strong finished projects have both.

Retirement home here too. I guess my "theme" is designing the house around the courtyard so most rooms open onto the backyard. In terms of decorating themes, I am the opposite of you Annette in that I prefer rectangles and repeat them throughout.

Cptartist, that's exactly what I mean. Now looking at your upcoming house again I can see the rectangles showing themselves to me. I'm not an artist or even remotely talented in that way so I'm always amazed when I finally pick up on something like this that to people like you and Virgil carter probably know and plan for. Then I can see why something is visually pleasing, that the "theme" is subliminal to people like me. I don't know why I like it I just know I do, and then duh, I see it lol.

My favourite home was based on the idea of a castle updated in the 19th century--lots of rough stone--from the exterior concrete bricks with dark mortar to interior natural cleft slate and quartzite floors; faux cast stone walls, and fireplaces; "antiqued" painting and deep hue paint colours. The entry way featured an artificially aged mirror.

If the home hadn't been designed for resale, we would have gone a lot further on the theme. But as it was, most shoppers took the mirror for a defect, the rough stone as primitive and unattractive and the copper cornice mouldings as cheap because, yikes, they could detect the seams every four feet or so!

My next project I'd like to look like an 18th Century English manor home. (Only when the pre-nup kicks in, a thatched roof country cottage will be more in line with what I can afford!)

My house was nothing but rectangles. Nothing against them as such, but I wanted more variety and some different patterns in our interiors. I've added in a few triangles and tried to use curves via tile, lighting and plumbing fixtures to achieve a more gracious aesthetic.

worthy, any photos of your updated castle?

Annette, I think most people create themes subliminally. We don't usually need to articulate them, but they're in the work we do and the way we live our lives. I taught writing for a long time, so I forced hundreds of poor college students to figure out how to tease out the themes underlying their writing assignments. Figuring out theme is a mini-mystery, whether in building a home, writing a research paper or any creative task. They're always there, even if some are stronger and better executed than others.

As I stumble through the last stages of our remodel and move into thinking about decorating my new spaces, it's been helpful for me to articulate my themes. Thanks for introducing such a great topic.

worthy do you have pics of your home - it sounds AMAZING!

I love your inspiration front door with the round window! My friend and neighbor lives in a house I find adorable, and it has a door like that. She painted her front door a pale blue color and I just love it. Here's a pic showing just a small part of the front of the house. Posting in case it gives you some ideas - some of your inspiration pics showed shutters in a similar color so I thought you'd like to see her door. (FWIW it's an old house, with a largish addition. They did a great job keeping the style of the house by using reclaimed bricks from an old schoolhouse for the addition. One of my faves in the neighborhood.)

The main theme of our house is, 'It's paid for!' LOL

Our modest house is a simplified Craftsman that matches the older houses out in the country here in SC. The plan was to not 'stick out' from the other homes, and blend with our surrounding woods. The ultimate compliment to me would be if someone thought our house was old rather than brand new.

Chicagoans, I'm hoping to convince my husband that a little bit of color would be nice. I am collecting photos and will add that to one to the stack.

worthy do you have pics of your home

Probably overselling on my part!

(One of my treasured unintentional compliments was from a tradesperson who asked if this was a reno, figuring we were just updating the interior.)

Six years since we moved on and I see a number of changes I'd make to the exterior. (But since it's already been resold for $1.1 m. more than we got, it's beyond our price range!)

The main theme of our house is, 'It's paid for!' LOL

Hey, that's my theme too! We used to have it decorated in Early Hand Me Down and Colonial Yard Sale, but we have moved up a bit in the world.

worthy those pics are gorgeous! Love the faux painting - any suggested tips, tricks or websites?!

Hey, that's my theme too! We used to have it decorated in Early Hand Me Down and Colonial Yard Sale, but we have moved up a bit in the world.

I had a couple of houses decorated like that. Now I just call those items family antiques. ;)

Our home has the theme of a segmental arch. We used it in the front door, the barrel vault of the front porch ceiling, some windows, the shape on the interior doors, the barrel vaulted ceiling in the dining room, the doors on the wood stove, the valance over the cooktop, the opening to the fireplace, the garage doors, the shape of the kitchen island and the soffit over the island. Probably more, but you get the idea. While it is repeated throughout the house, it is not done in such a way as to be obvious. Rather, I find it lends a feeling of cohesion to the house and it makes design choices a lot easier as then there are places where it's just obvious to go with the theme. The only caveat is to not over do. I think the more unusual the shape, the easier it is to overdo.

I first came across the idea when I was in an architecturally designed building on a tour and the guide pointed out the theme and how it was repeated in the design of the building, in the flooring, and even in the light fixtures. It was an aha moment for me.

Segmental arch shape in window, niche, and mirrored by the valance.

I still don't understand 'parti' as it's used by the professionals. But if I have a theme, it's probably 1920s and beyond, in a rural setting.

Our farmhouse was built in 1904, but remodeled in the 1920s. We live next door to it...and I try to keep that theme in the gardens and in our home.

I like an eclectic theme (which can mean almost anything) but for us, we want it to feel like the farm was prosperous in the 1920s and much of the design was established then. And we add pieces that would make sense in upgrades since that time, but still have the underlying theme be from that time.

For instance, outside....we try to keep roses and other plants that would have been around and popular in the 1920s. The inside of the home has a lot of family pieces and finds from second hand stores that are mixed in with more practical finds.

One thing I like to do in the garden is design formal beds for less organized plantings (like our new vegetable kitchen garden) and the more informal beds are almost all planted in mirror reverse. Few notice, but it keeps the gardens in a state of organized chaos : )

Is that a theme??? LOL

I'd hoped to make our house look 'not new' and 'not built all at one time'. We were doing a teardown on a mature lot in a mature neighborhood. There are large historic houses at one end of a deliberately non-curbed 'lane' that runs down a small rise, through mid-size houses and some nondescript 1950's ranches -- one of which we tore down.

We'd enjoyed self-catering vacations in the counties around London, staying in re-purposed out buildings on country estates. One former coach house had a big, archtop window at the sink -- something I copied, with additional archtops in foyer, library and MBA. Towards the end of 'mismatched', few rooms are perfectly centered on other rooms, and some features within rooms are not centered -- like the fireplace and bookshelves in the LR. Our garage is at a 120-degree angle to the house.

I am of French and Scots ancestry. A first trip abroad at 14 made an impression on my taste. Reed & ribbon motif is set into the mouldings in some rooms. Passage hardware is Baldwin's "Edinburgh". There are French doors in breakfast room, DR and LR, with terrace beyond. The asphalt shingle roof imitates blue-grey slate, with a 10/12 pitch. Our curved drive is of bluestone chips. The exterior is off-white brick and stucco.

When we were shopping for existing real estate, a broker said she knew what I wanted, beyond my description of "a small house with some big rooms on a quiet lot." She said I wanted "a sweet house". I'm pretty satisfied with what we got.

I would love to see pics of your homes lavender lass and chisue, both sound charming.

I guess I should have asked for examples in my original post ;).

Still working on my kitchen and dining room, but here are a few pictures during the process...and a few outside : )

LL -- I love your picture of the deer in moonlight! I love your pretty gardens. They are beyond my strength, and would cost a fortune in landscapers here.

LOL! Thanks, Chisue.

We have short summers....and the gardens are mostly roses, other shrubs, bulbs and perennials. We garden like crazy, then get a long rest for the winter : )

Oh, and the deer painting. We really love it! I found that at Goodwill for about $10 and it's one of my favorites.