The Batson's are big fans of the Not So Big House book. They definitely come from the perspective that they'd rather make their not-so-big house be a dream to live in. They worked with architect Lawrence Reeves to come up with a design that - in their opinion - radically improved their home.

For the Batson's, we worked on about 1/3 the house:

• We moved some walls, filled in (and created) some doors, and made other internal layout and flow changes to make the house feel more open and flow from room to room better.
• The Batson's did the old switcheroo -- changing which room was being used for what purpose on the main floor; their living room became their dining room (which nicely put a fireplace in the dining room for entertaining), turned their old dining room into a nice in-home office, and finally their old screened porch served as the footprint for a new living room extension.
• We totally rebuilt their kitchen, creating the dream chef's kitchen, with 48" 6-burner (plus grille), dual-oven (dual-fuel) range, two sinks, and lots of space for two cooks to work.
• We remodeled their upstairs by stealing a foot from the adjacent room, and adding new cabinets, countertops, and a deep whirlpool tub.

We did our energy-efficient thing with their extension; since it was built on a post foundation, we insulated the heck out of it.  The Batson's also had us install a novel radiant heat floor, over a manufactured teak flooring system.  While radiant heat over wood can be troublesome (given seasonal expansion / contraction coupled with heat), we worked together to find a set of components that turned out to work perfectly, and the flooring gaps stay nice and tight all year round.

After we finished, the Batson's finished some of the walls by using a talented local venetian plasterer to create a variety of finishes on different walls.

I'm sure you'll agree by viewing the photos here that the result is wonderful.  The Batson's think so!