By Paul Miller

Interior Designer, IDS Professional Member

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Up until very recently, when I thought about a house with ‘good bones’, I came at it from a place of how the home looked to me. Layouts, moldings, a higher ceiling, and the age of a home are things I always attributed to better bones. As I began planning our A Home With Good Bones blog series, I soon realized that in the most literal sense when people talk about good bones, they're talking about construction materials and methods.

So I asked my colleagues Leesa Mayfield of Leesa Mayfield Architecture and David Logan of Vintage Building what the phrase ‘good bones’ meant to them. In our third installation of our A Home With Good Bones series, we discuss the construction techniques and next-level choices homeowners can make whether they’re starting from scratch or renovating any age of home.

Read the previous blogs in this series, Part 1: Proportion, and Part 2: Materials.

Start With The Sun

Leesa: [When I sit down to a project], I start with sun angles. It can make the difference in a house and it's not necessarily that it has to be the front door to the north. Understanding how the seasons affect different rooms in your home from time of day to time of year can really help you to appreciate your home to that next level.

Photo courtesy of Leesa Mayfield Architecture

Paul : I think that's kind of part of that good bones thing, going back to where you were at the beginning of our sit down. We talked about the idea that someone who would have thought about the proportions and scale of their home probably had it built well, too. If you're on a lot that's going to drive your house to face a certain way, then think outside the box about where we're putting the kitchen. Thinking that through [is important].

The Pro-Tips

Paul : If someone is trying to find a good builder, someone who's skilled enough to interpret an older home that has good bones or build a home with good bones, what might they want to know about choices that should be made throughout the process?

Leesa : I wonder if it isn't about material so much as technologies or construction techniques. In newer construction I would say that the way that you get good bones these days is that we've advanced so far in how we understand heating and cooling, the efficiencies that you get from good insulation and by blocking air infiltration and making sure that the builder is considering strategies beyond code.

That means caulking around the edge of steel plates on your wall framing, putting in spray foam insulation in rim board areas, spraying around windows, and sometimes builders even spray around electrical boxes on exterior walls. I think another little detail that comes to mind is not being afraid of putting fiberglass batts in your interior walls. A next-level detail in a nice home is having quiet. Not hearing the toilet flushing or the shower running or the conversation in the next room. If you're doing an interior renovation to an older home or new home, go ahead and put that upgrade in. Fiberglass batts are very inexpensive. The other critical piece in your homes is your windows. Make sure that you've got a sound window package and that you can lock those windows closed really well, as well as open them easily.

David : I think in my experience, they should get to know their builder and the builder’s team. Meet the craftsman. Talk to builders who have craftsmen on their team [rather than subcontractors]. Those are the houses we've worked in where everything goes smoothly. A builder now can just be one person and they’ll sub everything out. And in those jobs, there's no quarterback, right? There's no person bringing it all together. When there's a team of carpenters on a building site it seems so much more error free.

Improving On Good

Paul : Now, let's say the house you fall in love with, because of the street that it's on or because of the size of it, is within the good bones category but it's not exceptional. I think there’s a bit of a sliding scale there. Do you have any thoughts about [tactics to make that house] feel like a higher quality home?

Inside After; Photos courtesy of Leesa Mayfield Architecture

Leesa : Two things come to mind right away. Make a list of the deficiencies first for yourself: what is it that you as a homeowner feel the home is lacking? Is it curb appeal? Is it openness of floor plan? Is it functionality of the kitchen? Is it just square footage? Once you have an understanding of what your wants and needs are, you find a designer.

In working with a designer you can really start to define what is possible. [It may be] a humdrum house on the outside because it has really tired siding - if it's got the original 60 year old wood siding that's just been painted over and over and over again. Hiring a designer helps you to see that you could take it to the next level on the outside by putting a new cladding of some kind on it. Replacing windows comes to mind for a pretty immediate fix. But being thoughtful about what those windows are - not just doing vinyl inserts from Sears. If a house has good bones, do some research on those windows. Also, sometimes a new front door can make all the difference.

Paul : That's true. Or changing the porch posts out.

Outside After; Photo courtesy of Leesa Mayfield Architecture

Leesa : Or adding a porch if it doesn't have one! That sort of thing. In terms of square footage, too, I’ve found with some of my clients in older homes that sometimes it's not more square footage that you need but it is just opening up the floor plan in thoughtful ways so that you can get a more modern kitchen instead of the galley kitchen. If we steal some space from this back family room and open up that wall, then we could get the kitchen with an island in it that every everybody wants in their homes these days without having to actually add on.

Paul : I've also found that solving organizational and storage problems for people can make a huge impact in how they use the space.

Leesa : Looking at the space holistically is what I always say. If you bring in a designer and let them draw out and study the whole main level, you can start to snag areas that…make a home function a little better for you.

Paul : I would say for me in interiors, depending on the age of the house and the style that the client is going for, some tricks that I've picked up from carpenters over the years that can make a home seem a little gutsier is putting a backboard behind window and door casings so that the trims pop more. This helps give a lot more for the base and the shoe molds to butt to, but it can also make interior walls appear to be more like that six inch stud and can make the casings between rooms look more dramatic, make you feel like the walls are probably thicker than they are. When you get [those details] right and you come into a room and think, “Oh, this is a really handsome home.” But essentially it is just a trim change - sort of the icing on the cake.

A Philosophical Approach To Home

David : Have you ever read the book, The Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton? Her premise is good architecture and that the spaces we live in have the power to make us do better things. Some people make fun of that, but I think it's true.

In the US, we're not building for our children. We're building until we sell it in 10 years. And the realtors are saying it'll help resale value. Why don't you build it because you love it?

Paul : Well, Frank Lloyd Wright also felt that way. He felt that if he designed communities in a certain way that the community would do better work, that people would be better citizens. So I have heard that concept before.

David : And I think he’s right. You know, if all of our neighborhoods had sidewalks…

Paul : Trees! It's fascinating.

David : It really is. I think we're going the wrong way in the US. Ten years ago I did an architectural tour in England with my old boss, then we went to Thailand and China. In the US, we're not building for our children. We're building until we sell it in 10 years. And the realtors are saying it'll help resale value. Why don't you build it because you love it?

I went into this blog series with my colleagues feeling like my sense of what good bones means - the look of a house as much as what lies behind the walls and under the floors - was perhaps just the way I had seen things. It was really interesting to learn that both an architect and a historic preservationist see things as I have seen them. There's a technical side of what good bones means, but then there's all these other tangential elements to it that are every bit as important. I think it's kind of both things: there's the good bones that you can see and also ones that you sense in a space.

If you enjoyed this conversation on the components of A Home With Good Bones, please send this series to someone who would love to know more about buying or building a lasting dream house and join the conversation in the comments below.

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Edited for length and clarity by Emily Kallick.