Too many buyers and renters do the reverse. Second, find your place in it.Ĭusato: Exactly. Me: Seems your take-home - literally - message is: First decide on the place. Where you choose to live - whether in a bustling city or a quiet neighborhood - has a tremendous impact on how you spend your days. Me: In writing this book, what did you learn that you didn't know before you started?Ĭusato: The book turned out to be much less about the home itself and more about finding your quality of life.

We gabbed as only two house-obsessed women can. When I heard she'd put her latest thinking between covers, I grabbed an early copy, read it and called Cusato, whom I have talked to before about Americans' evolving home needs. The under 500-square-feet of amazingly efficient and cute-as-a-button houses won Cusato lots of awards, and much-deserved attention. 'That surprised even me,' Cusato said when I called to talk about her new book.Ĭusato, 38, is known for the adorable Katrina Cottages she designed for those left homeless after the eponymous hurricane. In her new book 'The Just Right Home' (Workman, April 2013), Cusato doesn't even get to the particulars of the house until Chapter 13. Now I see the same maxim applies to houses: You don't just buy the house, you buy the whole neighborhood.Īnd, if you ask architect Marianne Cusato, what's around a home matters more than the house itself. You marry the whole family.īoy, she wasn't kidding. When I was a young woman contemplating marriage, my mother used to say: You don't just marry the man.

Get your house right by marianne cusato