Welcome to the world of houses and homes, a world as imprecise and varied as the people who live in them. Nowhere does our individuality show more than in our choice of homes. We have this dream of something that is different from anyone else’s, something worthwhile that we personally are responsible for, something that we work for and can be proud to say is ours. The idea that a home is the “American Dream” may be a marketing stratagem, yet it has an underlying truth that we all understand. This dream is an edifice that one stands and admires—the flow of the roof, the beckoning of the entry, the magnificence of the whole. Inside, the furnishings are also of dream stuff, making day-to-day living luxurious and relaxing. Our Mission
It may surprise you to find a mission statement in a book that’s sold in the general book trade. But our experiences of the last 12 years have made it obvious that most homes are neither designed nor built to best suit the needs of home-owners, the people who live in them everyday. We think this can and should be improved. Hence our mission—to help people who buy houses to get better, more livable homes. That houses are this way is nobody’s “fault.” For hundreds of years more attention has been given to how homes look than to how well they work for the homeuser. It’s been a matter of putting “form over function” as characterized by Louis Sullivan in the 19th century. It’s still that way. Yes, we have beautiful machines and materials that didn’t exist in his time but people still buy houses, in large part, because of the way they look rather than how it will be to live in them. And, as long as people buy homes for this reason, it’s not going to get better. We want to change that, not by degrading the aesthetics, the looks, but rather by upgrading the attitudes of buyers, designers and builders in matters of function. Our objective is simple: To help people get better homes for the hard-earned money they spend on them. | 
