Design A Home For Humans (DUH!)

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After my husband died, I had the opportunity to build a house. I'm 54. Do I want to be climbing stairs when I'm 64? 74? Nope. Do I need multiple rooms that I pay to heat and cool, but never actually use? Nope. Do I tend to host scads of people for dinner parties? Nope. So my little cottage is 432 square feet, my appliances are very basic models with no fancy gadgets to break, and my bathroom door is wide enough to accommodate any mobility aid I might need when I get older. My decorating tastes may be questionable, but my home design is definitely for the human that is me.

Whatever happened to medicine cabinets, linen closets, built-in spice cabinets and built-in ironing board cupboards? That was elegant living!

Re: fridges, I don't want screens on my fridge, I want the longevity and functionality of a vintage fridge that lasts for decades and has actual helpful features like roll out shelves.

As a human, I appreciate this video

I really appreciate the “grandma getting stuck in the sofa” comment. It happened to me, actually, and I had to be rescued by my grandson. I think I’ll be giggling for a while. Thank you!! 😁

My career is technology. However, when I went to Home Depot to buy a new refrigerator for my new house 3 years ago, I walked in and said: "I want the 'dumbest' refrigerator you have." No door dispensing water/ice, nothing but an inside ice maker. The more advanced it is, the more maintenance is required such as "change your water filter, or I am not providing you any more water!"

As a nanny who usually works for high-net worth people, many of the homes do not take into account basic human needs and comfort. They are like museums and uncomfortable spaces to inhabit. It's odd to see so many millions spent on homes that aren't even nice to live in.

Having a refrigerator with a TV on the front limits the number of magnets you can collect 😊

"...if design doesn't matter, go live in a jail cell" a Nick Lewis line for the ages

My test for outdoor furniture is-can I sit comfortably in it in shorts? And what does my rear view look like when I’m done sitting in it? Cause you all know what those grid chairs do to the backs of the thighs.

It’s funny…I recently watched a home renovation show, and the hosts built a custom “dream closet” for the wife of the house. She was tiny…maybe 5 feet tall…but the designers hung the clothing rods about 6 feet off the ground. She was standing in her dream closet looking up at the hems of the garments. No way she could hang clothes on those rods without a stepladder. Duh.

That countertop at 11:43 looks like an impossible-to-fully-clean bacteria nightmare to me. I actually gasped. If I had pearls I would have clutched them.

When I went to school for interior design, I was taught to add the words, "to clean," to every design decision. It helps.

When my parents bought their current home (in 2006), after all of us kids were adults, they thought they'd planned ahead. They bought a home with everything on the lower floor except for guest quarters so they wouldn't have to navigate stairs all the time, after having lived 18 years in a tri-level house. Fast forward to last year, my father is now wheelchair bound after a stroke. They had to build a ramp to get from the garage into the house because there were two steps. He can't get into the shower without help because there is a two inch barrier at the bottom of it to keep water in. His chair just barely fits through the standard width doors and the casings are all marked up from it. Even when you think you've thought of everything, you probably haven't.

As a small adult in a world of much bigger adults, I'm happy to find furniture scaled to my size. I so often feel like Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann character, sitting on a chair or sofa with my feet dangling in the air. My home is not a public space, so the scale will be relative to my size for my comfort and accessibility.

I have to state that I hate barstool seating at a kitchen island. I don't sit on bar stools in bars, let alone a kitchen before coffee. I am 62 and unlikely to get younger so I now wish to sit at a proper table with my coffee. Also, open shelving in a kitchen just means you will have clean the shelves, and the contents, at least once every two weeks.

You are sooo right about low sofas. They can look beautifully contemporary, but Grandma "may be stuck there for life"!! 😂😂😂

We got rid of our hey google and replaced it with a real version of the only thing we used it for - a kitchen timer. Scored a SUPER cute morton salt girl timer on ebay. We love it so much, and now there isn't an annoying speaker listening for anything that sounds remotely like "google" at all times in our kitchen 😆

More William Morris than Marie Kondo: "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." 😊 Always love your videos, Nick. A highlight of every weekend, for me: a mug of Scottish breakfast tea, a croissant, and the latest Nick video.