The design and decor of this airy corner of this Honolulu living room back in the sixties was an excellent example of how a comparatively small house can be made to look twice its size through a continuous flow of space from outdoors to indoors.
In this case, there was precious little space to work with — a mere ribbon of land between the house, the street and the neighbors next door.
Privacy, a major necessity, was satisfied by translucent plastic screens facing toward the neighbors, and a wood grille angled toward the street.
This lightly scaled, non-claustrophobic enclosure was then linked to the house by extended roof beams — a structural trick that stretched the house right to the property lines.
With this Hawaii home’s living room’s floor-to-ceiling shoji screens pulled back, the baffle-grille became a second outer wall that opened the room to a sky-topped border of paving and planting — a pretty frame for the owners’ hikie (a big Hawaiian daybed) and a green collar for an utterly serene room.
All these little pieces worked together to make this small house seem larger, and this space seem more restful.
