Friday, March 10: East Facing Bedroom, Yeah!

EAST FACING BEDROOM
Do you know the book, A Pattern Language? It’s thick and a bit expensive and for awhile, back in the Whole Earth Catalog days, it was the only book that had a whole page all to itself. It’s a compendium of folk and architectural wisdom from all over the world. The main author is Christopher Alexander, which is a good start by the first name, and there are several sub-authors. These people looked in small villages and large cities for what worked, what made life good and pleasant for people and came up with all sorts of things. I gave the book to my son so I can’t look in it right now, but here are some of the patterns that come to me:

Connect inside to outside.

A wall seat on the south facing side to sit in the winter.

Nooks for children.

Window seats and thickness in windows.

Half wall, half open between rooms.

Interior courtyards.

South facing kitchen.

Windows with lots of panes.

Chairs that don’t match.

East facing bedroom.

This last is why I’m in such a good mode now in the early morning. The window faces east where we sleep and after a cold night with the window open so we could have lots of fresh air, the light came pouring through our window and let us know that it was time to get up around a quarter to seven. ( It’s early March as I write this.). This is the way to wake, not with an alarming alarm, but with Nature.