Author Mark Vassallo Defines the Barefoot Home

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“Stop and think about a summer house or vacation home,” says Vassallo. “What was it about that place that made it feel so comfortable and inviting?” And he poses the question: why not bring that same dressed down sensibility to our everyday homes?

The true barefoot home, according to Vassallo, is not a particular style, but rather adheres to a few basic principles — informality, openness, light, texture and incorporation of the outdoors. These five, often overlapping fundamentals can be employed in almost any home to achieve an easygoing ambience that matches the way you live.

The informality begins before even setting foot inside your home. “The sequence you create from street to driveway to front door is so important to setting the tone,” says Vassallo. He encourages homeowners to challenge formal standards. “Break down the strict linearity of your landscaping and walk. Create a curving path that passes beneath an arbor covered with fragrant jasmine.” He suggests placing a bench near the front door to invite a guest to relax rather than perfectly erect topiaries, imposing sentinels of buttoned-up formality.

And likewise once inside the front door, consider opening the foyer for a more casual entry space that flows into the home’s living areas, rather than a stuffy imitation of entry halls where butlers usher visitors into closed drawing rooms. Better yet, invite guests through your back door. That’s probably how you come in.

Vassallo urges his readers to think about every single room in the home as a room to use every single day. Forego the temptation to create formal rooms that only serve to impress and actually invite no one to use. When furnishing rooms, think about comfort and ease of care every bit as much as appearance. If it’s stiff and awkward to sit in, no matter how elegant — get rid of it.

And if you don’t ever use your living room, convert it to a studio for your favorite hobby. Is dust gathering on the polished surface of your formal dining room table because you and your family never eat there? Convert the room to a cozy reading nook, or blow out the walls and open the space up to its adjoining rooms.

Which leads to Vassallo’s second barefoot home guiding tenet — openness. The boxy segregated rooms of yesterday’s homes just don’t fit today’s relaxed lifestyles, where people cook, eat, work, relax and entertain together in the same space. Take out the walls that separate kitchen, dining room and family room and create spaces that flow, spaces that are shared. And not just horizontally. Create a layering of open flowing rooms with lofts and balconies that allow communication between levels.

Openness in the barefoot home speaks also to an uncluttered sensibility. Too much, even of a good thing, creates a kind of atmospheric stress that is counter to the concept of barefoot living. “Get rid of half the furniture in your living room,” suggests Vassallo, “and enjoy the peace that comes with less stuff and a little elbow room.”

Openness and light go hand-in-hand in the barefoot home. Natural light, and plenty of it, is essential to creating a warm, inviting environment. Fortunately, advances in high-efficiency construction make lots of windows possible even in severe climates. Vassallo recommends not only bigger windows, but also thinking outside the box when it comes to introducing light into your home. Install a floor-to-ceiling window in a south-facing wall so you can track the arc of the sun throughout the day, even from inside.

Consider clerestory windows high under vaulted and cathedral ceilings. Transoms above doors not only bring in more outdoor light, but help to radiate light between interior spaces. Skylights and French doors and translucent ceilings on porches invite still more natural light.

In his book, Vassallo writes about one Maine home in which an entire gable was fitted with windows and a portion of the second floor cut out to allow light to flood all the way downstairs. “Some little-used floor space was sacrificed to transform a formerly dark and desolate corridor of the house into one of its most inviting spaces.”

And of course, all of this glass serves another of the barefoot home's ideals — connectivity with the outdoors.

“As humans I think we just naturally yearn for a connection with nature,” says Vassallo, “And creating this seamless flow between indoors and out is truly important to our well being.”

Large and abundant windows and glass doors serve to blur the boundaries between inside and out. Vassallo also suggests doors that open out rather than in, as a way of visually embracing the outdoors. (Be careful to install special security hinges to protect against intruders.)

Create “rooms” outside that are as livable as those inside your home. Build an outdoor fireplace to enclose a courtyard and furnish it with a dining table, an outdoor rug, comfortable seating. Install an outdoor shower on a sunny side of your house, with louvered walls for privacy.

“Plant a raised herb garden just outside your kitchen,” advises Vassallo. “Just this simple act encourages you to step outside every day to snip some oregano for dinner.” Convert a detached garage or garden shed (likely used to store a bunch of stuff you never use) to a little hideaway studio. Lay a stepping stone path, and you have created an excuse to get outside.

Continue the same or similar floor from you indoor spaces to outdoor terraces. A stone or tile floor sweeping through a great room and beyond to a covered porch helps to break down perceived boundaries and creates a visual flow between inside and out.

And here too, guiding principles of barefoot living overlap. Texture, according to Vassallo, is an essential element to making a home relaxed and inviting.  Natural textures of wood and stone not only evoke outdoor environs, but also serve to please the senses.  Troweled plaster walls, soft fabrics and rich grained woods appeal both to sight and touch and imbue a sense of imperfection that is somehow comforting. “A home filled with perfectly polished surfaces is somehow lacking in truth,” says Vassallo. “A little roughness and unpredictability has a very straightforward appeal.”

Creating the barefoot home is all about breaking down the barriers between tired old conventions and the way we really live our lives. So kick back, take off your shoes, and take a look around to see how you can make your own home a barefoot kind of place to live.

Kelly McCall Branson is a Freelance Writer