Darla Brown’s house has a small deck in the back. The houses are called shotgun because a shot fired through the front door would go straight the back. AIMING

“I do want to eventually have company over, but I want to make sure there’s enough room,” the 31-yearold production assistant said.

Shotgun homes, common throughout the South, earned their name because of the notion that if a shot were fired through the front door it would go straight out the back door.

Thought to have been imported from Africa or Haiti, shotguns first appeared in

New Orleans in the 1830s. Later, they spread as cheap C housing for workers in the mines and oil fields.

ABOVE: A window strung with lights separates the living room from the galley kitchen in Brown’s home.

In the Raleigh Durham area, shotguns have survived despite urban renewal efforts and a general distaste for the wood-frame reminders of poverty and oppression, according to Don Becker, director of the Raleigh Historic Districts Commission.

“In some circles they’re viewed as negative history,” Becker said.

Decorators find the boxy layout daunting. “I don’t think there’s anything more challenging than having to walk through the master bedroom to get to the kitchen,” said Anne DeCocco, an interior designer in Chapel Hill, N.C..

A shotgun gives the visitor an immediate impression of your living habits, from a rumpled bed to cruddy dishes in the sink.

To create a sense of order, DeCocco recommends choosing furniture with clean lines and painting walls with complementary colors of similar intensities. If colors are soft, keep them soft throughout the rooms. If saturated, keep them bold. Or stick to the same family, and graduate from lighter to darker.

STYLE with her decorated window pane, Brown also uses arrangements to break up the space of her shotgun house.

Apex, N.C., designer Mary Larsen suggests incorporating functional pieces that don’t take up much space, such as a love seat or an overstuffed settee instead of a sofa, or an ottoman that can double as a coffee table. A Murphy bed can close up in the wall to conserve space for parties. To make effective use of a long, narrow space, weightier pieces should face a focal point in the room — a pretty view, a fireplace, even a TV — and be positioned on an angle.

To avoid a house of squares, break up rooms with a screen, a curtain wall or a bookcase with an open back. Ariel Kocourek, an interior designer in Raleigh, recommends creating walking clearance, so that a kitchenette, for instance, isn’t blockading the bathroom.

Darla Brown, an Alltel, N.C., store manager, hung a vintage windowpane and strung it with Christmas lights to separate the living room from the galley kitchen of her shotgun, built in 1920.

Brown has adjusted to the challenges of living in a 850-square-foot shotgun house. By limiting her decor to a few special spots, she even finds room for 100 party guests.

A few blocks over, renter Kari Hyatt, a veterinary student at N.C. State University, blissfully shares her shotgun with four dogs and two cats.

“I can see what every one of these animals is doing,” she said.