Having spent most of my life in houses of less than a 1000 square feet, I’ve often fantasized about living in a larger space.  Our current house is 960 square feet.  We don’t have enough storage space, with tiny and too few closets and one storage cupboard in the hall.  Our kitchen counters are few and making a meal is something of a juggling act.  Our basement is unfinished with low hanging pipes that can make navigating it a potential head banging experience.  For years I’ve read books on how to create more storage.  They’ve been somewhat useful, but ultimately like it’s like trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.   Or do I mean store a rabbit in a matchbox?   

Then along came Sarah Susanka and her book, The Not So Big House.  Ms. Susanka is a residential architect, living in North Carolina, whose specialty is creating smaller, beautiful, and liveable houses.  She believes in quality over quantity and inhabiting all of a house and all of your life.  She creates small, open-plan homes, that have well-designed sightlines, allowing you to visually connect with the outdoors and feel as if you are living in a larger house.   The people who live in these houses utilize every space, every day.  As I looked at the pictures of houses she’d designed, including her own, it struck me: there was a lot less stuff in these homes.  I looked around our home.  Bingo.  Not only were we trying to store one rabbit, but entire generations of them. 

As everyone has read, the average new home has doubled in size from 1000 square feet, with 3.6 occupants, in the l950s, to 2400 square feet, with 2.7 occupants in 2004. Yet we are having smaller families, and multiple generations do not generally live together in these larger homes.  So what’s going into the newfound space?  More stuff.  We seem to be accumulating tons of consumer goods, from multiple electronics, to hobby supplies and toys, tools and gardening supplies, clothes and even industrial sized appliances.  In our case it is books, tools, and hobby supplies.  So it is not living space we are acquiring as much as storage space.  We are living in giant garages.  And if that’s not enough we are utilizing over a billion square feet of off-sight storage spaces, some of them even heated and cooled. 

There are those folks who have gone the opposite direction, living in very small houses, some as tiny as 140 square feet.  Although I like a cozy home, that would probably be a bit too cozy for me.  I realize those of you who live in apartments or trailers are thinking even 1000 square feet could seem like a castle. So maybe I need to rethink my desire for more space.  What can we learn from these small home dwellers? 

Small space living requires that we think hard about how we want to live; how we want to spend our days.  Even in a larger house this is a useful concept to embrace. 

Smaller homes require that we plan how we will use each room, what we will put in it, and who will inhabit it. 

Building or remodeling a smaller home means less expense, fewer materials and raw materials, and the option to use higher quality materials. 

Built-in storage and reducing clutter make cleaning small homes easier and quicker, which frees you up to do more of what you want to do. 

Small homes can be added to if family size changes. 

Smaller houses require less energy to heat and cool. 

Small houses cost less to build and maintain. 

Here is an experiment from “little house on a small planet” website to find out how you are utilizing your current space: 

1. Make a list of activities you do at home and the things you need in your home.  Put it away for now.
2. Tape a piece of paper to the wall in each room.   For one or two weeks every time you enter a room put a check mark on the paper. Add short notes of what you do in each room.
3. Notice which spaces in your home you rarely use.  Are you using these spaces for active living or for storage?  What would happen if these spaces disappeared?
4. After two or more weeks make a second list of activities you do at home and the things you need in your home.  Compare this with the first list.  Any surprises? 

Your turn:  What are your thoughts about living in a smaller home?  Join me in the experiment and let’s share what we discover. 

Resources and inspirations: 

www.littlehouseonasmallplanet.com 

www.tumbleweedhouses.com 

www.resourcesforlife.com 

Little House on a Small Planet:  Simple Homes, Cozy Retreats, and Energy Efficient Possibilities, by Shay Salomon. 

Put Your Life on a Diet:  What I Learned from Living in 140 Square Feet, by Gregory Paul Johnson. 

Next week:  Water, water, everywhere?