My wife and sons must have inherited my fondness for small spaces. Or, maybe traveling the country in a motorhome taught us all to love the comfort of close quarters together. Or could it have been the move from 3000sf down to 1000sf that did it?
Whatever the reason, for us, small houses are better.
It hasn’t always been this way. I built an addition on our home in Tampa that was just about the same size as our home in Punta Gorda. I added a master suite. A big one. Obviously at the time, I thought bigger was better. No longer.
Smaller is better. For me, the real kicker is the family togetherness, and the cozy feeling of our home. Weird as it may make me, I really like to keep my crew close.
Right now, I’m writing this post at the kitchen table (not small, huge, seats 12, made by yours truly), and my bride is as close to me as if we were sitting at a tiny table in Starbucks. I barely have to move my arm to touch her.
My sons are less than 20 feet away, one in the living room playing a game ( I just heard a slight cough from him… he’s getting over a cold). My older son is in the bedroom he shares with his brother playing his guitar. It sounds great and it’s like live entertainment. If I want to add a word of applause, I don’t even have to raise my voice.
Small houses are better.
But, hey, that thouchy-feely stuff aside, smaller houses are also better for the world. I’m not going total tree-hugger on you, I mean I do love to make stuff from wood, but look at the common sense of it:
- Less land
- Less material (less manufacturing)
A huge house with nothing but energy star and green everything isn’t going to hold a candle in “overall impact” comparisons to my little house. And that’s just in the construction and manufacturing process.
What about the ongoing impact?
Our electric bill in the little house is about half of what it was in the bigger house. Half. Same four people, same clothes washed and dried, same temperature in summer and winter, just less space which means less air-conditioning, fewer light fixtures, less wasted energy.
It’s not all roses
There are some problems. The boys don’t love sharing a bedroom. Storage is a serious issue. We don’t have room for much more stuff in this house for sure.
But do we need more stuff?
Overall, I’m a fan of small houses. I wonder if people will ever consider taking part of a house down? Can you imagine that? Tear part of it off and haul it away to make the house smaller! That seems crazy! But I bet it happens.
What about you? Small house? Big house? What’s perfect for you?
I’m torn. We are living in 1500 square feet right now and I do love the coziness.
We have a 1500 square foot unfinished basement that we are very slowly finishing (nothing is done yet). I want the rooms in the basement to be grandchildren-visiting-friendly. I absolutely love visiting my own parent’s home, but frankly we’ve out grown the space and now are having to put many children/grandchildren in the local hotel. I want us to be able to be all together (even if it just one week of a year) and need enough space to host three children and their families.
I know what you mean! Having room for family and guests is a great reason to have lots of space. Some of the largest additions I built over the years were for this purpose. I just wish there was a better way to have that extra space without it going to waste when there were no guests.
I’ve seen lots of ideas over the years for making space multi-task. Things like Murphy-Beds and futons. I’ve also seen some garages that were essentially finished on the inside and became play areas when the car was moved out. Better not have any oil leaks!
Every time I wrote “smaller is better” a little nagging voice said “are you suuuuurre?” No, I’m not totally sure. But I know that we’ve spent enough time in both a large home and a small one to know the difference, and for us, with the particular homes (and locations) we own, the smaller one is more comfortable. Like Jeans that fit just right.
Tim
I think small is better. We have 4 children and have a 2500 square foot house that we use EVER SQUARE INCH! My children share rooms, and one of the room is our school room. The basement in unfinshed and the children play down there for “gym class”. Our house is not small but not as big as the ones around us(3000) we purposely chose the smaller layout. Our house before that was 1200 square feet(with three children at the time) and that felt small with all the babies!
Bekki – I assume by the use of the term “school room” that you homeschool? So do we! We love that and I wonder sometimes if the fact that we are together as much as we are makes us a little more use to the closeness of a small space.
Thanks for stopping by!
We went from 1200 sq ft base house (hubby was military) to our current 3404 sq ft house and the ironic thing to me is that even though the house is really big with lots of rooms, we all hang out in the kitchen/great room! We have a game room and a media room that get used maybe once a week! Part of me (the part that cleans, mostly) wishes we didn’t get so star struck by what we could afford and part of me is glad that we chose this house because it’s nice to have the space when we do need it…like family visiting, having parties, etc. I think, though, that no matter the size of the house, it’s the close knittedness (word?) of the family that matters!
For the past 34 years, my husband and I have lived in a 2BR/1BA ranch that is barely 1300 sq. ft. When our daughter was growing up, I dreamed of having more space (especially storage space) but we made do. We recently purchased a 30 acre horse farm and with it came a 2500 sq. ft. ranch-style house with 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, an office, sunroom, breakfast room, formal living/dining rooms, and family room. Now that we are empty-nesters, I’m wondering what the heck we’re going to do with all those rooms at this stage of our lives. Once the move is complete, I think I’m truly going to miss my small but cozy little house. Sometimes I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.
P.S. The new house is just a hop, skip and a jump east of Tampa so within the next month or two I hope to be calling on you, Remodeling Guy, to help me with the bad, bad kitchen and bathrooms!
Kristy – I Agree! It is the close-knittedness (definitely a word) of the family that matters most!
Shari – I hope you don’t cry too much about the old house! If you do, just look out at your 30 acres!
My post was instigated by similar feelings we’re having. I’ve grown cautious about telling too much of my personal life on my blog, but we’ve been spending much more time in Tampa (at the big house) and when we’re there, we miss the little one in Punta Gorda. Now what I might not be covering accurately in my post is the overall lifestyle difference between the two houses. There is much more different than just the size!
By the way, I hope you do call me because I’m a major sucker for horses. I love horses. How many do you have? Any really big ones? I love big horses!
I have never lived in a house that is more than 1100 sq ft. so I don’t REALLY know. But I know what a challenge it is to keep my 1100 sf clean and can’t imagine if I had twice as much space to do. We are a small family (only 3 of us) so it suits us well and is affordable to heat/cool. But both my husband and I are from large families and it WOULD be really nice to be able to have more entertaining room.
I think you are right. I hate cleaning bathrooms and I have 4 (although, my 10 yr old cleans one and I am teaching my 8 yr old to clean one, too).
My house is about 2700 sq ft. However I have 4 kids (3 – 10 yrs olds), and I am so happy to have a playroom to send them to when I need some “quiet”.
Also, every few months we host a family get-together which means 29 people if it is my side and 18 if it is my husband’s side of the family. So, it is nice to have a little space when the weather doesn’t permit being outside. But, I like the picture you paint of family togetherness. For us, that includes extended family, too.
I miss the days where I could clean our whole apartment in an hour. I definitely agree on the “green” argument.
My house is about 1100 square feet. We could use a couple hundred more, preferably in the form of a bedroom. We have 4 kids and a 2BR house. Although they fit in the one BR rather well, I would like to have one room for the boys and one for the girls. Luckily they are still young right now so sharing isn’t a problem. I could also use a 10×14 shed but hiding things under the bed is working for now. 🙂
We lived in a 4000 sq ft house in Texas and I loved it. It was the perfect floorplan, and I think my soulmate designed it. We now live in a 1500 sq ft house in South Dakota. I don’t know what it is about craftsman floorplans, but we honestly are not in each other’s space. We could reconfigure a few rooms on the main floor to improve the plan, without adding square feet. I think we might pay as much for heating/cooling in our 1920 small home as we did in the energy efficient bigger home.