Could you live in one of these?
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,086
An interesting article by Sheryl Eisenberg. The ultimate answer to the problem raised here (limited resources in an overpopulated world) is, of course, lower human population numbers (no, I am not suggesting genocide- please don't do there). But in the meantime, "small is beautiful" this makes sense to me.
Small Homes for a Small Planet
Downsize your footprint, free up your life
In the last six decades, the average size of a new single family home in the United States rose from roughly 1,000 square feet to 2,500, not because we grew 250% richer but because we found a way to finance what we couldn't afford. Our economic mess is the fallout from this conjuring trick, but it hasn't stopped the trend. After a brief reversal during the recession, the rise in square footage has resumed.
Our sense of our needs has increased since 1950 despite the fact that our households average 23% fewer people. Like Dickens' Pip, we now have great expectations, fed by eager lenders and builders.
The trouble with the fantasy (beyond the debt) is the waste.
We live in a world of limited resources and a country with a growing population that is projected to reach 420 million by 2060. Even small homes to accommodate those "extra" hundred million will eat up open land, down trees and increase carbon emissions, besides raising the already heavy pressure to drill, baby, drill.
So, can we really afford more large homes? I think not, especially since the extra space they offer is both unnecessary and underutilized.
I know about underutilization firsthand. My family has lived in a 2,500-square-foot loft for many years (though we won't for much longer). Even when all four of us are at home and in different rooms, there is still the equivalent of four additional rooms with no one in them. Yes, we enjoy the privacy, but with 2,500 square feet, we have significantly more than we need, and so, I believe, does the "average" family of four.
If the environmental arguments for a smaller home don't sway you, consider the personal ones, beginning with the lower mortgage. Go small enough and you might even be able to pay for the home outright and call it your own, as my parents did before the era of big credit a long time ago. Talk about stress reduction.
Further savings come from the fact that small homes require fewer furnishings. Ongoing costs for maintenance and utilities are lower as well. And because small homes provide less storage, the temptation to buy unnecessary things is less.
The lighter financial burden makes it possible to stop making work choices based on income alone. You can factor in such "idealistic" considerations as the desire to spend more time with your children or work at something you really enjoy.
Small homes also reduce isolation (the flip side of privacy). They both increase proximity to the people you live with and get you out more, since your home doesn't cater to every need the way large homes attempt to do.
Let's not forget that cleaning small homes takes less time!
So, what size should you aim for? The answer is individual to you. When I began apartment-hunting a few months ago, I felt we needed 1,500 square feet to provide our two young adult children with breathing room (though we ultimately chose a place with less than 1,400 square feet for the sake of a garden and neighborhood we loved). But we were looking at older apartments that were not optimized for use of space the way a new home could be.
Some folks nowadays are choosing more radical downsizing in order to live deliberately, like Thoreau. They join him in saying "simplify, simplify" to learn what life has to teach—and a new generation of designers has come up with designs to accommodate them. Their "tiny houses," can have less than a hundred square feet yet include a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom through exceptionally clever and efficient design. Some go up to several hundred feet and many are showstoppers. Green materials and energy efficient appliances are common features.
For people eager for an affordable perch in a high-priced city like San Francisco or New York, there are (or will soon be) super-small apartments. As with tiny houses, innovative designs make the small spaces workable. For instance, My Micro NY, the winning design in the adAPT NYC competition includes a foldable table that hangs on a rack at night to make room for the opened Murphy bed.
New York is betting that such apartments are the perfect answer for people who prize the city's cultural offerings and nightlife more than a roomy inner sanctum.
Wherever you choose to live, and whatever the size of your home, you can enhance the usable space—and feeling of spaciousness—in these tried and true ways:
Look for dual purpose furniture, such as daybeds, ottomans with storage and tables with variable lengths and heights.
Use built-ins, which make more efficient use of space than free-standing furniture.
If you have high ceilings, raise the built-ins off the ground to free up floor space.
Get fold-up and stacking furniture.
Take down a wall if you can afford to lose a room to open up the place (for instance, create an open kitchen/dining area/living room).
Use mirrors and light colored paints for a roomier feel.
—Sheryl Eisenberg
Small Homes for a Small Planet
Downsize your footprint, free up your life
In the last six decades, the average size of a new single family home in the United States rose from roughly 1,000 square feet to 2,500, not because we grew 250% richer but because we found a way to finance what we couldn't afford. Our economic mess is the fallout from this conjuring trick, but it hasn't stopped the trend. After a brief reversal during the recession, the rise in square footage has resumed.
Our sense of our needs has increased since 1950 despite the fact that our households average 23% fewer people. Like Dickens' Pip, we now have great expectations, fed by eager lenders and builders.
The trouble with the fantasy (beyond the debt) is the waste.
We live in a world of limited resources and a country with a growing population that is projected to reach 420 million by 2060. Even small homes to accommodate those "extra" hundred million will eat up open land, down trees and increase carbon emissions, besides raising the already heavy pressure to drill, baby, drill.
So, can we really afford more large homes? I think not, especially since the extra space they offer is both unnecessary and underutilized.
I know about underutilization firsthand. My family has lived in a 2,500-square-foot loft for many years (though we won't for much longer). Even when all four of us are at home and in different rooms, there is still the equivalent of four additional rooms with no one in them. Yes, we enjoy the privacy, but with 2,500 square feet, we have significantly more than we need, and so, I believe, does the "average" family of four.
If the environmental arguments for a smaller home don't sway you, consider the personal ones, beginning with the lower mortgage. Go small enough and you might even be able to pay for the home outright and call it your own, as my parents did before the era of big credit a long time ago. Talk about stress reduction.
Further savings come from the fact that small homes require fewer furnishings. Ongoing costs for maintenance and utilities are lower as well. And because small homes provide less storage, the temptation to buy unnecessary things is less.
The lighter financial burden makes it possible to stop making work choices based on income alone. You can factor in such "idealistic" considerations as the desire to spend more time with your children or work at something you really enjoy.
Small homes also reduce isolation (the flip side of privacy). They both increase proximity to the people you live with and get you out more, since your home doesn't cater to every need the way large homes attempt to do.
Let's not forget that cleaning small homes takes less time!
So, what size should you aim for? The answer is individual to you. When I began apartment-hunting a few months ago, I felt we needed 1,500 square feet to provide our two young adult children with breathing room (though we ultimately chose a place with less than 1,400 square feet for the sake of a garden and neighborhood we loved). But we were looking at older apartments that were not optimized for use of space the way a new home could be.
Some folks nowadays are choosing more radical downsizing in order to live deliberately, like Thoreau. They join him in saying "simplify, simplify" to learn what life has to teach—and a new generation of designers has come up with designs to accommodate them. Their "tiny houses," can have less than a hundred square feet yet include a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom through exceptionally clever and efficient design. Some go up to several hundred feet and many are showstoppers. Green materials and energy efficient appliances are common features.
For people eager for an affordable perch in a high-priced city like San Francisco or New York, there are (or will soon be) super-small apartments. As with tiny houses, innovative designs make the small spaces workable. For instance, My Micro NY, the winning design in the adAPT NYC competition includes a foldable table that hangs on a rack at night to make room for the opened Murphy bed.
New York is betting that such apartments are the perfect answer for people who prize the city's cultural offerings and nightlife more than a roomy inner sanctum.
Wherever you choose to live, and whatever the size of your home, you can enhance the usable space—and feeling of spaciousness—in these tried and true ways:
Look for dual purpose furniture, such as daybeds, ottomans with storage and tables with variable lengths and heights.
Use built-ins, which make more efficient use of space than free-standing furniture.
If you have high ceilings, raise the built-ins off the ground to free up floor space.
Get fold-up and stacking furniture.
Take down a wall if you can afford to lose a room to open up the place (for instance, create an open kitchen/dining area/living room).
Use mirrors and light colored paints for a roomier feel.
—Sheryl Eisenberg
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
Democracy Dies in Darkness- Washington PostPost edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Easy to heat but cabin fever ready-- I get it!
I absolutely LOVE our little home...perhaps there's some environmental benefit to it; I'm not sure and to be candid, hasn't been our goal. But if that's a by-product, good!
(and our walls are not light-colored either! Dark blues, burgundies. A sanctuary of sorts
I KNOW we have more than enough room right now because we have more than our fare share of crap in our house, which we are currently trying to get rid of.
when the girls get a bit older and require their privacy, there is enough room in the basement to build another one.
A friend of mine and his wife are getting divorced. Hise wife and kids moved out of their 3000 sq foot house. He lives there by himself (kids on weekends), on 5 acres. what a bloody waste. he's going to have to spend all his time cleaning, mowing, fixing, etc. He says he can just barely afford it, but he loves it. I personally would rather live in a house that I can afford, is much smaller, and spend my money seeing the world instead of a tall ceiling and a humungous kitchen.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Anyhow, brian, do you have any more info on that little house? Interior pics, etc? No way my wife and I could make do with so little space but I'm curious how they make it work. Sometimes I think I wouldn't mind a little simplificatin in my life. I know for a fact we have way more "stuff" than we need.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
(and I bet your girls will treasure this time of sharing a room; some of my best childhood memories are from when my sister and me shared our bedroom)
my wife also made a comment recently to me about moving. I said "we have everything we need here, so let's just stay put and fix this place up".
I grew up in a family of 5 living in 1000 sq feet, and that was enough too. If each kid has its own room when they reach tween years, that's more than one could ask for.
the article makes a really good point about cleaning. As the person of the house who does most of it, I'm good with the space I have to do already!
cheaper heating costs, cooling costs, smaller footprint, etc. it just doesn't make sense to have a giant house.
the only downside is that we can't have company for dinner unless they all eat in the living room off tv tables. Which actually, turns out to be a good thing. We never have to host the family gatherings!
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
that's actually quite big!
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Impressive. I like that. The 4 of us lived in 900 sq ft before we did an addition.
But that picture in the OP is way tiny!
Log cabin, sweet.
It is my dream to design one around a nice natural fireplace.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
We don't have a fireplace, not enough $$ for one of those! We have a pellet stove...
We also enjoy our own basketball hoop (as do the neighborhood kids) that is well maintained, unlike the ones at parks. We also enjoy our home gym and capibilities to have family gatherings/parties/holidays, etc...
I find it funny how they are trying to slant this piece as lowing our enviornmental "imprint"
If living in a house in the hundreds of sqft as a family you would more than likely create a bigger imprint.
Something will have to give in your house, more than likely storage/appliances, etc.. So what will happen is you will have to start making more and more trips to the grocery because you don't have room to store food, or you have to drive to the laundromat, because you don't have room for a washer and dryer, (I could go on and on)
So what will happen next is they will start construction places like these close to your neighborhood (gyms, receptions type places to hold multiple parties, laundromat) so that its conveinent, and next thing you know your small houses will be surrounded by stores/plazas/building to offset what you don't have in your house...
Still does the job my dear.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
And it's nice to look at too, when it's a balmy 5 degrees... :thumbup:
It's a 34x34 underground, well living roof with 2 buried sides but open walk-out patio on east & west sides.
Half is my woodshop, the other half is a living quarter. Hoping to move in by spring. I'll let ya know next time this year if I killed my spouse!
http://tinyhousesmallspace.tumblr.com/
my house is 688 sq. ft and i love it
If I had a good garden and a nice underground like cave to store the food for the winter, I'd have no problem in a place like that.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
Thats an interesting thought on the idea Blockhead.
...
So... no.
Hail, Hail!!!
Nice! I love the idea of an underground house for a number of reason. I'm told the temperature stays much more stable year round- easier to heat, easier to cool, and I love the idea of having the earth sound insulation as well for the quiet it would afford when I need it.
Keep us posted on your progress, DP!
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say