Diet-on living space, possessions

[Roadtrip]

DH and I lived in a two bedroom apartment, 750 sq ft, for about 6 years and I had become the master of finding places to store items. Kitchens SMALL. No real storage to speak of. Bedrooms SMALL, plus our first apartment actually had the AC/Furnace in the utility closet off the main living area. When the heat came on and you wanted to talk to someone in the next room, you had to yell, it was pretty bad.

Took a new job and moved to a 850 sq ft apartment with more storage and bigger bedrooms, but the bonus was two balconies, plus a nice view of the local park where I could see deer and the like from my window.

We bought our own house and moved to a 1300 sq ft three bedroom house. It has an ACTUAL dining room with built in storage hutches, functional kitchen, finished basement, small garage, additional outside storage, and a BIG closet (OK, it's more like a hole with a door) for Christmas decorations and the like.

Even with that I find myself keeping too much and I seriously need to go through the Christmas stuff and part ways with some of it. We don't use the basement really, it's extra storage and I'm really contemplating bringing the bikes (two his/two of mine) in from the garage and keeping them inside for the winter.

All this space and I still can't get him to keep the garbage cans in the garage out of sight. LOL

Oh, we just added a 170 sq ft deck for "outdoor" living space which totally rocks-- plus I built it myself (with loads of help from DH and family/friends with know-how) which makes it even that much better.

I think this space is just about "right", but do need to keep clutter and pack-rat-itus at bay.

Shannon

[Crankin]

Right when most people downsize, we bought a bigger house . But, we have no basement or attic, these are actual living spaces in my house, specifically a family room and guest room, and a loft which we use as an office and exercise space. My last house was the only one I've had that had a basement and it was amazing how much stuff we got rid of when we moved. This house has plenty of storage (closets), but it makes it so it has to be organized.
I'm not ready to move to a smaller place, although we are sort of planning for it in 5-8 years. This house was a project, it's very unique, and I want to enjoy it. I figure when I am too old and tired to ride up the hill, we'll move.

[jessmarimba]

Wanted to chime back in and say that I'm thankful that my kitchen is the biggest room in my house. Unfortunately, they put the cabinets on the two shortest walls and didn't really think the space through when they upgraded the kitchen sometime in the last 10 years, but that's storage space I can actually add when I have a bit more money. Architecturally, there really isn't a way to add closets so I'm working with what's here. Though I am thinking of adding built-ins in the eaves of my bedroom when I get over my fear of finding out what the squirrels did in there last summer!

My dream is a small cabin in the woods with a sleeping loft and one big open space downstairs.

[Roadtrip]

My dream is a small cabin in the woods with a sleeping loft and one big open space downstairs.

Ohhhhh.. we stayed in one of those type cabins in the Smokey Mountains a few years back. Most defiantly an excellent place to kick back while on vacation.

Shannon

[Becky]

My dream is a small cabin in the woods with a sleeping loft and one big open space downstairs.

DH and I talked about building a barn instead of buying a house. A nice big, clean barn, with a giant, finished garage-type space and an apartment upstairs to live in.

I still think it would be the perfect living arrangement for us....

[sfa]

I dream over the Tumbleweed plans--I love how compact and well designed they are! That would be my perfect house if I were living alone.

As it is, our house started at 1,000 square feet for four of us (me, DH, two kids) and it felt crowded--tiny bedrooms upstairs meant the kids played downstairs, and there was no space for toys (either to play with or to store), so we put on a 200 s.f. family room addition several years ago, and now I'm happy with our space (especially since that includes a woodburning fireplace, the one thing I thought our house lacked when we bought it). I suspect as the kids get older and toys become less of an issue, it'll feel positively spacious. We designed the addition so it could easily be converted to a bedroom, so theoretically we could have an elderly relative move in with us if necessary, or we could make that the master bedroom as we get older and can't/don't want to manage the stairs.

If we could only give up our books and our hobbies, we'd be fine with less space.

Sarah

[GLC1968]

For 2 people, it costs money to power up big space in a home. The only good thing is that Portland doesn't get as cold as other parts of North America.

Are you suggesting that 1700 sf is BIG? Because if so, then yes, you need to experience a bit more of rural/suburban America before drawing that conclusion. Compared to most of the people I know in real life, 1700 sf is quite small (for a house - not an apartment).

Apartments and townhomes are different - living small is much easier to do when you are willing to live in an urban environment. Unfortunately, that means letting someone else provide all your food, provide all your water and remove all your waste. When you consider all those factors, the cost of heating our 1700 sf has less of an impact on the environment than the cost to heat 500 sf and provide all the other services that we can secure for ourselves.

[Melalvai]

Does a smaller space really lead to less consumerism? Having a place to store things can make it easier to get by on less disposables, allow you to buy larger quantities, and preserve larger quantities of seasonal food.

But I suspect that folks with big houses are generally greater consumers than people living in small places.

[tulip]

Are you suggesting that 1700 sf is BIG? Because if so, then yes, you need to experience a bit more of rural/suburban America before drawing that conclusion. Compared to most of the people I know in real life, 1700 sf is quite small (for a house - not an apartment).

Apartments and townhomes are different - living small is much easier to do when you are willing to live in an urban environment. Unfortunately, that means letting someone else provide all your food, provide all your water and remove all your waste. When you consider all those factors, the cost of heating our 1700 sf has less of an impact on the environment than the cost to heat 500 sf and provide all the other services that we can secure for ourselves.

I think alot of environmentalists would argue with that. It's pretty well-established that urban living has been shown to be less harmful to the environment than spread-out living. You can grow your own food in urban areas in community gardens. The necessity of a car in rural and semi-rural areas is a huge environmental suck. You don't need that in an urban area because you can walk or ride a bike everywhere, and infrastructure is already in place. Now that more and more urban areas are allowing chickens, and many more people are growing some of their own food, and farmers markets are pretty much normal in urban areas (with produce from urban farms), I'd say that urban living can be alot lighter on the earth than rural living mainly because of the car and infrastructure issues.

One of my biggest peeves of "green building" are the houses built in the middle of nowhere that require personal transport in the form of an internal combustion engine (or electric car--coal fired plants required) to get anywhere and to obtain anything. If you never leave the farm, then that's different. But most people leave the farm every day, multiple times a day.

Just as an example, take someone who lives in a 900 SF house that is in an established urban neighborhood--no new roads or pipes required! This person could grow some of his or her own veggies, shop at local farmers markets that are accessible by foot or bike. Even better if there is an urban farm in the same city--they are becoming more and more common. And that person could telecommute or walk or bike to work. The benefits would be even greater if that person lived in an apartment and had a plot at a nearby community garden because that person would take up less space and use fewer resources than someone who lived in a house in a rural or suburban area, had to drive 20+ miles to work and back everyday (double that for a couple unless they carpool), and also had to drive everywhere to get other necessities.

1700SF for a house is a moderately sized house. I don't understand the need for 4000+ SF houses. However, I would not want to grow up in a 2-bedroom house with 6 kids and 2 parents like Shootingstar did!

[lph]

For me design and layout is a lot more important than size, though I in fact enjoy having a small house. I like having less to clean, less to heat, fewer places to lose things and a definite limit to the amount of (indoor) possesions I can amass. I easily feel overwhelmed by having too many things, and while I can dream of having spacious rooms for drying clothes, working on my bikes etc I know I'd also use them to store "things" rather than make an active decision on whether to keep them or not. Being able to store food and buy in bulk is a good point, though.
One of things I love most about going camping is having to pare down necessary items to a minimum.

Design: I want most space, air and sun in the living spaces, and that is what we have now. Tiny bedroom for the two of us, small bathroom, largish bedroom for our teenager, perfect for our needs.

I've read that it's easier to live greenly in urban surroundings too, but I'm sure that depends on a lot of factors.

[shootingstar]

Hey GLC, 1700 sq. ft. would definitely be big for dearie and I in city.

Prior to me, he and his ex with 2 young children lived in a multi-level rowhouse at 900 sq. ft. But then he and ex also had a 100-acre beef farm outside the city for 10 years where he farmed on weekends and he built the house. House was 2 storey, probably under 900 sq. ft. He sold the farm.

Depends what one does with space. I probably could use a small 2nd rm. in Vancouver home at 9 ft. x 9 ft. size with window...to do painting. Doing some art requires space, hard flooring and window ventilation as well as natural lighting to gauge accuracy of paint colours.

but I never had this. I had to lay down plastic sheeting on our dining area floor to floor carpeting before laying out my oil or acrylic paints to start, plus portable easel. Took me half an hr. to set up and then put away stuff. IT doesn't allow me to leave out paints/set-up for several days/weeks, etc.n Same for sewing. I have to unpack and pack a tabletop sewing machine for alterations.

I have a portable ironing board....which I place on the carpeted floor and kneel down to iron. I don't want to buy a full standing ironing board, takes up too much storage rm. I don't iron that much anymore.

Is it a hassle? Well, how much more of a hassle is this compared to picking up many toys that young children throw down onto the floor every day for a few years? (No matter how good they are about picking up after themselves...no one is perfect.)

So that's just a wish to have 1 extra small rm., but probably won't happen unless we win the lottery.

[GLC1968]

I think alot of environmentalists would argue with that. It's pretty well-established that urban living has been shown to be less harmful to the environment than spread-out living. You can grow your own food in urban areas in community gardens. The necessity of a car in rural and semi-rural areas is a huge environmental suck. You don't need that in an urban area because you can walk or ride a bike everywhere, and infrastructure is already in place. Now that more and more urban areas are allowing chickens, and many more people are growing some of their own food, and farmers markets are pretty much normal in urban areas (with produce from urban farms), I'd say that urban living can be alot lighter on the earth than rural living mainly because of the car and infrastructure issues.

One of my biggest peeves of "green building" are the houses built in the middle of nowhere that require personal transport in the form of an internal combustion engine (or electric car--coal fired plants required) to get anywhere and to obtain anything. If you never leave the farm, then that's different. But most people leave the farm every day, multiple times a day.

Just as an example, take someone who lives in a 900 SF house that is in an established urban neighborhood--no new roads or pipes required! This person could grow some of his or her own veggies, shop at local farmers markets that are accessible by foot or bike. Even better if there is an urban farm in the same city--they are becoming more and more common. And that person could telecommute or walk or bike to work. The benefits would be even greater if that person lived in an apartment and had a plot at a nearby community garden because that person would take up less space and use fewer resources than someone who lived in a house in a rural or suburban area, had to drive 20+ miles to work and back everyday (double that for a couple unless they carpool), and also had to drive everywhere to get other necessities.

1700SF for a house is a moderately sized house. I don't understand the need for 4000+ SF houses. However, I would not want to grow up in a 2-bedroom house with 6 kids and 2 parents like Shootingstar did!

Tulip - I totally understand your point and I agree that an urban setting can be less of an impact that a rural one. As we both know, that's not usually the case though, is it?

Anyway, my point was that many of us make the best choices we can with what is available to us in our respective living areas. Maybe I should not have have spoken up if 1700 sf is considered a big house. I guess I was wrong to even have participated in this thread.

[Crankin]

Well, this discussion is the reason I didn't mention the size of my house in my post . My last house was 2100 sq. feet, which I've heard is about the average in the US. It was an 8 rm. new colonial, with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a large family room and a very small formal living room and dining room. Since I actually use those rooms for entertaining, that part was bad. Our furniture didn't exactly fit.
It felt cramped with 2 growing teens, who were 10 and 13 when we moved there. Family room and bedrooms were good, but the house felt small to me, compared to my house in AZ that had the same square footage. I think it has to do with the lay out. So, we finished part of the basement, mainly so son #1 could play his guitar and son #2 could use the trainer and blast the Spinervals without me going nuts from the noise. Then, a few years later, we added on a very large screened in porch, which we really lived in for 3 months out of the year. We ate all of our meals out there, when it was nice. That really made a difference.
This house has just under 3,000 sq. ft., no one can give me a straight answer on the exact size. But, the house is built vertically, in a very different shape, on 4 levels. It is an older house than the last one by about 12 years. The bedrooms are smaller, and so are the bathrooms. But, the other rooms are bigger. I miss having the open type of kitchen/family room, but it's not so important, now that the kids are gone. However, this house does not feel bigger to me when I am inside. It looks dramatic and big from the outside, but I think it's because it's a contemporary, in a part of the country where they are unusual.
It's true, 2 people don't need a house this big. But, since we have remodeled the place from top to bottom, including replacing every system and window, roof, etc. to make it energy efficient, I feel we actually live more economically than we did in the last place. I also live closer to shopping and do many more errands by bike. It's closer to the city by 10 miles, which has made a huge difference in time/gas when I go to my classes and we have 2 commuter rail stations, as well as being closer to the end point of the regular train line.

[DebW]

I'm currently in a 700 sq. ft. apartment, having gone from a 2000 sq. ft. house with 4 people in it at one time. I love the small space, it's a perfect size for 1 person, though crowded when I have visitors. Easy to care for and clean and cheap enough to heat, plus close to work (commute by bike, grocery shop by bike). I have a large basement for bike work. Currently starting to think about buying a house and have seen a 624 sq. ft. cottage in a quiet setting and a 786 sq. ft. place that I like. Both have less closet space than my current apartment, so thinking carefully about layout and storage space in terms of what will work for me. The decision may also depend on whether my 22 year old son is likely to live with me very much. I don't think I could manage a 500 sq ft place unless I gave up some hobbies and biking/hiking/skiing equipment and the clothing/boots/shoes that go with them.

[redrhodie]

I've lived in under 500 sq ft with my bf and 2 cats. At the time, I used to have recurring dreams of finding hidden doors which opened onto huge rooms which I didn't know were there. That could be Freudian for something else but I really think it was just me wanting more space.