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