The best part is that I caught him myself. I'm a proud mommy.
Our house lives big. It has a great floor plan with large public areas in front of the house, but also has well-lit, adequately sized private areas and lots of closet space in the back of the house. It really is about the efficiency of the floor plan and the balancing open space with closed space. Shared areas need to be big enough to avoid conflict and collisions, but you also need places where you can be alone. The only thing we really lack is an additional 1/2 bath. It would be nice to have an extra toilet and shower every now and then.
We chose a smaller house because it fits our lifestyle. We'd rather be out in the community or in our yard than paging each other from opposite sides of the house. There's also the amount of time you spend cleaning. It takes a lot less time to clean 900 sq ft of floor than 2500 sq ft. While we did consider conservation of resources, we also ended up buying an older home that isn't quite as energy efficient as new construction can be. Even so, we use much less electricity and gas, we're able to have a substantial garden on our city-sized lot. The other added benefit to a smaller house is that you can take money you have budgeted for renovations and apply it to quality, instead of quantity. We're able to use more salvaged and natural materials and also afford low/no-VOC paint and other "green" products.
We're about to start remodeling the kitchen, but we're going to keep the existing cabinetry since they're made of the original solid Douglas fir from 1952, when our house was built. We're also going to be refinishing the floors. We've replaced the sink in our bathroom and made plaster repairs. We've also painted everything, made new window coverings, and spent a lot of time landscaping our yard. Eventually, we may try to add a 1/2 bath and quest quarters (really a place for us to sleep when it gets really hot in the summer) in the basement and also finish the laundry area.
IKEA is a godsend. We also like salvage stores like Portland's Rebuilding Center and Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. Otherwise, I just consider scale when purchasing furniture. Most stores have smaller versions of their models of furniture. For example, when we bought our sofa the floor model was 85" but we ordered the 60" version of the same sofa.
Would you ever upgrade back up to a larger home?No. If anything, I'd rather have a bunch of tiny pied-a-terres all around the world.
Thanks, folks! Come back next week for the new chat with Rachel from California. For more posts in this series, check out this page.Location: Ohio
Square Footage: Just under 800 sq. ft.
Number of people/pets: Two adults and one sweet Labrador Retriever
What is your favorite and least favorite, or the what you would change, parts of living in a small home?
There are a lot of advantages to living in a smaller home.
I LOVE the economic perks!
- Smaller homes cost less and allow you to be mortgage-free sooner.
- Upkeep and improvement are cheaper (i.e. smaller houses have smaller windows... replacing 9 windows as opposed to 18 or gutting and remodeling a small galley kitchen as opposed to a large farm house kitchen).
- Heat and cooling costs are much lower.
- They are less expensive to furnish.
I LOVE that I can clean my entire house in about an hour.
I LOVE that it keeps me and my husband close.
There are some challenge to living small. Trying to operate a business out of a 10x10 room is becoming increasingly difficult. I also don't like that we have no spare bedroom for out-of-town guests. Ant it can be very frustrating trying to entertain and cook for a group of friends in my tiny kitchen.
What circumstances led to living in a tiny home? Was it a choice to downsize, a desire to create a smaller carbon footprint on the environment, or some other situation?My husband and I purchased this house just before we got married. We were a young couple (16 yrs ago) and this is what we could afford. We really didn't mind a small home. Our main desire was to have a large lot in a nice neighborhood, and that's what we got. I am a little surprised that we're still in our first house after all these years, but frankly, we just haven't found anything else we like better yet.
One of the first major improvements we made was not to the actual house. We installed a large brick patio along with a small pond and landscaping off the back of the house. We enjoy entertaining and knew if we wanted to have large gatherings, people would need to be able to spill outside. And for a good pat of the year, we definitely use the patio as an extension of the house, kind of like a large outdoor family room.
We also recently gutted the tiny kitchen, installing new cabinets and granite counter tops. Although we weren't able to increase the square footage, we did make it more efficient and even managed a little extra counter space.
We have attempted to finish the basement, but never seem to get very far. It is our only area for storage (we have no garage) and it gets piled high with furniture, tools, and family heirlooms. So, it's jokingly called the 10 Year Basement Project.
Where do you get furniture and other small scale items for your home? Any favorite shops or websites?I'm a flea market and yard sale girl. So, many of the pieces are from the 1940s and 50s, which tend to be scaled just right for my house.
As far as decorating goes, I'm most comfortable when my surroundings are uncluttered. I keep knick knacks to an absolute minimum and love how white woodwork and crown moldings define a room without closing it in.
I don't see us ever purchasing a LARGE home, but it would be nice if we could find one with a little more room, say 1500 sq. ft. or so.
Or we may even look into adding on to this one. We're in no big hurry, though.
Thanks Kimberly! Come back next week for the new chat with a Tiny Lifer! For more posts in this series, check out this page.My favorite part of living in this apartment is that it is small so I have to be quite creative of what I do with the space in terms of storage and also decoration. In Japan, rental units have quite a large number of restrictions in terms of nailing and painting so that is another that we had to take into consideration. Another thing I like is that since the apartment is quite small it feels very cozy and warm. There are no wide spaces of emptiness, something I am not a big fan of.
The downside of living in a small space is for both of us to have our personal space. Sometimes I just want to relax with some candles and my husband is working on a project with the halogen lights on, sometimes this is a bit of a problem but we work around it. Another downside is that you have to be always on top of housekeeping because the smallest mess quickly overtakes the whole apartment. But overall it is a positive and cozy experience.
When we moved to Japan we were looking for an apartment more or less this size. First for the price, but also because since it is just the two of us we really do not need that much space, so why have more.
What changes have you made to your home since you moved in? Has it been just paint and décor, or more elaborate renovations?We have not made changes to the apartment since it is a rental. The only small change we made was removing the sliding doors of one of the rooms to enlarge the living room which was quite small, otherwise it has been only decor. Since we are here for a limited time some of our basic pieces of furniture are leased and lack overall personality. One of the challenges was to integrate those pieces with what we had and make the apartment reflect our personalities more.
As mentioned above some of our furniture came from a leasing company. One of my favorite places to look for items for the apartment are what they call in Japan "recycle shops" where you can find used and unique items; some of my favorite pieces we've found there (the green garden table, the red circle chair). For smaller things I count on a shop called FrancFrac and the 100 yen shop.
Would you ever upgrade back up to a larger home?Yes, but not much bigger. When we are no longer a family of two I think we would consider a slightly bigger place. Also a garden and a garage, even if they are small, would be nice additions for a future home.
Thanks, Isa! Come back next week for the new chat with a Tiny Lifer! For more posts in this series, check out this page.
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