5 Reasons We Love Living Small
Over the last couple of weeks, we got to thinking about what it’s like to live in a 450 square foot house. And you know what? At this point in our lives, it’s absolutely perfect. Maybe some day when we have kids it won’t be. But even then, I wonder just how many square feet we’ll be looking at. Chances are, we’ll still be sticking on the smaller side because when you live in a smaller home…
1. You buy less stuff.
When you don’t have a lot of room in your house, you kind of lose the desire to buy new things. After all, where would you put the stuff? It’s a constant battle over getting rid of something you already have so you can make room for something new. So why not skip the department stores all together? I know our no-new-clothes summer challenge has been the perfect lesson. We buy less; we appreciate and use what we have.
2. You save money.
The cost of the home is cheaper. Utilities are cheaper. Taxes, insurance, mortgage or rent, remodels…. the list just goes on in ways you’ll spend less.
3. You work less.
If you can only spend 15 minutes cleaning your house every day, it makes a bigger impact in a small house. They’re so much easier to keep clean. Keeping up with maintenance is less work (and less expensive). In the end, you have more time to play and do the things you like.
4. Stuff stops owning you.
Sometimes we see the most beautiful airplanes. They’re mortgaged. So are the cars those people drive and the homes where they live. I think that’s perfectly fine until you spend most of your day just working to pay those bills. A small home and simpler lifestyle makes us feel like we’re not chained to work just to pay for what we want. We learn to want less.
5. You help the environment.
Small homes need fewer resources to build than a home of the exact quality that’s twice as big, obviously. They also use less energy to heat and fewer utilities since odds are our family is all in one room. Fewer resources = greener living.
Images are of our tiny kitchen that we remodeled last year with fresh basil and tomatoes from the grocery store. I find it strange (but oh so delicious!) to buy fresh herbs in small pots instead of in small, cut bundles wrapped with rubber bands. You can guess basil is going into everything!
What do you love about your space that you wouldn’t have if it were bigger? Please chime in!
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
I agree with you. My place is small. Not tiny-small, but small (785 square feet for me, my boyfriend, and our golden retriever). I love that I’m almost forced to be a minimalist in a reasonable way. I don’t accumulate things in the way I did when I had a massive, pre-war apartment in Boston with 14 foot high ceilings and storage everywhere. I like that I have to pause before acquiring something. When I bring something home, it’s usually something of good quality, that isn’t going to get tossed in a closet in a few months. That closet space is precious!
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
I so love the little splash of red that comes from the pendant lamp, potholder, and even tomatoes. I really appreciate your blog. Am following closely and get great inspiration. Working toward down-sizing and simplifying. People can be so materialistic , then have to work so hard and surrender so much to keep up. DO NOT want that. Family and health are much more important. I’ve taken a 365 day challenge to buy nothing for myself or my home that isn’t thrifted or handmade and necessary. Really makes me consider what I buy. Please keep up your fine blog.
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Our new apt is double the square footage of our old one, but still really small compared to 3 bdrm houses in the US. We have a large balcony, but we don’t have a yard – and I really don’t miss one in my rainy corner of Germany! We were responsible for a section of yard in our old place and it was SUCH a hassle! Weeds, cutting grass, sidewalk rules — all for a space not private enough to enjoy with friends. This is not a region known for huge summer cookouts and so on, so having a large balcony I can quickly sweep clean, plant a weed-free container garden, and still have enough space to enjoy a meal outside with friends is really perfect for us. I could totally live like this until there were toddler-aged kids in the picture!
Small outside is also nice =)
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
You totally live into your space … though, in my case, I feel like we’ve actually lived PASSED our space and I need to start getting rid of stuff. There’s a beautiful simplicity to living in a smaller space, being surrounded by less stuff.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Great post! Although our apartment isn’t really that small…about 900 sf, we can not afford to buy much. It was hard for me at first right after moving from Houston, TX where everything is big and shopping is a hobby and a bit of an addiction. I’m glad to say I’m happier now. We have the basics…and I mean basics and it makes our life simple and easier. I would love to be able to put up some DIY art and we can’t even afford that yet (frames can add up) but it will make it so much more gratifying and exciting when we do! It really has made me realize how much consumerism there is in the US. Yes, it can be anywhere, but America is particularly bad. I don’t want to go back to that. Keep up the good work!
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
As I’ve started my renovations, I’ve realized how much cheaper the material costs are! Looking at granite prices gave me a new-found love of the small galley kitchen that I own :).
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
I loved your post and you have many good points. I can’t chime in. When we moved here, we found out we had the job and had two weeks to find a house and move with 5 children and a 6th on the way. There were NO rentals in the whole town. We called a realitor and she knew of this house for sale, but not for rent, but she gave us the owner’s phone number and over the phone, sight unseen, we talked the owners into letting us rent.
We moved into this 6 bedroom house with almost a full basement and a finished floor in the attic. I was pregnant out to here, ready to deliver in exactly a month, so I had them put all the boxes in the front room as I had each one labeled with numbers and the corresponding numbers were in a notebook with everything listed in the box. One by one, I went through those boxes and organized our new house. Eventually a year and half later, after looking and looking and looking in the country and not finding anything to accommodate our large family, we made an offer on the house and purchased it. Because of the economy, and lack of potential buyers, we were able to knock off $15,000 from the original price, and we have been here ever since.
Sadly the attic has become a great storage place which haunts me, thinking about what is upstairs in those boxes. No idea. They aren’t as carefully labeled as they were when I first moved here. It has been 23 years, and that stuff owns me now. So you have a great point, well many great points. Life is much simpler with less STUFF. You are a wise person.
I think I was happiest one time when we moved into a tiny trailer when I had two children. My hubby got a job 4 hours out of town, and we had to decide whether we would just put the farm into mothballs and move up north, have him commute every weekend (I hated that) or what. After Christmas, I just took what we had gotten for Christmas and stayed with him. We had a small bw tv, four plates, two pans, one cookie sheet, the presents we got for Christmas, a vacuum, a dog and a rug to latch hook. we slept on the floor in sleeping bags. I had a wonderful time. Dishes were done in a SNAP, so we played a LOT in the snow. One bad thing. Because I was so bored, I got hooked on General Hospital soap opera. But when we moved back to the farm, I couldn’t get good reception, so I was weaned off it fairly quickly.
love you
~a
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:09 am
What a joy it’s been to read all of your reflections on small spaces and not-so-small spaces. I love Sarah’s thoughts on living into your space… and how easy it is to go past it with our stuff. I find myself constantly trying to keep check on our house, and I wonder if there’s ever a point where you don’t have to keep checking. It just becomes natural.
Annie, thank you for chiming in with a very different perspective and a description of joy you found in that smaller home years ago.
Moments. That’s what life is all about. Bleck – not chores.
Katie
September 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
We lived in a 1300 square foot house which is 2x your size but still small in relation to most homes. I loved this little house- I could clean it in no time and it had a lovely yard where I love to spend most my time in. We now live in a 3400 sq foot home and though I love it I can sincerely say I miss my little home!
blessings
mary
October 1st, 2009 at 11:13 am
congratulations and
please use silicone caulk around the counter tops to tile.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
“Stuff stops owning you.” This is so true. I could not have summed it up better. A simple concept, yet so many fail to understand and miss. Good stuff.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:55 am
I love this post, I always read to inspire me to get ride of stuff:)
November 10th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Can you tell me about your pendant lights hanging in your kitchen? Are they part of track lighting? Are they halogen or LED bulbs? We recently installed some energy efficient track lighting in our girls’ bedroom and it has that box on each light. (Sorry, don’t know the technical term for it.) I am looking to install pendant lighting in my kitchen above the island and those look interesting. My husband won’t install anything but energy efficient!
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:14 pm
One of the things that I TOTALLY love about living small is that you are ALWAYS… right where the action is… and I get more done because I can do several things at once.
I can quilt, and stir the soup; I can quilt while I chat with friends or family; I can quilt and keep an eye on what’s in the oven. Before, when I had to go to the extra bedroom to quilt, I felt BANISHED to the back room… to engage in my creativity. I had to carve out dedicated time to be creative, rather than merge it throughout my day… and I never had the time to set aside, so I never did it.
We knocked out a wall, and I’m now able to be creative ALL the time, again!
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I think that small homes help bond the family.
My sister and her family have a 3,500 sq. ft. home (not counting the 4-car attached garage/ workshop). We are now in 770 sq. ft. We have watched her family grow farther apart, while we have grown closer.
As children, we grew up in a 2-bedroom, 1-bath house, for a family of four, and did very well together.
I think all family members learn to be more cooperative and considerate; otherwise, personal interactions become intolerable. Small spaces REQUIRE us to stay engaged with, and tuned in to one another. There’s no place to go to escape your issues with someone; you just face them and get over it!
Amazingly, we lived in 160 sq. ft. while we were remodeling… for a YEAR, and made it through with the marriage intact! Whew!
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I also think that smaller homes provide an opportunity to be more creative in general; particularly in providing storage and such. We don’t have room to add another’s bulky (purchased) one-size-fits-all problem-solving-solution to our unique situation.
For example, I HANG my trash cans in two rooms; it takes up NO floor space… yet I’ve not run across too many hanging trash cans over the years; it’s too outside the box (creative).
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I find that the small space requires/allows me to become very CERTAIN about which SPECIFIC THINGS enhance my life, and which things just clog/clutter it up. That is a GREAT SERVICE (and a GIFT) in today’s society… where “enough” is usually TOO MUCH.
Kathryn Kistner in Texas
March 13th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I thought you might be interested in this man who lives in a very small apartment in Hong Kong
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/worlds-greenest-homes-hong-kong-space-saver.html
March 17th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Hi Katie,
I love your blog. Simple yet chic and economical ideas. I’ll be visiting often!