We have discussed a slightly bigger house – I would like a guest room and my husband would like a study to write in, so one more bedroom would be nice. However, we’ve also discussed staying put. We don’t want children at our age, and my daughter is a teen who will leave home in a few years to go to college. We might just stay put and transform her bedroom into a guestroom/study…

Who knows? But I have never regretted not having a giant, empty space of a house that costs 3x to heat and cool what ours does. If I want a tile floor, I’ll put tile in.

Overall, our house is comfortable, snug even and in very good condition. The yard isn’t too large for us (I like to garden) to take care of. We certainly have no need to keep up with the Joneses.

In fact, the only major purchase I can foresee in the near term is a newer car, but that is because I am still driving my 1995 Nissan Altima and it might just be time…lol

Ms. Susanka’s showhouse in the Baldwin Park Orlando subdivision has been sitting for sale for at least two years now, along with other larger and smaller homes. It is generally thought to be overpriced for the space it offers.

[...] I don’t feel weird.  In Learning to Love the Not-So-Big House, the writer points to some other people who have down-sized their lives.  The article also lists [...]

I’m raising my family of 4 in under 1500 ft^2, and the living is cheap and easy (paid off house before age 40)

when you skip the McMansion it becomes much easier to meet your college fund/retirement/vacation home goals

[...] politics, technology and other matters impacting the local real estate market. Thanks for visiting!Learning to love the not-so-big house. It’s not hard (and it’s cheaper, [...]

[...] at Get Rich Slowly had a post on learning to love the not so big house. I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m both sympathetic to builders and buyers of [...]

[...] JD talked about learning to love a less-than-large house. [...]

http://www.rosschapin.com/Plans/plans.html

[...] Mighty Bargain Hunter had a response to our recent discussion here about the not-so-big house. “Our houses are bigger, but not that much bigger,” he writes. He’s really taking [...]

[...] Rich Slowly posted on how to learn to love a house that isn’t so big. They found out that they fit better in their first house, which had over 400 sq ft less than their [...]

The NPR guys screwed up the scaling on that graph. They enlarged the house icon according to the ratio of the areas instead of the square root of that ratio. It’s misleading because of that. The 2004 house looks huge compared to the 1950 house. You’re right in assessing that the square footage of the 2004 house as drawn in that image is about 5 times that of the 1950 house.

[...] Rich Slowly discusses learning to love that not-so-big house. (He points out in a “tool tip” that he knows the house graph on that page is [...]

You sound exactly like me – I regret buying my current house although I too don’t plan to move.

The problem with houses is that you don’t really know what you want until you’ve lived in a house for a while and then you realize that it was the right house – or maybe it wasn’t. Sometimes things change too – ie kids.

Mike

[...] Get Rich Slowly: Learning to Love the Not So Big House [...]

[...] over at Get Rich Slowly talks about how he no longer loves his big house and longs for the simpler days of his smaller [...]

You may not appreciate your extra space, but if or when you ever have kids, they will.

Its far too big for the two of us at 4500 square foot and we definitely rattle around in it. We never would have bought anything this big if we hadn’t planned on selling it after finishing the renovation.

After this, we will never live in a house that is more than 1700-2000 sq foot. It is definitely more expensive in terms of utilities and maintenance and we feel like we are just overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done. It also just seems so wasteful to have all this space we don’t use!

We just moved into a larger home (we’re renting it)–and I totally agree that more space isn’t necessarily good. It’s how the space is designed.

Too bad so many houses in south Denver are poorly designed tract homes.

At first, the space was amazing. Then came the increasing clutter from having all the space to put stuff. Of the 3 bedrooms, the kids share one, and the other is the “stuff room”. We have both a den (TV/toy room), a dining room, and and a living room on the main floor, and guess which room gets all the use? And then the taxes, utility, and maintenance costs? Yikes! And we’ve found that we need a regular housecleaning service to keep the peace. The house feels too big to me.

So, this weekend, we’re going to start shopping for the first of what we hope will be a few duplex properties. We’ll move into the first one and sell our house. As we accumulate additional properties, we’ll likely move among them, fixing them “in place”. Eventually, we’re shooting to take the kids on an extended tour of the US (and abroad if the dollar is healthier by then), and living in a rental will give us that flexibility, too.

I’m so looking forward to downsizing all the stuff we’ve accumulated in the two years we’ve been here. Also, knowing that we’ll be moving regularly will keep the volume of kept stuff in check.

We’re expecting to hear a lot about how little space we’re living in — I’ve actually had someone call our current house “a starter house”! We’ve been on the “Your Money or Your Life” train for a number of years, though, so we’re kind of used to that. DH and I find that we’re fine with the external judgment, so long as we have our “story straight” — we know why we’re doing what we’re doing, and we’re excited about our goals. If someone is going to make a comment about our lifestyle, we are happy to share our story — which, if it doesn’t convince them, at least prevents them from making another comment!

I really enjoy this blog — nice job.

[...] to add:  There’s a good post on Get Rich Slowly about the growing of single-family homes in the U.S., and that bigger usually isn’t better.  [...]

And the location is awesome. I’m literally no more than 10 minutes away from anything I need on a daily basis, and most things are more like two minutes away.

The size of the house means the utilities are very affordable, taxes are low, and my wife and I don’t spend our lives maintaining the place. Whenever we’ve run short on space, we’ve been able to come up with creative solutions to the problem. The bedrooms are on the small side, but once kids are in the picture and they want/need more space, I’ll build lofts for them to sleep in. Then they’ll have the benefit of a big room at the price of a small one.

When they get on my nerves I just send them outside. But I have a question:

I’m about to move into an apartment, and I can’t find anyone willing to rent a two bedroom to a single (NON welfare) work at home Mom with 4 kids. They all say it’s too many bodies for that small of a space.

I think it’s MY job to define what kind of space we need, but anyhoo.

Any advice?

When I was a child, their house was the center of the universe on Sundays. We were there each week after church, and there was no telling who would show up for lunch, coffee, dessert, or just “visitin’”. There was always room for everyone.

They did not even have a dining room, and yet, some of my fondest childhood memories are of squeezing in around grandma’s kitchen table for Sunday dinner.

The aluminum roof over the carport and the screen doors at front and back made Sunday afternoon thunderstorms sublime.

There was no central air (in Florida mind you) but I still long for the wall unit that used to lull me to sleep on her sofa.

Sadly, they passed away when I was 11. Out of curiosity, I looked up their house on the property appraiser’s website.

Their 2 bedroom, 1 bath house was 785 square feet.

How many of us would literally laugh at the thought of buying a 785-sqft house with no central air in central Florida? I probably would (my apartment is a little over 1,000). But in hindsight, it was the safest, coziest place I can remember.

I hope my future children will remember the house I eventually buy the same way. All we really need is a good kitchen table and our loved ones around it.