What kind of house do you really need to live comfortably? No one, and I mean absolutely no one, needs a McMansion-sized house for an average-sized family. Sadly, that’s what is being built quite often by developers of tract housing in suburban neighborhoods. The average house size in 1950 was 983 square feet and today it is 2,349 square feet. My apartment is 746 square feet and is way more than enough for just me. That is an enormous jump in square footage while the actual family size is dropping. Why in the world do people feel they need such huge homes? It just means higher mortgage payments, more maintenance, more cleaning, more empty space to fill up with stuff, and more space between family members. Everyone could have their own wing in a 2,349 square foot house!
However, with a minimalism movement starting to infiltrate the masses, oil prices on an ever-higher trajectory, and the economic nosedive we have taken as of late, this could be changing – and what a relief that would be. I would like nothing more than to see people downsize into homes that actually fit them and not an entire football team. A house really only needs a few things to be fully functional – a small bedroom for each person to sleep in, a bathroom (maybe 2 at most), and a common living/dining/kitchen open space where the family can interact and hang out together. So with that in mind, I went looking for simple, minimalistic homes that could work for almost every family who doesn’t have a reality show called “Jon & Kate Plus 8″… and these are some of the cool ones I found.
Breezehouse
Drop House
Earthship
weeHouse
LV Series
ShowHouse
Yurts
What do you guys think? See a few you could imagine yourself in? Have a favorite simple house I didn’t mention? I love minimalism in my life and also what I surround myself with, so houses like these are right up my alley!
It does depend on how you use your house and your health status–a bathroom on each floor gets to be a good idea as you age or if you otherwise have mobility issues, and two bathrooms can be really nice if a couple is trying to get ready at the same time every morning. I have IBS, so sometimes it’s really nice to have separate bathrooms on that account, too.
My husband and I both work from home, and use the spare bedrooms as offices, which is very nice. We do not have special family rooms, media rooms, etc.–just an eat-in kitchen, a living room, and three bedrooms (really two bedrooms and a FROG).
The downside is that we have to have two entire heating and air units, although our house is only 2,000 square feet. Flooring is priced by the square foot, too. Lots of other expenses are increased by square footage…
I would have loved a smaller house, but we also want to live centrally, and this was as small as we could get.
“Why in the world do people feel they need such huge homes? It just means higher mortgage payments,”
That’s a gross oversimplification (no pun intended) and assumption. I agree with most of your post and would dearly love to sell our McMansion now that all the kids have left the house.
However the fact is that my wife and I live in a house twice as big as my daughter and son-in-law. Due to the difference in location their Mortgage is far larger than ours. Also despite the fact that our house is so much larger our energy bills are half of theirs since we have newer construction and as a result high efficiency air conditioning and properly insulated walls. Something that my daughter in her small simple house does not have.
If I lived alone I could see having one of the WeeHouses. I don’t need much room. We have 1248 sq ft for my mother and I. Most of it is because of my mother. At least this is better than the 3600 sq ft we started with. We have downsized several times to get to where we are. As long as there are a lot of windows and light I can go with small. I do need a bathroom with shower and a small kitchenette.
Couldn’t agree more. I owned a very large house – most of my weekends and free time were spent maintaining it, decorating it, and generally sorting out various issues with it. To cut a long story short I made the conscious decision to downsize considerably – I wasn’t going to make *that* mistake a second time! I now have a small two bed house, with a small, easy to maintain garden. It’s a much better fit, and I feel a lot happier here, and have a lot more free time too.
Now that my kids have (more or less) flown the nest I am thinking the place seems too big. It’s funny because most friends feel my house is “too small”, but for me it now feels too big, and one bedroom is not used most of the week. 🙂 Time to downsize? 🙂
The houses you listed all look pretty cool. I think in the US there much more available along those lines. I’ve seen some of the retirement style complexes you have out there, we have very little here in the UK along those lines. I think especially here in the UK there could be a great business providing low cost housing facilities.
Weston- You cannot really compare different areas re: price. You can compare prices within the same area, of course, and a smaller house is usually a cheaper house than a bigger one in that area. But comparing different states or cities can change the equation entirely.
Plus, forgot to mention that taxes are also higher for bigger homes. 🙂
You know I can’t resist commenting on a post like this right David? LOL
I think it all boils down to the simple fact that most of us seem to have lost track of the true value of a home and given into the lure of luxury and the feeling of becoming instantly ‘rich’ through the fallacy of home ownership.
The availability of borrowed money (especially before the last recession) and living on the margin (month to month, debt to income lifestyle) has also been a major contributor to the rapid growth in the types of homes people have learned to value.
Shouldn’t the true value of a home be measured by the happiness and security it brings instead of its size and cost?
David-
I could see where my comment was not clear. In fact my daughter and I do live in the same area (about 15 minutes apart). She just lives in older more established neighborhood that is closer to city center and beach (we live in South Florida). Also you are incorrect about the taxes. Because of location she pays more taxes than I do.
The point of my comment is that people make surface judgments about simplicity and homes that often are not accurate. If you look at my daughter’s house and my house you would automatically think that she lives a far more simple and frugal life but exactly the opposite is true. She pays a far higher mortgage, higher taxes, higher energy costs, far higher upkeep and maintenance not too mention expenses for my grandchildren’s education since her school district is not the best.
The one thing that is simpler for her is the commute, since they bought their house partially because it is closer to her work and my son-in-law’s work. Other than that, in all major factors her small (seemingly simple) house is far less simple and far more expensive than my McMansion in the suburbs 15 minutes away.
As I said in my first posting my plan is to get rid of our house now that all of my kids are gone but that doesn’t change the fact that things are not always as they appear.
I agree about the smaller houses. When I am by myself in my 720 square foot home it feels too large!
My favorite tiny homes are the Tarleton or the Fencl made by Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweed Tiny House company. When my youngest one leaves the nest I am seriously considering one of these.
I know that sometimes larger houses are actually cheaper than smaller homes, but one must factor in the fact that sometimes these homes have poor insulation, more space to take care of and a whole lot more area to heat and cool. When you factor these in cheaper is not necessarily better 🙂
And actually, they have one LESS adult person now: Kate MINUS Jon plus 8 😉
You actually described the house we live in. My husband and I had our house built on a piece of property we bought and most people thought we were going to build a huge McMansion. Not the case. We live in a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch where the living room and kitchen are all one large room. We have 2 kids, a dog and a cat and this is plenty of space for all of us. We wanted something small, simple and easy to take care of. (the only reason we have 2 bathrooms is because we have 2 girls and my husband wanted to have at least a small chance of getting into a bathroom in the morning 🙂
Actually, Michael, I had been waiting for you 😉
“Why in the world do people feel they need such huge homes?”
They need some place to keep all their stuff.
When we bought our 1200 sq ft house, many people said it was too small and after having kids we would have to move to a bigger place. After having 2 kids and lessening our crap, our house feels too large, really! It is all in perspective.
I have 1000 sq feet now and am attempting to sell so that I can downsize. One house that you didn’t include is the geodesic dome. They can be as large or as small as you want. I always wanted one, but have decided I am ready for a small apartment now. I’m really tired of being the owner of a money pit. At this point in my life I’m interested in more time and less stuff.
Even dome advocates have given up on them. Waste of materials (lots of short pieces), hard to insulate & roof, lots of wasted space, hard to furnish…
And the question that remains is what to do with all the big, inefficient houses.
3 years ago we down-sized from a 3000 s/f home that we used about 1/4 of to a 2000 s/f home that we were using 80% of. Then husband started adding on, against MY better judgement of course, ugh ! to the tune of another 600 s/f (large family room area).
Now we are back to using about 60% of our home (family room replaced the whole lower level of our tri-level home, which sits dormant now).
As for myself, I need about 25% of the whole darn place to be happy.
We have a small one-bedroom cabin in the woods with lr/dr area, kitchen and another lg ‘gameroom’ type of room. Total s/f about 1100, and it is perfect. I would live there full-time if i could just get the hubby to do it.
I totally agree with you on the ‘waste’ that is going into building these GIANT homes that a family cannot possibly be getting their real monies worth out of. It’s a total drag on the environment in so many ways, and i am glad to hear that there is a shift in the movement of size homes people are willing to live in. Small IS better.
I like the minimalist home, but does it always have to look like a plywood and corrugated metal shack? I think contemporary is fine for some, but a few traditional elevations would have been nice.
This is a superbe article and the succession of photos is great.
Although one must reckon we can never live in a “Glass house” like that (actually those) of Design guru Philipp Johnson, some of the more modestly sized-houses do appeal more !
Personally I’m a fan of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and PAD (Portland Alternative Dwellings). I’m liivng in a pretty small basement apartment at the moment, and it still feels too big.