Taking part in the comment conversation on a couple of posts I have written led me to consider the way we think about home size. Typically, as one reader complained, homes are merely judged by their square footage and disregard the number of occupants. Meaning, that the owner of a large home with a big family might be criticized by small home proponents, while at the same time small homes are shunned for offering too little space for a family. Perhaps, instead of thinking of how large a house should or should not be, we should consider how much space each individual needs, a sort of square feet per capita idea.
The best way to start is by gaining a little historical perspective. The average American home in 1950 was 983 square feet (source) and, according to Census data (PDF), the average American household size was 3.37 people. This means that in 1950 the average American had 292 sfpp (square feet per person).
In the years that followed home size gradually grew and household size gradually fell until, in 2006, the average American household of 2.61 (source) shared a house of 2,349 square feet (source). So, in 2006, the average American had 900 sfpp, and that number has certainly grown in the last two years. I have heard average home size numbers approaching 2,800 square feet for 2008, but I couldn’t find a reliable source to quote.
So, seeing this wide range, the question remains . . . how much space do we need? Has the increase in sfpp seen a correlating increase in the quality of life? Are we three times more comfortable than we were in 1950? Are we three times happier? Could we, perhaps, manage to live in slightly smaller spaces than those with which we have become accustomed, particularly if it proves to have a positive impact on our environment, traffic congestion and other quality of life issues?
Obviously, there are a variety of factors that effect our need for space, and I’m sure many of these will come up in the comments. However, I would argue that, overall, our needs have become somewhat inflated. I would even say that in many cases we have taken our need for square footage into the realm of the absurd, and this does not simply apply to luxury home buyers. Our 1,200 square foot 100k House offers, to the average 2.6 person household, 462 sfpp (significantly more than was enjoyed in 1950), and yet we are constantly met with opposition based solely on size. Our entire housing industry, from building, to furnishing, to financing, is bent in the direction of more, but is it necessary? Does it help us actually live better lives?
Let’s talk it out in the comments. How many square feet does the average person need, and how should that be reflected in the types of homes we build?
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I was just talking about this concept when visiting my Grandmother this past weekend. She is still in the house that my mom grew up in, a modest 1950s/~1000sqft/3 bedroom/eat in kitchen ranch. Back then there was 5 people living in that house and it was comfortable for them. Looking at it, the four of us could easily live in that house. With a little refab it would be even more comfortable. Does a family of 4 REALLY need 3 bedrooms?
What about taking it even further. If we are not purely looking at the size of the house, but also take into account how many people live there, then what about looking at the variation of space needed by these individuals? For example, when I get home, I cook, watch some TV, do something on computer, and sleep. I do not really need much for this at all. I rather prefer looking outside and talking walks in “widely open spaces” instead of having a large area indoors. However, as an example, what about people with various hobbies that require indoor space? Granted, majority of people are not huge doll collectors, but maybe this logic of very individual determination of needed space should be used.
I would argue that most people with the huge homes need much less than they have appropriated. However, how does one define what is too much? A ex-colleague of mine lives in a 2000sf condo with his wife. When I asked him how exactly does he use his space, he could not come up with one instance when this space would be used. They also just get home after work, read, listen to music and watch TV. So, it was puzzling to me – why would one have all this space that just sits there never used. You have more to clean, more to heat and more to look at – but is it all really worth it?
It is interesting to see shows where people around the world look for homes. You usually get this couple with their real-estate agent who shows them various houses and apartments. And the difference between what people in USA, Canada, Sweden, Hong Kong, the UK, and Italy (as examples) say about the spaces that they look at, is very interesting. For example, the bed-rooms that generate “oh, this is so small! how can we fit all our stuff in here and not suffocate” responses in North America, would be called spacious, lavish, and great size in other parts of the world.
Overall, I think it is easy to determine how much space a person needs (put together activities that a person is involved in, add up space that they require and here you are). However, calculating the space where one feels comfortable in, I think is very subjective. And this is where the change in the mindset is required if we want to see the size of dwellings decrease over the time. Or, like in the other parts of the world, they just will whether we want it or not – resources are finite, the land is expensive and if not today, then tomorrow it will not make much sense to have 1000sf if one actually uses only 250.
I don’t think that it is a linear relationship. The jump from one to two people usually requires just a small jump in living space, for extra storage. Adding one child often adds a bathroom and bedroom area. Another child might just add another bedroom.
But to simplify the formula, it would be something like 700sf + (200 * # of occupants) for a comfortable home.
I think the issue of shared and communal space and layout in these situations is interesting too. My wife and I are looking at houses which are considered small or ’starter’ houses; both because we don’t like excess and because the Bay Area is a cruel mistress in pricing. Thus far my impression is the size of the kitchen and how the common rooms (living/dining/kitchen) are laid out makes the biggest difference in how much we like a place and could consider living there. We were in a vintage 1920s cottage with 1100sf cut into 5+ rooms and 2 bathrooms and it was just claustrophobic for us. A different ‘modern’ house of the same square footage had the living room open to the dining / kitchen area and was way way more appealing. So I guess I don’t need a particular sf, more like a particular layout that works with my lifestyle. To be perfectly honest I don’t want more than 1200-1400 sf because I don’t want to clean anything more than that.
Thinking about how space is used is definitely an important consideration. I currently live in a 1,000 sf home with my wife and it would be too much space if the largest upstairs room were not devoted to her art studio. We could also easily live in a smaller home were the space divided more intelligently. With a well designed, open first floor, entertaining guests and providing sleeping space for weekend visitors would be easy in a house significantly smaller than our current one.
As Janis pointed out, this “need” for space is a cultural, socio-economic thing more than it is an actual need for more room (or rooms). It would be interesting to track room usage in several houses over the course of a week or two. Any volunteers? I’ll do my room usage if you do yours.
So what would we track? Hours used? Room visits per day? I have to admit that this could get ugly. I currently live in a 2000+ sf home with only myself, my girlfriend and a cat (it is amazing though how much space, and furniture is the cats!).
We probably use a third of our total space on a daily basis. The rest is a third floor, currently unfurnished and unoccupied, a workout room, and the babies room (he just isn’t born yet).
So I’m up for tracking, who else?
I’m in. I have two rooms. A great room with our kitchen, living, dining and bedrooms in it. A separate bathroom. I use each daily but will refrain from divulging the percentage of time in each to save face.
tlynch: I agree, there is a minimum of space necessary in what we think of as a home and additions to that space are going to add significantly less overall than the first person. An equation of the type you are talking about may be the best way to think about this.
Rob: I suggest we track rooms by waking hour for one week beginning tomorrow. Obviously bedrooms are necessary, but if we find that we are simply sleeping and changing in them, perhaps their size (often too large) will come into question.
My wife may or may not like this, but I plan to put a sign in/out sheet in each room. Simply passing through a room doesn’t count. I will post my results next week and include a basic floor plan. I will also post the results of anyone else who would like to participate.
Who’s in?
I’d say a 2 bedroom house at 1,000-1,200 sqft is quite luxurious. I’ve designed house plans with up to 5 bedrooms in 2400 sqft. If that house was full, 6 people, it would be 400sf/person. That house had small bedrooms (8or9ft x 10ft) but lots of shared living space. I think it lives quite comfortably.
For comparision my own house from 1948 is 4 bedrooms in 1650sqft, not counting the basement, or 330sf/person.
My family of four (including two boys under four years) lives in 860 sf. Our two bedrooms and one bathroom are just barely adequate for our lifestyle. As soon as finances allow, we intend to add a third bedroom and second bathroom. Here’s our rationale:
Extra bedroom—unlike 1950, the modern extended family is now frequently spread over several states. When grandma and grandpa come to visit, they don’t just drive home after dinner; they need a place to sleep, too.
Extra bathroom—like many young families today, my wife and I both work, and we both need to be at work at roughly the same time. One bathroom enforces a sequential morning routine that requires one of us to get up earlier. The alternative, which comes at the expense of marital harmony, is to try to share our 8′ x 5′ bathroom.
So, a 10′ x 10′ bedroom and another 8′ x 5′ bathroom would put us at a nice, round 1000 sf.
Another factor to consider in determining the “right” SFPP is space for hobbies/avocations. Much of our garage space is devoted to storage for my tools and instruments.
This is a test comment. We have been having commenting issues. Hopefully no one else has been effected. Sorry for the interruption.
I sometimes wonder is putting the sink of the main bathroom outside of the bathroom or even adding just and additional sink outside of the bathroom would eliminate the need for an entire additional full bath? One person could be doing their business inside while the other is using the sink outside?
I really love that Brandon is currently surviving with four people in 860 sf and only wants another 140 sf to be content. Good stuff.
I think what you are describing Chad really helps two people get ready in the morning while using one bathroom. Or you do a split between bath+toilet and sink if you don’t have room for two sinks.
Chad, stop thinking outside the box!!!!
Seriously, though, great idea. So simple, yet effective.
Interesting discussion. Kasey and I live in a 2000 sqft house. Our case is different, I guess. Kasey works from home 100% and I work from home at least 50% of or time. Now do our offices (we have separate ones – he’s on the phone a lot and I need to write) count as “living space” as defined above? Or should the sqft of the offices (half of mine, I guess) be subtracted? Or in other words: Does it matter what you use the space for?
Tina: I think this fits into the usage tracking discussion we were having. Space is validated by use. So, if you have a home office that you work out of, that is valuable and necessary space. Also such space (as is the case with my wife’s art studio) often doubles as guest space. However, if you have an “office” that rarely sees any work you might be forced to feel a little wasteful in the context of this discussion.
The other idea is, of course, to do exactly what you are saying, subtract the office space and divide the remainder by the number of people living in the home to get your sfpp. Scientific? Perhaps not, but one has to admit it provokes thought and discussion.
or another way to look at it would be to count the dedicated office use of a bedroom as another person, and the part time use of one as such as a half a person, and use the full square footage of the house.
I’m curious how those two calculations compare.
I’m not sure how we’d count the (future) spare bedroom. Our out-of-town relatives would only use it 6-8 times per year. It would probably go mostly unused the rest of the time. At our last house, prior to the arrival of our first bundle of joy, our second bedroom was large enough to accommodate guests and my home music studio. That wouldn’t be the case here. I’m considering taking advantage of San Francisco’s allowance for 100 sf outbuildings as long as they don’t have a permanent foundation or utility connections. I’m thinking of building a cool recording module that would connect to power via an extension cord. Another way to go would be to make a sleeping module that would give guests physical separation from the hustle and bustle of our household. There’s rarely any substantial weather here, so walking a few feet might not be much of an issue.
I just found this: Dirk lives in 250 square foot home and seems to be doing fine:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/livin_large_in.php
We are 2 people in approx 1,000 sq ft. We love it..does not take long to clean. The extra bedroom is not used much regularly but is helpful for storage and guests when needed. Maybe the master bedroom could have a little sink and mirror area for the other person getting ready in the morning.
Off the main topic, but I think the most efficient bathroom option for a married couple is putting the toilette in its own stall within the master bathroom. It can use a simple sliding pocket door that is open 95% of the time, but allows private use of the toilette while someone is using the vanity or shower. With this configuration (and possibly a second sink in the bathroom if you want to go over the top) allows two people to get ready at nearly the exact same time, with only minimal extra square feet.
One important rule to remember is that when you reduce living square footage, you must increase storage square footage to maintain the same quality. I am not sure what the ration must be, but I would bet for every 5 feet of bedroom square footage you remove, you should replace it with around 1 square foot of closet.
If you replace a 150 square foot bedroom with 25 square feet of closet space with a 100 square foot bedroom with 15 square feet of closet space the occupant will be very unhappy. But if you replace the 150 square foot bedroom with a 100 square foot bedroom and 40 square feet of closet space, still saving 35 square feet, the occupant might find that they feel like they have more space.
I second what tlynch said: storage space makes a difference as you decrease the “living” area. Keeping stuff out of sight, means it isn’t under foot.
Efficient bathroom design is another bugaboo. Having a real “water closet”, a separate shower and a sink area allows for multiple users. Too often in new development the solution is 2 full baths.
And for the living area statistics: 1 person, ~1200 sqft and not enough closet space.
My wife, 2 daughters under 3 and I live in a ~1000 Sq ft apartment. I feel we utilize the space very well. Our bedroom doubles as the “office”, the room (has a spiral staircase that leads up to our bedroom) where all 4 of our dressers and the changing table are is also where the toys are stored, the girls bedroom is also the playroom, the dining/living room is also our guest bedroom, and the bathroom and kitchen is, well, the bathroom and kitchen. We use all these rooms everyday, pretty evenly I think. We make due with one full bath because I get up and shower while the wife gets the girls stuff ready for school and while she is showering I get the girls dressed. I think we have a pretty good set-up and system. A key to this though is we have a ~8×10 room in the basement for storage, and it is FULL. A separate room for guests would be nice as the girls get up between 7-8AM, most often our guests do not, it isn’t REALLY necessary.
It occurs to me after watching the comments for the past few days that there really is no shortage of people willing to live in these smaller bedroom situations. What we have is a lack of willingness in the housing industry to build houses for people willing to do this. And so you have this giant leap from an apartment to a mcmansion which many people don’t want to, or are unable to make. There is a market for smaller more efficient homes.
I agree that this conversation illustrates the potential demand for new, reasonably sized homes. However, I think the “unwillingness” of the housing industry is a pretty complex cause. For example, in an effort to prevent “sprawl”, many suburban areas require lot sizes to be much larger than necessary. This drives the price of that land up and thus requires developers to build a larger, more expensive house in an effort to make a profit. This is not to say that developers aren’t a significant part of the problem (or builders, or architects, or buyers, or banks), but I think it illustrates the complexity of the issue.
Hopefully a fall in demand for homes that are too large will spark some change throughout the industry.
I live in a ~1500 sq. ft. 3/2 with a family of 4. It seems to be just the right size and we still have a bit of unused space due to an open floor plan. The thing I like about smaller spaces is it forces you to be more efficient and creative with your use of space.
I used to live in a 400 sq. ft. warehouse with my wife and while it seemed small it provided all the areas we needed for day to day life. I was working from home full time then as well so I removed the doors from a close and put in modular shelving to use as a desk space.
You seem to find solutions to make smaller spaces work and they are easier/cheaper to maintain.
First off, I just wanted to commend Nic for the original post that ignited this discussion – well done. Also, I believe the core of this discussion comes down to smart space – i.e. how it functions for the use – or in other words how well it is designed. You can have a 100sqft bedroom with thoughtful storage solutions that functions much better than a 200sqft bedroom with a 80sqft walk-in closet. It just takes more time to think it through than to simply provide more space.
It is very interesting reading all your comments because my husband and I have always lived in what we considered smaller places – 2 bed apt 1000sf, 3 bed 2 ba 1400 sq ft (in the UK) – and now we live in a 2800 sf house with 4 beds, a den and 3 ba. When we moved back from the UK we had to find a place fast and weren’t looking for this much space, but at that point we had 2 kids and another on the way and we took the first place that met all our requirements (price, # of rooms, yard, good schools, neighborhood, etc). Anyway, we now want to get my husband closer to work and have the time to look and be a bit pickier. The area we’re looking at is made up mostly of 1950’s homes for a heavy price tag. I have found a house that’s 3 bd + den, 2 ba, 1600 sf, nice yard and garage. And I find myself struggling with whether this would be enough space for us – plus another baby on the way. Meaning it would be 2 adults and 4 children under 6 in the house. I know our current house is WAY too big, I tell people all the time we only use the kitchen, family room, 3 beds and really 2 ba and the den. Our living room just looks pretty and the couch gets jumped on and the dining room holds our mail…so when thinkig of getting a different place we evaulated that 3 beds + den would be enough, but I’m getting hung up on the sf. I found this discussion when looking on line for a reasonable estimate of how much living space a family needs. Anyway, I thought it was all very interesting after being use to smaller places and now in a bigger place struggling to move back into a smaller place. And FYI, in my community with lots of new construction anything smaller than 2400sf is laughed at!
Timely.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/10/22/tiny.houses/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Timely report via CNN.com.
Laughed at. It reminds me of people I’ve met that laugh at cars with a V6, because unless your car has a V8 its not a real car…
You can’t set out to turn around people that think this way, you have to set out to serve the many people that want a small home, and can’t find it. Its just like the condition with modern homes. Your only choice for a smaller home should not have to be an older home. There is an unserved market here.
“What we have is a lack of willingness in the housing industry to build houses for people willing to do this.”
“For example, in an effort to prevent “sprawl”, many suburban areas require lot sizes to be much larger than necessary. This drives the price of that land up and thus requires developers to build a larger, more expensive house in an effort to make a profit.”
The other issue is that most developments/cities now have strict size requirements for sq footage of homes. We want to build 700 sq ft home but the minimum allowed size is 1200 sq ft.
Storage is a large issue especially with families, but rethinking and redesigning can easily solve this issue. Closets are the biggest problem and yet easiest to solve. A simple change from hanging most clothes to folding on shelves can cut needed space by 90% (not to mention cleaning out the clothes you don’t fit or haven’t worn for 10 years). Sofa bed takes away the need for separate guest room that will be used 6 days a year. It comes down to priorities and finding double uses. Pocket doors eliminate the need for clearance space for doors, built-ins save space almost everywhere, etc.
I love the idea on studying on how much you actually use a space, I think most people will find that master bedroom they love never gets used except to sleep, soaking tub rarely gets used, formal living room rarely, etc. If you spend all of the money that would go into those spaces into upgrading a smaller home, quality of life would go up.
Amen on calling out the bathtub silliness. I’m remodeling my bathroom (the 8′ x 5′ one I mentioned before), and we could really use the space that a shower would have freed up. Instead, I’ve been confronted with the conventional wisdom that “women won’t buy a house without a tub.” So, a new tub went in, but at least it’s just your standard 60×30x14, not one of those energy-sucking spa tubs. We had one of those at our last house, and literally never used it. We turned it on when moving in, and cat hair came out. ‘Nuff said.
We also wanted to convert the in-swinging door to a pocket door, but the opening lies between the top of our stairs and the chase for the heater/water heater flue. What we were able to do, though, was set some cabinets into the wall behind the door. 80 x 18 x 5 with about 1.5″ projection into the bathroom in a space that couldn’t be used for anything anyway. In the best cheap-modern tradition, the cabinets are an Ikea hack. Two of their kitchen upper cabinets, cut down to the shallower depth. Avsikt frosted glass doors, and Bob’s your uncle.
Great talk – anyone seen this **1985** book by UPenn & Princeton professor Don Prowler, FAIA “Modest Mansions”? It is full of good thinking, nice details, multiuse solutions
So if you haven’t seen it, watch the bright movie “The Story of Stuff” .
Saying all this: I bought two books last week, one to own and one to give as a gift. Ah… such is life…
…wry GRIN…
oops – 2nd try
___
Great talk – anyone seen this **1985** book by UPenn & Princeton professor Don Prowler, FAIA “Modest Mansions”? It is full of good thinking, nice details, multiuse solutions – - a key concept. I like to refer to it as “applied efficiency”, a bit different than “form follows funtion”, because as we all know (right?) it is ALL ABOUT **DESIGN**. i.e. This 1000sf does not equal some other 1000sf.
Typically for me, I recommend looking books up at the library of your choice before rushing out to buy one sight unseen… In fact, buying “stuff” is one huge reason that Americans both “need” and expect big houses. Need because there’s all this stuff bought but little used. Expected because we have been a rich & smart & productive country for so long that buying stuff for the emotional satisfaction & sense of power/control it provides connects directly to big houses, big cars, lotsa stuff, being overweight, and surely other attributes as well.
Don’s book preceded the now well-known Sarah Susanka’s 1998 “Not So Big House.” Ironic, isn’t it – her book sold big (oops slip o’ the tongue) sold very well. And here is just one of the majority of “not so big” houses in that not so big coffee table? book:
“http://healthyhomeplans.com/home_plans/home_plan_detail.php?plan_id=45”
So if you haven’t seen it, watch the bright movie “The Story of Stuff” “http://www.storyofstuff.com”.
Saying all this: I bought two books last week, one to own and one to give as a gift. Ah… such is life…
…wry GRIN…
More on Don Prowler, for those who did not know him:
“www.upenn.edu/almanac/v48/n23/death.html”
Great comments here everyone. I really appreciate the direction to new sources of information.
For those that are interested, my wife and I will be finishing our space use experiment tomorrow. We had a sign-in sheet in each room of our house and marked our entrance and exit times on the sheet. This didn’t include time spent sleeping. I will be compiling the times and writing a post about the results on Wednesday.
700 square feet seems so huge for one person! My apt is 350 square feet and I share it with my sister. My fiance and I just bought a 1200 square foot house and plan to fill it with at least 3 kids. What do people do with all that space? I had a 700 square foot apt at one point but it was just a pain to have to go so far to return things to their places and I didn’t even enter rooms for days!
(I guess I don’t look in that often.) I have this discussion with people all the time. My partner and I live in a 720 sq. ft house, which is just about perfect from my point of view. But largely b/c we live in the country, and the east, south, and west walls are primarily glass. The woman who built the place was incredibly smart about how to use it, but I think what makes it truly liveable is the exposure to nature. That said, my partner finds it more difficult to be in as it requires being kept in order (or I do require that?), and ….we have very little storage, which he needs. Most people in consumed societies need space for things. This may be changing, don’t know. I find this presents the two questions I face when discussing/designing for others (you all came up with similar facets)….what does one do with the space, but then also what makes it liveable?
I enjoyed the breif history lesson here. i think this may boil down to stuff. We as people “need” more stuff today, as well as more places to put it. in the 50’s, they had a single 15″ TV that the family shared. now, we have 42″ plasmas in at least one room, as well as a tv in the bedrooms, PC’s, stereos, toys, as well as our obsessions with clothes, shoes, and star wars “action figures”. I say this all because I know- I’m contimplating buying a new home. We have a 1950’s cape cod with 1700 sq. feet. My husband and I live here with our 2 year old, and we are just wondering if we will still “fit” when we decide to have another baby. More baby= more stuff! Ahhh!
Julie, “more stuff” is part of the problem. We are much more a consumer society now than we were 30 years ago but most of this “stuff” we don’t need. I have a family of 4 that live in a 1600 sq. 3/2 with a somewhat open floorplan, and we still have quite a bit of “unused” space. This being square footage that is currently just traffic area and could be repurposed for task usage (desk, children’s table, etc.).
The new flatscreen TV’s actually open up a bit of square footage if mounted on the wall which is a nice bonus.
It again boils down to efficiency. If you have 3000 sq ft. and use it all then that’s great, but if like most larger homes, there are unused rooms that you are paying to heat/cool/pay taxes on then it’s wasted space that is actually costing money.
A funny thing that I’ve noticed regardless of where I live, I’ll only have as much crap as I do a garage. One car garage… full. Two car…..full. My parents had a 3 1/2 car garage….full, for 2 people.
My best friend and his wife have a roughly 3600sq/ft house, their master b/r is bigger than our main living room(that we don’t use), they have 2 walk-in closets roughly 8′x12′ at a cost of $100.00 per sq/ft for the whole house, just to store Jimmy Buffet t-shirts and clothes that they won’t ever fit into again. A jacuzzi tub they have never used is up there also.
When they got married we discussed theem building a new home. We came up with a plan for them to figure out what they wanted, and meet with an architect to draw up plans. With 2 incomes, the idea was to stash money away or buy materials for the new home and store them at their current home of the time. That home was almost paid off(cheap mortgage payments) and pay cash for the land and we would build the house. A couple of years of sacrifice(3-5/6/7 years) and they could have had the home they wanted and paid for to boot. A few things burst that bubble though(no pun intended). Cheap money was number one, his wife constantly changing things due to open-house tours every Sunday, and by far the biggest setback was the developers. Builder specific sub-divisions, and cities here mandate sq/ft minimums. Land prices around here are ridiculous and he works in the Chicago suburbs, about an hour away. To build the house they wanted, meant moving to an ajacent countie, and that would add about 30+ minutes to his commute.
The house that I designed for us can’t get the plans approved because of size. It’s an envelope home and the first issue was the air space, so I said that I would put in a sprinler system. Then it came down to size. I designed everything for minimal space: no closet, storage above and below the bed in the master b/r. The spare b/r would also be used as an office, hobby room, and have a fold-down bed. I planned for wheelchair accessibility and use, because we won’t outlive the house. Water collection system as opposed to a well. $20,000.00 to have power run to the site, that money would go towards power production(solar/wind) and we’ll be off-grid and alleviate ComEd. I guess about my only few options left are to retro an existing home. I’m considering running ads in all the local papers for an older small home with a good foundation that I can rip down to the studs and make it work. I know they want the tax money, but we aren’t into excess, and we don’t want to go into debt to amke it happen. We originally set the upper max limit at $150,000.00 including land, but I figured that I could get it within the $75-95,000.00 range by doing all the labor myself, or trading labor for the specialty stuff.
I see now why this whole Mcmansion craze happened over the last 8-10 years. People can’t build what they want to, only wjat they are allowed.
in many ways the rules are stacked in the favor of developers, so they can build/sell what is most profitable, not what people might need or want – its been going on so long that we’ve all been born into this situation and the bulk of the population can’t even imagine that they could want something different.
Something to be considered is the impact of climate- allowing for the utilization of outdoor “living” (entertaining) spaces. Integrating indoor/outdoor covered spaces for gathering friends. My family actively lives in every inch of our 770 sq. feet. (4ppl w/ 2 under the age of 4) :O) Winters are harder for us!
Have you considered the average lot size? That has been shrinking much faster than house size has been growing.
After reading about half of these posts, my eyes are tired, but I am finding it very interesting. Here is a group of people who agree with something I have been thinking for a while.
I really liked the idea about dividing up the bathroom. My parents have a bathroom kind of like this, with the toilet in its own closet-sized room.
To take it one step further, what about folks who want to use the sink while another is in the tub or shower? Some folks like their privacy in the tub or shower too.
Thinking about this has me wanting to throw the idea of the ‘traditional’ bathroom completely out the window. Instead of multiple bathrooms, why not have one bathroom with a couple of toilets, each in their own little closet, and a couple of sinks to boot? Shower/tub could be in its own area as well. The main entry from the hall could be into the ‘vanity’ area with a pair of sinks and mirrors, either together in one countertop or separate. Beyond this area would be 3 doors, one to the tub/shower, and the other 2 to toilets. If well designed, this could be done in a space only slightly larger than the standard bathroom.
Think I’m going to try to draw it up…
I live in a two bedroom apartment that is 768 square feet. I’m single but have a cat. I also have my friend’s 16 month old son 3 days a week. I find that space isn’t so much of a problem. I use the spare bedroom for the baby and for company. I find it’s more of a problem with the layout. There are only two ways that I can put my couch because of the way the living room is set up. One of the ways really makes my living room feel smaller but I HAVE to have it that way in the summer due to the air conditioner. They have a preset space in the wall for that and if I were to leave the couch in the place that makes my living room bigger the a/c is blowing right on it which isn’t comfortable when you’re sitting there. Thankfully I’m in Minnesota and our summers are really only three months long.
I find that my main issue is storage space. I’ve had to be very creative. I can’t have my futon AND the crib set up in the spare room because there simply isn’t enough room for both. That’s fine but then one of them has to be in storage at all times. Right now the crib is taken apart and stuffed under my bed because I have no other place to put it. If I had a garage this wouldn’t be a problem cause I could just put the stuff out there and it would be out of my hair.
Any idea what would legally be the minimum square footage per person?