If your oversized house is giving you energy
anxiety, you’re not alone, says the June 2009 issue of E–The Environmental
Magazine (now posted at: www.emagazine.com). A growing number of people in
the U.S. are downsizing their homes in response to the collapse of the housing
market, rising energy prices and concern for the environment. The trend has long
moved in the opposite direction with the average American home size, about 2,500
square feet, up 140% from 1950s.
“Housing has always been this
competitive sport and there has always been a negative connotation to being
small," says Genevieve Ferraro, who lives outside Chicago and runs a website
called The Jewel Box Home, dedicated exclusively to small-home living. “But in
my opinion, the new status symbol is not how you display it but how you do it
responsibly.”
Now, with small-house blogs and websites, organizations
such as the Small House Society, and books like Little House on a Small
Planet (Lyons Press) by carpenter and designer Shay Salomon and The Not
So Big House (Taunton) by architect Sarah Susanka, there are mainstream
resources teaching people how they can live in less space and have more time to
enjoy it.
How Small is Small?
So how small are these
small houses? The company Tiny Texas Homes makes homes that measure 10’ by
16’, or even smaller. Styles vary from rustic to Queen Anne with gingerbread trim
to a gambrel-roofed Dutch Colonial, and all are made using vintage, salvaged
materials.
Owner Brad Kittel explains the attraction of his under-sized
homes, saying, “You would be surprised at the number of houses where people are
just living in one or two rooms, saving money because they aren't heating and
cooling a whole house.” He says his homes have particular appeal for retirees
and folks on a fixed income. The structures also have great potential as
backyard studios or vacation cabins and can easily be run with renewable energy
systems.
Gregory Paul Johnson, one of the founders of the Small House
Society, lives in a home that’s just 140 square-feet. Jay Shafer, another
co-founder, lives in just 89 square feet and his California-based Tumbleweed
Tiny House Company builds homes that are between 65 and 837 square
feet.
The advantage for home buyers is not only a reduction in energy
bills, and a simplified, easy-to-maintain living space, but these smaller homes
are movable and, as such, don't require building permits. There are others who
have chosen to live life in an RV, and still others taking a more conventional
route by choosing to take up residence in an eco-friendly condo such as those at
the Olive8 hotel/condo development in Seattle, which includes a sustainable
roof, water-saving fixtures and other energy-saving accoutrements.
A
New Perspective
Of course, there are challenges to living in tight
quarters. “People need private space,’’ says Johnson. “There’s a phrase people
refer to which is ‘too many rats in a cage.’ Any animals will get stressed if
there isn't enough space.”
But, for many, the switch to smaller living
spaces has offered a new freedom. Particularly the freedom to shed all the
accumulated “stuff” they don't use or want, and the ability to politely refuse
gifts they'd rather not have clutter their homes.
That is something
38-year-old Laurel Reitman of San Francisco can appreciate. Last year when she
was pregnant, family, friends and coworkers at the high school where she teaches
physics wanted to give her things for the new baby. Reitman and husband Mark
Frey, 31, already had hand-me-downs and, thanks to their small house, a built-in
excuse not to take more stuff. “Having a small house became an acceptable reason
we could give so that they wouldn't buy us things,” says Frey, “but we didn't
have to reject their kindness.”
There are many reasons for living in a
smaller space while keeping environmental preservation in mind, says Ciji Ware,
the author of Rightsizing your Life: Simplifying your Surroundings while
Keeping What Matters Most (Springboard Press). “The thrust of the book is
about people who are tired of the burden of carrying a big mortgage, a lot of
square footage, and maintaining earthly possessions that don't mean much to
them anymore, especially if the kids have flown the coop," says the Sausalito,
California woman. “Their 401Ks have turned into 101Ks, and they want to reduce
their carbon footprint.” Ware has a formula for keeping possessions tight in
order to live light. Something must be valuable, useful, beautiful or
sentimental to make the cut. “Something has to have two of the four or you don't
keep it," she says.
