The carpentry crew has been very busy on the interior work (putting my feeble weekend efforts to shame). They have the perimeter framing done and now have all of the interior wall sills in place to demarcate the individual rooms.

In the panorama, you see the wetroom in the center, flanked on either side by the office and bedroom. The kitchen area is on the far left. Once we accommodated for the framing and made adjustments for clearing steel columns, pipes, etc. The wall placement was fixed and ready for framing.

You may recall my unsuccessful attempts to design a residence in les that 1000 sqft. My plans ended up at about 1200sqft. Well, not by my doing, the finished residence will be under 980sqft, and that includes the space in the closets, pantry, etc. It took lots of measurements (and at times we used four measuring tapes at once) to place all the walls and make the necessary compromises. For the most part, rooms and closets lost a few inches here and there. It all added up quickly.

I am designing a new home and one, I hope will prove both to me and others that “size matters” but this time I don’t mean “bigger is better”. My goals are 1000sqft footprint – that means it includes all interior walls, furnishings etc and thus the traditional definition of living space will be some value smaller. I also want to leverage green construction techniques. The challenge has been the 1000sqft. Continue reading ‘Compact and Comfortable’ »

I’ve been looking for ideas to shrink the spaces I “think” I must have in my next house. Sarah Susanka is the famed author of “The Not So Big House” and its companion publications. To be honest, I wasn’t able to get much useful content out of her book. It has only served as a conversation starter as it sits pristinely on the coffee table.

I decided I’d look to see what else I could find on the Internet and I came across a number of sites, including Sarah’s that talks about the 2005 show house they created. I finally clicked thru to find the floor plans and the description – OUCH !!!!

I would not call a 2900 sq. ft. house “not so big”. I spent the past 15 years in a very functional 4 bedroom 3 bath home that was 1800 sq ft. Continue reading ‘The "Not So Little" "Not So Big House"’ »

The source for my post’s title is a book by Sarah Susanka. I am in the midst of designing a new home. At the same time, I am watching all of these “dream homes”, “home improvements”, “this old house”, “rezoned”, etc. shows of TV. The TV shows keep showing bigger and bigger homes – 3000 sqft, 4500 sqft, 5300 sqft, 8000 sqft, ENOUGH !

I started living on my current house with about 900 sqft. The house has grown to 2500 sqft. I’m a solo empty nester now and as such I don’t use most of the house. For those of you who now find you house with fewer residents than in the past, when was the last time you used some of those abandoned rooms ? Have you tried sleeping in the guest bed ? Washed up in the kids bathroom ?

So I’ve started designing a smaller house. My first attempt was 1500 sqft. I’m now on my second attempt at 1200 sqft. If I leave out the out-building for the work shop I hope to get under 1000 sqft on my final attempt. I’ll be honest, I plan to get a little professional help – designers and/or architects specializing in both “green” building and “designing for small spaces”.

BTW: the 30″x31″ foot print of the pictured Neo-Comby toilet+basin will set you back about $5000 !. I guess the real question isn’t designing a 1000 sqft home but rather if I can do it on something less than the budget of one of those Mac-Mansions.

My question is “how small is big enough ?” What do you think ?