I can hear them screaming--and they can hear me!

What happens at our house when Mason needs space.

Our home theatre.  Note the "corral" keeping Fergus from mouthing the TV.

I've been contemplating the ways this home will create who our boys will become.  Architecture as social engineering, if you will.  Will our sons envy families with bigger homes and, in turn, end up building huge houses?  Will they cry out for SPACE? Will they even notice our house is smaller than others?  Will they value the outdoors more? Will they be really good at waiting their turn for the bathroom?   Along this vein, I found a great article written in 2006 on npr.org called "Behind the Ever-Expanding American Dream."


Here is what a man who built an 11,00 square foot home wanted for his family: "I always wanted a house big enough that my kids could be in their room screaming, and my wife could be in a room screaming, and I could be somewhere else and not hear any of them," he says. "And I think I have accomplished this with this house, because this house is so big that everyone has their own space."

WOW! Does this creep anyone else out?  Personally, when I scream, I want my family to hear me!  


Also from the npr.org article, "For John Stilgoe, a professor of landscape history at Harvard University, it's emblematic. "'The big house represents the atomizing of the American family," he says. "Each person not only has his or her own television — each person has his or her own bathroom. Some of these houses are literally designed with three playrooms for two children. This way, the family members rarely have to interact. And the notion of compromise is simply out one of the very many windows these houses sport."


Well, I can say we are interacting in our house.  No shortage of that here.  But,  for what it's worth, Scott and I are the only ones learning to wait for the bathroom.

Who Thinks Our Place is Small?

Felice Cohen in her 90 SF home:  living room, office, kitchen, dining.

"The average size of the American home is shrinking -- it dropped in both 2008 and 2009 after 15 straight years of growth -- but most of us are still living larger than people in the Big Apple. Home size in Manhattan is about half the national average.

One New Yorker has taken her love of frugal living to the extreme. Felice Cohen’s apartment measures just 90 square feet, but she doesn’t see it as a sacrifice. With such a small space, she pays just $700 to live in a part of town where rents average $3,600 per month."

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-square-foot-home-2472666

I'm aware that some would read this blog and think: what is so special about a family of four in 629 square feet?  This size home is fair, especially when viewed in a historical or global context.  Both of my parents were from working class families with four children and they lived in two bedroom homes. In both of their families, my grandparents had one bedroom, the 3 boys shared the other, and the girl slept in a closet. The graphic below shows that as normal for the times.  Keep in mind, families were larger back then.

The real estate boom definitely had a role in this march to a larger and larger home (and now smaller..).  Larger homes were winners with "price per square foot game" added to the "pass the bedroom game." (my personal term for the phenomenon of people buying homes with more bedrooms needed so that the re-sale is better. Then they sell the home to someone  who is doing the same thing.  Lots of empty bedrooms getting passed around.  How about getting what you need now and adding on if you happen to need that 4th bedroom? I digress...)  Now those games are not adding up.  People want to downsize.  For good reasons!  Less Expensive!  Quicker to Clean!  Guests Won't Stay as Long! :) And it is dawning on me: maybe the McMansions were the trend and we are getting back to normal.  Maybe Scott and I live in a regular size house, not a tiny one! Wait! We live in a huge house compared to many in our world.  It has more than one room, after all.

Doesn't look so tiny to me!

Nana's Casita

It's a Family Affair!

There is another great reason why we are cleaning out the "storage" space.  We are turning it into a little satellite bedroom for my mom.  One challenge of the 629sf is a comfy, quiet space for my mom to be.  So, we are turning the back part of 701 Gilpin into her zone.  Here she is teaching Mason to remove nails from the walls in her casita.

Scott is over there today working on plumbing.  Thanks, sweetie!

The Same Ten Square Feet

Everyone in the same 10 Square Feet

Since everyone is always in the same 10-50 square feet, why would we need a bigger house?  Sometimes we are even closer.  This morning I was nursing Fergus with Mason also on my lap asking me to read a book.   And I was drinking coffee, of course!

I got the storage space cleaned out!  Feeling quite a sense of accomplishment!

Making sense of our stuff.

We are almost under just one roof. Where our stuff is concerned I feel a paradox coming on: in my obsession to have as little as possible and be extremely organized I'm more obsessed with stuff than ever!  How big is it?  How much do we use it?  How well is it made?  I feel a bit like the person who says, "it takes me a lot of work to be this peaceful."  I hope to stop thinking about "stuff" soon because we'll be outside playing!!!!