{Average Sized Homes Around the World}
I recently came across this graph depicting the average home size from countries around the world, and it intrigued me. Many of the comments on that article critique the way the numbers are depicted, but the fact remains – Americans are infamous for their extra-large sized homes as compared to the rest of the world, and to the homes in previous generations.
In an NPR article entitled “Behind the Ever-Expanding American Dream House”, we read that “the average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s; it now stands at 2,349 square feet. Whether it’s a McMansion in a wealthy neighborhood, or a bigger, cheaper house in the exurbs, the move toward ever large homes has been accelerating for years. Consider: Back in the 1950s and ’60s, people thought it was normal for a family to have one bathroom, or for two or three growing boys to share a bedroom. Well-off people summered in tiny beach cottages on Cape Cod or off the coast of California. Now, many of those cottages have been replaced with bigger houses. Six-room apartments in cities like New York or Chicago have been combined, because upper-middle-class people now think a six-room apartment is too small. Is it wealth? Is it greed? Or are there more subtle things going on?”
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Our own family has been on quite the living space journey, and it hasn’t been steadily increasing, as our culture would have us believe is ideal. We started out our married life in a basement bachelor apartment. One room that contained our “bedroom” (which we divided off by hanging a white sheet), a “living room”, and the kitchen/dining area, plus a bathroom. In my mind that place is filled with memories of our first year of marriage (the hard and the euphoric and all the bits in between). I loved setting up my first home and was just happy to have my own space, no matter the size. We then moved on to several other living spaces over the years (our ninth anniversary is next month), mostly in the small apartment size range. One place was an apartment above a double garage, which rivalled our bachelor suite in size. When we had our first baby we lived in a sort of rundown 2-bedroom townhouse that was like a mansion in our eyes. We had two floors AND a basement!
Then two years ago we moved to the other side of the country to Tiny Town, and settled in to a cute little 3-bedroom house with no basement. It was quite cozy but perfect, with more than enough space if we were honest. Then 5 months later found us unexpectedly moving again, this time to the only thing available on short notice, which was a 4000-square foot home with four bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It had two tiny separate apartments rented out which took our living space down to a “paltry” 3000-square feet or so (!!!). We were given a really great deal because the landlady was also a believer and wanted tenants she could trust. I realize that lots of people in our culture actually live in a house that size and think nothing of it, but to us it was totally crazy.
Facing an unaffordable rent increase five months ago found us moving (our third home in two years here in Tiny Town!) into the house in which we currently live. It’s WAY smaller, but still more than adequate for our needs. When we moved lots of people thought we were crazy to give up that big house, and lots of people just didn’t understand why we’d want to, but in actual fact I LOVE this smaller house so much more.
While I enjoyed many aspects of the ginormous house (no end of storage space, more than enough kitchen cupboard and counter space, lots of space for the kids to run and play in the biggest living room I’ve ever seen, a huge walk-in closet and private bath in the master bedroom…), in the end it was just… too much.
Too much to clean, too much to organize. Too much space in between souls – when you can sit 30 feet away from each other and still be in the same room. Too much work to trek from one end to the other to put away laundry. Too much to clean. Too separated from my babies by the heavy door to the upstairs that didn’t let me hear their cries that first evening in the house (we got baby monitors!). Oh, and did I mention that it was way too much to clean? It took nearly half an hour just to vacuum the living room and dining room area, including plugging in the vacuum in several different places because the cord wasn’t long enough to reach.
And yes, I felt a little embarrassed every we’d have someone new over and we’d watch their jaw drop when they saw the size of the main living area. I felt the need to justify, to explain that we didn’t pay all that much in rent, and it was a pretty good deal, etc. etc. “Don’t think I’m shallow or snobby!” I wanted to beg. It turns out that my embarrassment revealed a tendency in my own heart to wrongly judge others living in lavishly large homes. I was afraid that others would judge me in that same fashion, and I realized how immature and wrong that had been.
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Fast forward to present day and this subject has been on my mind constantly as we think about our future, which will hopefully include owning our own home at some point. We live here in Tiny Town but long to move closer to family, and as we think about how to accomplish this it inevitably comes down to our choice of accommodations.
How small can you go?
A two-bedroom apartment is much more affordable than a 3 or 4. As in – hundreds of dollars difference, generally. Is it worth it? Our immediate goals include A) paying off flying debt, B) saving for a down payment, and C) gaining experience and advancing in Chris’s career (and for those that know our story – yes, serving overseas is still a goal as well).
Could we actually live in a 2-bedroom apartment for a period of time with 3 kids and be happy?
Gosh, I sure as heck hope that our happiness is not dependent on how many square feet we happen to occupy. What a crock that we’ve been fed by our culture. Our kids all “need” their own rooms? I hardly think so. We “need” a spacious home so that our kids can spread out their over-abundance of toys and junk they never actually play with? No thanks.
What happened to the notions of real sacrifice and working diligently for your goals?
Could 3 kids share a bedroom? With bunk beds and a single bed? I don’t see why not. Sure there may be some bedtime headaches as they got used to it. The end of the world? I hardly think so.
Can I cook healthy and fabulous meals in a smaller kitchen without the bajillion single-use kitchen gadgets that our culture would have us believe are necessary to my happiness as a housewife? I daresay I can (and do currently!).
Can we reject the notion that family togetherness is not of utmost importance? Yup. Done and done.
We love being together. We love each other. We love life.
I fail to see the problem.
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What do you think? What kind of space do you live in? What kind of space do you aspire to have?
Would you ever consider living in a (relatively speaking) way small place in order to accomplish certain goals?
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{Linked up with SortaCrunchy for Your Green Resource!}
Trina {Beginner Beans}
Thank you for this post! Someone shared this on a baby board I’m on–I love your blog and will be checking back in 🙂 We’re a family of 4 living in a 1,000 sq. ft. and I LOVE it! It seems no matter how bigger we go, our stuff follows us to fill the space. So it was fun to get rid of a bunch last year and downsize. Now I’m at it again doing my second “Project Eliminate” to try to keep the stuff under control 🙂
Beth
Thanks Trina! I checked out your blog too – it’s great! The stuff really does multiply to fill the space, doesn’t it? Crazy. I love getting rid of stuff too – it’s such a freeing feeling!
Rachel
Our family of 4 (two little ones) live in a 1,300 sqaure foot home…not tiny, not large but just right for us! We love our smaller home, it’s easy to clean, was way below our price range and is cozy!
I love that I can hear my toddler even if he’s in the other end of the house. My boys are in their own room but I can still hear them breathing and turning in their beds at night. We hope to have more children with no plans of upsizing living space!
Beth
Yup, a house where I can’t hear my kids if they’re on one side and I’m on the other? Way too big… not to mention way more opportunity for mischief! 🙂
Danielle Z.
My family recently moved into a home at least 600 sq. feet smaller than the places we’ve been for at least 6 years or so…..and it’s been awesome! We have to be creative about storage and are building a lot of functional furniture and thinking outside of the box for storage solutions, all things that I thoroughly enjoy!
I have three kids, all boys (9, 7 & 5), and they have shared a room for almost their whole lives. Whether they’ve needed to or not. It absolutely can be done, and I think they love it as well. Bedtime recently became a monstrous headache so the simple and AMAZINGLY effective solution was to stagger their bedtimes a bit so they don’t all have to wind down at once. The youngest goes in at 8 and is almost always asleep by the middle guy’s bedtime at 8:20 and even if he’s still awake at 8:45 when my oldest goes to bed the two of them at least seem to have enough self control (usually!) to not chatter or fight or prolong bedtime at all. It’s solved almost all of our bedtime issues!
Best of luck to you in whatever decision you make!
Danielle
organizationalhysteria.com
Beth
Nice to hear that you actually downsized purposefully and loved it. Such a great counter-cultural testimony! Thanks for stopping by and commenting, hope you’ll be back 🙂
Amy Tilson
This is exactly where I am right now in the massively large 4br/3.5 ba Mcmansion that we are renting in a DC suburb. I would never in my life own anything like this, but you rent what is available and the best value for your money. I am an interior designer (or was before moving and the kiddo) and the inefficiency here drives me crazy. And the cleaning… I am not a fan of housework at all and this is just ridiculous. We have land in the southern part of our state that we will build on when we get to move back. The challenge for our architects will be eficiency and opennes without wasted space. I don’t even like sq. footage wasted on hallways if it can be avoided. Simplifying has become a major goal for me and this was of great encouragement to me. Thank you!
Beth
Yup, the amount of housework in a large house – it’s ridiculous! Glad you enjoyed the article 🙂
Handsfull
We live in New Zealand on a 5 acre lifestyle block in a 1900 sq ft home with 4 kids. The attic is about 500sq ft, and at this point is only really used as a space for my husband’s tools, spare beds etc… until we get the money and time to turn it into something else! So our actual usable space is about 1400sq ft. The 3 oldest kids (girl aged 8, boy aged 6 and boy aged 4) all share a room. It’s a good-sized bedroom, so they’re not squashed, but the time is rapidly approaching when my daughter will get her own room. The youngest (boy aged 2) has had the smallest bedroom to himself, but I think he’s shortly going to go in with the other boys and my daughter can have her own room. She needs some space away from her annoying brothers and somewhere to spread out her stuff without those pesky brothers messing it up! I just need to get used to the idea of not having a baby room anymore!
We have lived here for over 5yrs with only one bathroom, but an extra toilet is becoming necessary, so hopefully sometime this year, we will become a 2-toilet family 🙂
We have been putting some thought lately into how we want the house to work when we have 4 tall teenagers (and assorted friends, loud music that we may not love, even louder voices – is that possible?! – and loud musical instruments that need to be practised at inconvenient times) and whether we want to build a lounge at one end of the house that could be a teenage hang-out, or a nice big bedroom for ourselves somewhere away from the racket. At this point we’re thinking the nice big bedroom for us, on the theory that if the only place they have to hangout in, apart from bedrooms, is the open-plan livingroom/kitchen, we can retreat to our room when our ears/brains need a break, but there’s always something that needs doing in the kitchen… so it’s a good excuse to check up on them!
Beth
I love that you’ve thought about how much space you “need” according to your family’s desires, and are purposeful about it. That’s much better than just having tons of space just for the sake of space, ya know?
'Becca
I live in a medium-sized house and feel that we have plenty of space, despite my partner’s home business (occupies a bedroom) and packrat tendencies (2/3 of basement filled with storage shelves). We are thinking of having another baby and therefore re-evaluating our space use, but there’s no question of “needing another bedroom”–we have learned to think in terms of functions and the space they need and which part-of-a-room could serve as that space, instead of assigning each room one function. For example, our dining room includes a dining space, art/game/sewing space, child’s desk, family organization center (master calendar and such), computer space, and many bookshelves! In our previous home we learned that the “living” room was the best place to sleep.
Beth
Yes, that’s an important point – single-use rooms are as silly as single-use kitchen gadgets, in my opinion 🙂
Kacie
Yep. We’re in a one-bedroom. Baby is in the corner in his pack-n-play that he is quickly outgrowing. We’re moving to another one-bedroom and the pack-n-play will be in the laundry room. Is it what I want? No. But it is is what we need to stay in our budget and pay off debt.
I do sort of feel ashamed, but….
I also want to be honest, so that people realize that normal people DO sometimes live this way, and you survive, and it doesn’t affect your value as a person or your intelligence.
Beth
And I think you can even be proud of living in a small space and being counter-cultural in that way… we don’t need anyone to tell us that more square footage will make us happy. We can choose to think differently, and I think that’s awesome!
Rachel
I agree Beth, it’s about choosing to think differently! I’m so happy in my small home and proud of living counter cultural. When visiting the larger homes of friends, I find myself thinking I’m so happy I don’t have to clean a big house!.
Alyssa
I love this post too! Matt and I are in a 2-bdrm apt, which is what we thought we needed when we moved out of our first apartment (which sounds a LOT like your first). It turns out we over-compensated, and the second bedroom is mostly unused except when we have company. For the two years we’ve lived here, we thought we needed the space for storage, but we are planning to host my sister and her boyfriend over this summer, and THAT was the kick in the pants we needed to finally get rid of so much stuff that we really just hoarded into our marriage and to this apartment. Letting those things go has felt so great, and we have definitely changed our attitude towards stuff and the amount of space we need to live well in (realizing less is more!). Come Fall, we might downsize to a 1-bdrm if the financial savings are worth the hassle of moving.
Beth
I hear ya – the thought of having more space is so tempting in theory, until you actually experience it and all the responsibility that comes with it!
Joy
Beth, I love this! We’re on a similar journey to most who’ve commented here: I grew up mostly in smaller houses, which made me really want a huge house of my own…for awhile. We rented generously-sized apartments, then a townhouse, then inherited a 3 bedroom house with a finished basement. We’ve been in the house almost two years, and my constant lament is that it’s too big! We’re all spread out all over the place! (And the cleaning – ugh!) We’re planning on moving back out west soon, and will most likely rent a small 2 bedroom apartment. I’m really looking forward to it! I love it when we’re all together, that’s how we create community in our homes, pass on our culture and values to the littles. And I love getting rid of things, it’s a rush for me (having a massive yard sale soon, can’t wait!). It’s been good for me to see some evidence of a little growth in myself in this regard. So good to hear from so many who’ve had good experiences with the small-space living thing 🙂
Beth
I thought I’d enjoy a big house too, but I soon discovered it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! I love getting rid of things too… it’s so gratifying! 🙂
Serena
Im about to write a book so I apologize in advance. This so speaks to the journey that our family has been on the last 4 years. We looked at our lives 4 years ago and decided the whole living outside of our means, debt, and stress was not honoring to God. So we scraped together our meager savings and made some changes. My parents provided us with 15 acres to build on, and we built the first stage of our house with what money we had, borrowing nothing……it got us 400 sq ft…lol. money goes fast when building a house. So we built a tiny bedroom, a kitchen, a decent size living room, and a tiny bathroom. We downsized over half of our stuff, which was so hard, but in the end so incredibly freeing. Then we moved in and began to save again. We built the next chunk of our house giving us 700 sq ft, give or take…lol. We are a family of 4 (one 8 week old boy, one 7 year old girl). We have 2 tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a front hall. We made the bedrooms small and the living room the biggest room in the house. Our plan was to build a loft in next, however, we have decided not to. We love our space, love that we are always together nver more than 35 ft away. We soundproofed the bedrooms like crazy (double layer of sound insulation) and its amazing how well it works.
We currently share our room with caleb in his crib, and ciara has her own space. Because of our kids age differences by the time he is hout of his crib, he will need his own room, so at that point we are moving out to the Murphy bed, and the kids will have the room. I love our space. Everthing about it we thought and planned out for so long. I hate clutter and have spent hours planning before we ever build anything to make sure things are in place so we don’t have any. Having a baby was a huge challenge space wise, and I so enjoyed planning that out as well. Its amazing what you can find out there with relatively low costs to save space. Caleb has a fold away travel swing that takes up no space at all, as well as a fold away bathtub that fits under our tiny bathroom sink….etc.
We love being together. I homeschool ciara , and terry has been home the last year working on his BA, so we are always in each others space and its fantastic. He is actually taking a job working from home, so it will continue to be that way. I homeschool ciara from home as well. I will say the 15 acres does help though cause I can send her outside if needed. We house sat for my sister last year. She had 2700 sq ft and I remember just missing ciara all the time.
We entertain, ciara has sleepovers, friends over, I have friends over. And last summer we had 30 friends from church and our bible study over with their kids for an outdoor party and it was fantastic.
If someone gave me 300,000 dollars and told me to build the house of my dreams, I would build one prob about the same size….maybe upgrade my kitchen another 100 sq ft or so.
I would encourage you to go for it. The stress financially is just gone. We are living well below our means. Our family is so close knit now. There really is nothing like it =)
Beth
I loved hearing your thoughts, Serena! Thanks for sharing. You are really an inspiring member of the small-space-living club 🙂 I love that your space is really so small by typical standards but you also really love it! That’s pretty cool. I suspect I’d be the same way… though I wouldn’t want to sleep in my living room. But hey, personal preference 🙂 It would be a sacrifice I’d be willing to make short-term, probably.
Grace
My husband and I live in a tiny basement suite. I love it. It keeps me from needing to buy more and more to fill the empty space. And I just laugh when people come over and we have to move the couch and coffee table to pull out the dining table for us to sit around.
We intend to continue living in a small space even as our family grows with children. My Pinterest boards are filled with small house set ups. One house I admire is only 315 square feet. I hope we will end up in somewhere of around 700. I like the idea of the family coming together and sharing the living space and siblings sharing rooms. Also spending more time outdoors rather than inside anyways as well.
Beth
In our last place we always shoved the couch a couple of feet when we had company for dinner as well 🙂 It worked just fine!
315 sq ft. Wow! I’m off to check out your pinterest boards!
Katrina
I agree. Thinking back to when I was growing up I realized that I tended to retreat to my room instead of spending time with my family. I figure this is probably because had my own room & didn’t share it with any of my 3 siblings. When you have a bigger house you have people in all corners rather than gathered together. Now I did like having my own space but looking back I think that I would have been better off spending more time with my family rather than just seeing them at meal times or well watching TV.
We plan on staying here (3 bedrooms) until we can afford something outside of the city with some land (don’t care so much about the size of the house), we would much rather the outdoor space than indoor. Which means that odds are we’ll have 6 people in a 3 bedroom by the end of it & I think that it will only lead to us spending more time together rather than isolating ourselves.
Beth
Interesting, Katrina! I have similar memories (but then again, I am from a family of introverts!). I kind of wished we had all been in the same room more rather than off on our own. It’s still like that in my family! I think 4 kids in a 3-bedroom is TOTALLY doable. 2 kids per room – sure, why not? Sounds like a good plan 🙂
Marissa
I like small…our smallest being a teeny travel trailer…oh unless you count our room with a bathroom that we lived in Haiti. I kind of hate big, I feel like it just allows every one to disappear. But, there are a couple of things that are important to me space wise. I really like having an extra bedroom for guests. We crammed people into our 600 sq ft house and it worked but we were less likely to freely invite people to stop and stay. When we had 10- 1200 square feet and three bedrooms in various houses, we always had a spare room and in was frequently used, which I love. I also like small bedrooms with a large living area so that we can have people over a lot.
Also since I grew up always sharing rooms in a small house, sometimes with multiple siblings, I think it is a good thing and we will be doing that. Still, I remember sometimes just wanting to be alone. Completely. So even now with the girls sharing a room, I try to be mindful of them needing their space and to help them learn to respect that need in each other. Who knows how it will work out as they get older but I think it is important to provide that alone time.
Beth
A guest bedroom has been essential to us here, but if we were living in the same city as our families and closet friends I don’t think we’d need it. I appreciate smaller bedrooms too. We hardly ever use them while awake, so it makes much more sense to have the space in the main living area!
As for the alone time, that’s definitely important too, especially for introverts (which I am). I think we’ll just have to get creative in how we create that space… perhaps one person in the bedroom, and one in the living room and one at the kitchen table, etc. Good to remember, for sure!
Lola
all of our girls share a room and do great. We’ll actually probably put all four kids in the same room as well. They don’t have clothes or toys in their room. They just sleep in it so we just need bed space.
We love living small.
Beth
That’s awesome. We both kids’ clothes all in Aliza’s room, and it is so much easier to put away the laundry 🙂 Where do you put their clothes? I’ve been thinking about doing a family closet room thing, which would make laundry so easy!
Lola
Our clothes and the kids clothes are all in our room in a row of dressers and the closet. Our room is too big for us anyway. It makes it a breeze to put away and stops constant wardrobe changes (Alberta is slightly obsessed). I think we’ll eventually set up a system with the washer and dryer in the same rooms as the “closet” and hopefully close to the bathroom so it’s all in on area. I love doing laundry but hate putting it away so maybe that will help me.
sadie
We currently live in a run down 2 bedroom apt, that has a weird cat pee smell sometimes (we don’t have a cat) and at night cigarette and pot smoke waft in through the bathroom. Your embarrassment over your large house is what I have about my current gross little house, and I’ve had very few people over. We’ve mostly been in under 700 square feet, and for a few years shared a living space with my mom. The last house (as your neighbor) was my favorite we’ve been in, one floor, I always knew where everyone was and could hear everything.
Beth
Yes, those houses are really great, eh? I loved being in the little blue house (as opposed to the medium blue one we’re in now, ha!). One floor living was new to me because I was used to always having a basement, but I did enjoy not having to deal with stairs all the time.
kelly
Beth, I think you are so right! It is weird that houses are getting bigger and families are getting smaller! We live in a 1000 square feet home, with 2 bedrooms and one bath. So far, it has served us very well! We still plan to have more kids, so we hope to sell this house and find something with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths and maybe a bit more space around the dining room table for when friends visit. That’s my dream a house…. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a dining room just big enough that we can cram all our friends and family into on holidays! 🙂
Beth
yes, being able to fit lots of people in around the dinner table is definitely on my dream home list too!
Rachel
YES!! I have to constantly remind of this. Living in a wealthy suburban neighbourhood where my husband serves at the local church, I find myself constantly regarding the giant houses looming on our streets and think to myself, “How are we ever going to afford these when we grow out of our house?” The truth is, our 1,205 sq ft townhouse (plus finished basement thanks to hubby!) is plenty and was a GIFT from God when we didn’t know where we would live and how we were going to afford it. My husband and his two brothers shared one room until they were teenagers and then just two of them shared one room until the oldest got married and moved out and if we have a third, then ours can share too!
Beth
I love that picture of 3 brothers all sharing a room until teenager-hood. How fun is that?! If I remember correctly from our college days – they are pretty close, aren’t they? I’m sure sharing a room probably played a part in that too. Thanks for the comment, Rachel – good to hear from you!
Andrea
Trevor and I were talking about this just yesterday on our way home last night. To be content with less, to not “need” bigger and better, to not fall into the trap of keeeping up with the Jones. We still live in a mobile home, and it is completely ok with us. It’s totally adequate in size, ESPECIALLY when compared with what so many other people in the world live in. We Do Not Need More! (And when we move in September, we’ll be moving to a small apartment space above a garage…and we can’t wait!)
This was really great to read, Beth, and I am going to repost this!! Thank so much for writing.
Beth
It’s so easy to fall into that way of thinking, and I’ll be the first to admit that the idea of a great big house/apartment/whatever has tempted me many times. But my experience of living in a huge house really showed me that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be!
(and THANKS for reposting!!)
Tricia
Hey Beth!
As I read your post I thought of one family at our church who did grow up in an apartment (their whole life) and the 3 sisters all shared a bedroom. They are a closet knit family (even to this day). They lived happily in their apartment and still had gatherings and friends over, and sleepovers. All 3 sisters are all grown up now and married. The parents and the oldest sibling & husband actually all bought a house together in Toronto a few years back. This was the first time they ever purchased a house and the parents have been married well over 25 years. Now the grandchildren have the privilege of being in the same home as their grandparents and parents. What a real treat for those precious kids. This family is generous, loving and such a blessing too many of us. In fact we’ve been over their for dinners with everyone and its always a great time. Its all about being together that matters, not the size of your house.
Beth
Tricia, I love that story of that family. What a great testimony to the fact that the amount of space you have does determine how much you can enjoy your life! Thanks for sharing!
Kmarie
This has always been a huge deal for me. Our culture needs less. Way less. We are stuck in a too huge home for us that won’t sell. I like teeny tiny places. Cozy. This is too much to clean and to deal with. But nothing is moving in tiny town for real estate. Nothing. Realtors advise to try to stay as nothing seems to sell. We are in an unwanted position. When we moved here the plan was to sell after our signed contract( we were not allowed to sell until two years of living from the builder) but then the market crashed and plans went awry. Rent or buy small always! It’s worth it every time. Bigger is not better. I loved this post and have tons of research to add to this sometime but you are completely right. It’s part of our economic crisis. Thanks for posting this. Love small spaces!
Beth
“Bigger is not better”… I totally agree!