I have a friend who was raised, along with his 7 brothers and sisters, 2 parents and dog, in a one thousand square foot, non-basement home. Many people in the early years of the baby boom and before can say the same.
When I see the humongous monstrosities of four or five thousand feet that have one or two people living in them, I feel concern for the message this sends about North American attitudes. Do we need as much stuff as we fill these spaces with? Do we need to waste the fuel to heat and cool these spaces?
In Europe, apartments are significantly smaller and in some big cities, people pay big bucks for what amount to tiny dorm rooms. Ikea has several promotions in store showing how liveable ‘my small space’ can be at five hundred square feet.
Deek Diedricksen takes it even further. With mostly found materials, he builds houses and living spaces that are under one hundred square feet. Some of his spaces are under twenty square feet. This is definitely thinking outside the box. His micro homes are more about statement and novelty than function. There are no kitchens or bathrooms inside a twenty square foot space. There is no heater or insulation (or stretching space!) to get you through a Canadian winter. However, there is room for you to crash in the woods during a summer vacation, and there is definitely a lot of creativity here. The point is made. You can live and sleep in small spaces. You don’t need a couple thousand square feet per person!
Check out some of his innovative designs and ponder… What if?
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Shawn L. Bird 
I think the U.S. has absolutely become a land of greed and waste. I grew up in a modest home…we weren’t crowded by any means, but it wasn’t extravagant either. It was what we could afford. Now, you have thousands of homes in foreclosure because folks got stars in their eyes and tried to do what they KNEW they couldn’t.
It seems quite absurd, doesn’t it? It reminds me of a trip I took to the Soviet Union. We passed these huge manor houses in the country around Lake Lagoda. There was a well worn path to the outdoor privy, and the guide told us that several families lived in the house. At some point, the poor and the disenfranchised are bound to rise up against these monumental disparities, particularly in light of the destruction of the middle class. When wealth is concentrated, the people take matters into their own hands to equalize the situation.
It’s a sad state of affairs, when we can even BEGIN to compare ourselves to the old Soviet Union, but it’s true. That, along with bigger government, is ruining the US. And there are less and less avenues to register our misgivings…heck, even my father, long ago, said that one day there would be a revolt. And things when he was around were a lot better than they are now.
Well, it happened 236 years ago, who’s to say it won’t happen again? Who controls the troops? Will they be firing at citizens protesting lawfully in the US next? Not hard to imagine: they’ve done it often enough in the not too distant past…
Who is to say…but I think not. We’ve become lazy, apathetic, and disinterested. Just one look at the morbid percentages of people who vote. Everyone seems to be content with trudging along and doing the best they can with what they’ve been left with. Muttering under their breath, cursing the government and the pres, and doing nothing about it.
Friends and I were this past weekend talking about the Walden house and the appeal of mini-homes. If we were to line up the stations of our life in contiguous space, they’d fit just fine in 400 sq. feet or less. Enjoyed the video. —Chagall
Those little European studio spaces are perfectly liveable, it’s true. (Though the stairs can be a pain). We tend to be prisoners of our stuff. I keep thinking I need to get control of that, but I’m not very disciplined, I’m afraid.
There’s the 80/20 rule at play, I think: we live 80% of our life, in 20% of our home. So why not just cut to the chase? 🙂 —Chagall
Each person in the house operates in different zones. Maybe we need to divide the house into suites? lol
I find that a lot of what we do is project oriented, so maybe a bunch of conference rooms and bedrooms around a common kitchen and living area. Fully networked and stocked. 🙂 —Chagall