You'll definitely find more love on the Small House Forum. Even on there are a couple of lurkers who really do not like small homes. We're actually wanting to build something that's around 1000 sqft but with no garage.

For some reason people think a very small house can't be used for universal design or handicap accessibility and that is sad. I actually posted a house about a week ago on this forum but had posting remorse and deleted it. So I will probably not post my plans in the future.

I really want to build a late '20's or early '30's bungalow so I am researching vintage house plans from that era. We'll have to take them to an architect of course, but I find older plans have character and use the small spaces better than new small plans do.

We are thinking of downsizing to a 1800sf ranch (or 1.5 story cape cod), with 3 bedrooms, 2-2.5 baths, and full basement. We've always liked ranches, but for the same sf, cape cod will probably be more environment + budget friendly.

We are still quite far away from building, so it's uncertain what exactly we will end up getting. But we know we definitely want an energy-efficient and low-maintenance house -- small footprint, excellent insulation with good ventilation, standing-seam metal roof, no lawn, no pool, etc.

Below is a link to a one-story floor plan (by Unity Homes) I like, which is net-zero ready. (I don't like its contemporary look, but I don't think it will be hard to change it to a traditional or farmhouse style.)

I think I'd have a detached 2-car garage, sitting on the north or northwest side of the house, with the garage doors somewhat close to the front entry to the house. The front door would face north.

Anyway, I've been reading extensively about construction methods, passive solar system, insulation, wiring, plumbing, etc. The more I read, the closer I feel I am getting to my dream.

Here is a link that might be useful: Unity Homes / Bensonwood - ZÅ«m 333 (1660sf living area)

Ours is about 2200 too. I hope you post more about your house here. We were aiming for 1800 but we just could not make it that small with all the things we wanted. I was sad when it came up over 2,000 but it is a very good size house for us now that the walls are up. There is no wasted space.

I will link to my blog, you can see the floorplan under the floorplan tab. The house's final design was done by a member of this forum :)

Here is a link that might be useful: House Blog

We're building a 2150 sf 2 story, which in cost is probably comparable to a fairly simple 1700 sf ranch (at least around here). I'm more concerned with the cost of houses rather than their size.

You will also not get much love here for building a small house and a big garage (or, as I have seen it called, a garage with an attached living space), particularly if much of the house is hidden behind the garage.

If you search for phoggie --on both smaller homes and the build forum-- you'll find a house about the size you are looking to downsize to designed mostly (or entirely?) by another forum member and built by Amish. She had a very positive, quick building experience and her house went up quickly.

Here was one iteration of the floorplan (I think this is the one that was essentially built):

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1439544}}

Here's the latest thread on my building plans. 1700 sq foot ranch with basement, minimal bumpouts, and as of the post midway down on 5/15 a very simple roofline.

We currently live in a 1500 sq ft two story home + 300 sqft finished basement. The new plan is 1700 sqft on one floor, so once we finish the basement it's going to be a much larger house than what we have now. It seems like a huge house to me on paper at least.

Personally, I really don't get the 3000+ houses. I've never been in a house that big that really felt comfortable and/or didn't seem to have a lot of wasted space. To each their own though!

Feel free to steal anything you want from it, it's my own design (with help from the friendly folks on this forum!).

Here is a link that might be useful: ZGA's 'small' houseplan

We're building an 1820 sf two-story. It's pretty modest, and does have a garage built right into the front (requirement of the neighborhood). It's narrow (30 ft) and pretty basic, so nothing much of interest to most on this forum. We love the neighborhood, the subdivision park and the woods behind the house, and so we're fine with the house requirements. It was originally 2300 sf, and we've managed to downsize it to its current size and not eliminate anything we really wanted. To keep it feeling spacious, we're using a lot of high ceilings (9 ft, with vaulted to 12' family room and dining), tons of tall windows toward the wooded back, and a semi-open floorplan with all of the bedrooms upstairs. I'm really happy with the plans (I designed it, so I'd better be!)

IowaCommute, have you looked at 'Craftsman Homes' and 'More Craftsman Homes' on google books?

I've enjoyed looking at those. There are some things that need modernizing, but they really go into a nice amount of detail on describing the plans and what/why they did certain things.

Some of the things that need updating in my opinion are kitchens that are severely separated from the rest of the house (+ 'servants' quarters behind them!), typically only one bathroom, and the apparently ubiquitous 'inglenook' or fireplace room.

We are building a 1800 square foot ranch with roof trusses for additional square footage in attic. 3 bedrooms on main, 2 bath. Rec room, bedroom, bathroom in attic. I can email you plan if interested. Ours does have portion of house hidden by garage though.

ZGAnderson, I have only read a couple of excerpts of those books, but I think I'm going to check them out since you recommended them.

I agree about the modernization as well. I love the site in the link (Antique Home Style) which also has a couple of sister sites-one with all bungalows. These sites include tons of plans from kit builders in the early 20th century. Some ads even have colored drawings of rooms with furnishings.

There are a couple of bungalows we're seriously considering. We really would like to keep it around 1000 sqft. Our first home was 860 sqft 3 bed 1 bath ranch with basement, and our current home is 1600 sqft with walkout basement. This home is way too big. I have a lot of back pain from an old car accident, and it kills me to do a thorough cleaning of this house every week (well really every day since I have a toddler and the house is on the market).

There will just be the three of us, and we're going to build on my in-laws family farm in Iowa. My husband and I both were raised in a single bath home, but we will have a second bath in our finished basement.

I really love the story and a half bungalows with a small shed dormer on the front.

Here is a link that might be useful: Great early 20th century home plans

We just built a 1698 sq ft home with a 300sq ft bonus and love the size. We came from a 900 sq ft home so it is huge to us! We also have about 1100 sq ft of porches. We like small homes, feels cozy to us.

There is also a great thread on the smaller homes board asking about how many people live in their small home in what square footage. What I've noticed, is that about 500sqft/person is a comfortable size (large enough).

So, to me, 1800sqft for 2 people is still a large home. Though, for our family, I can say for a fact that we were okay as a family of 3 in 1400sqft, but when we went to 4, we were cramped within the first year. Now, we have just over 2000sqft--still a small home--and it feels so spacious! (no exterior patios/decks either, because I live in rainy PNW where you spend most of your time INSIDE! I also think it is sort of funny when someone in some very temperate/warm region says, I live in 800 sq ft but I have 1200 sq feet of outdoor living rooms... not quite the same as saying I live in 800 sq ft. )

YMMV

We are going to have a house close to 2000 to 2100 sqft. I think that will be comfortable size for us. Ideally would have liked to keep it around 1800 sqft but it is not working out. I know freinds who live in 4000 sqft. Houses with 4 people living in the houses which feel huge to me. One thing is we will not have a basement ( not very common in california). So when people say 1500sqftwith full bAsement that ismuh more living space than what we will have.

We are moving 'up' by building an 1800ish square foot 1 1/2 story for a family of 4 and one dog. We just met with our house designer today. It isn't as large as some but we are very excited about it. :) We hope to have our first draft in the next 3 weeks.

So, while you (we) might be in the minority you are definitely not alone. I still personally love looking at everyone's builds whether they are 3 times the size of my own or not. There are a lot of great ideas that float around that can be incorporated into smaller homes and hopefully the smaller budgets that go along with them.

Lisa

We're currently building 1250 sq ft in rural SC, down from about 1600 in FL. It's just two of us, so it will be plenty. Rather than gross square footage, we're putting our money into superior energy efficient construction and custom features. Since I'm building it myself, I can pretty much have what I want, at least as far as labor is concerned.

I think porches are awesome and fell in love with a plan that has three. A front and back covered porch and a small screened porch off of the dining room. I agree especially with a small house porches (and a basement) are a must.

We are building a small home size about 1700 sq ft. Yes lots of people on here build huge homes, but there are still many of us on here that build smaller ones.

Kirkwall, I don't think I buy into the idea of 500 sf per person. If I lived alone, I'd still need a kitchen and bath, and those things would still need to be approximately the same size regardless of whether 1, 2, or more people use them. I mean, a toilet is toilet-sized no matter how many people us it, and most of us want a standard-sized stove even if we live alone.

I suggest a more reasonable formula is

X amount of space + an additional Y amount of space per person.

X is the stuff you're going to need regardless, and Y is the space needed for bedrooms, personal storage and ace to live.

Perhaps. I've just noticed, for a "normal family" that about 500sqft/person is about right. And, I know plenty of retired couples who are comfortable in 1000-1200sq ft of space. And, I know our 1000sq ft apt was more than enough for my partner and I when we were first married--before kids.

And, when I say we went from 1500 sq ft to just over 2000--I mean it. No basement. No exterior. (We increased 1 bath too.) Basements aren't common here either and I always forget about them.

This post was edited by kirkhall on Mon, May 20, 13 at 19:15

We are currently in an 1140 sq. ft. log cabin. Family of 4 with a large dog. It's too small. We are adding...we have plans for an additional 1456 but I'm trying to get closer to 1200 (2340 total). I don't want the addition to be so large that we need to move when the kids are out. I do however dream of having family dinners and friends gathering.
As Kirkhall said the exterior space makes up for a lot of what we lack but, we also have no basement or attic storage. It's hard when you have visitors and it rains....think panic mode;).
Fgargoyle I'm searching for your floor plan next. Your build has been a joy to watch.
OP-a finished basement makes a world of difference.

I agree with you Kirkhall. When DH and I got married, we lived in 1200 square feet. It was fine for us. Then we had our first baby, still fine but a bit tight. Then we had our second daughter (who was in our room till 10 months) and we HAD to get more space. 1700 in our rental was fine, but that is with too tiny kids- I am thinking 2200 will be good since we will live here when we have two teenagers.

wow, lots of input. Thanks for those links.

Our current plan comes in at 1625 ish sq feet in sourthern NH. It's just the wife and I and our daughter comes home from college on breaks but she's going on to grad school so we'll call it 2.5 people until she moves our 100%.

A multi-car garage is an absolute must and the integration was definitely considered not only for the dominance, but how it works with our lot. House is going to have a 3 car garage and I will also have a 12x16 shed.

Our house will be nicely appointed, but just don't need a large house. One thing going smaller will enable us to do is put down a significant downpayment and I expect we'll have it paid off in 7-8 years.

Unfortunate that some biased against smaller homes.

Our house is small for our area where most homes are 5,000 and up (the town has a minimum sq ft requirement of 1500) ....ours is 2100 sq ft on the main floor...but it feels larger due to the design principles we used about open spaces and making them feel more closed in without actually closing them in or the use of light throughout the space.

The advantages of building smaller are so many: it's so much greener as it uses less material, less to heat/cool, less to furnish, less to insure, less to pay taxes on, less to maintain, less to finance.... We also used the savings of building smaller to enhance the finishes we included in the house.

If you haven't seen the series of Sarah Susanka books on the Not So Big House, you will definitely enjoy them.

We did well in our 800sq ft. home with a family of 3, but that was in a moderate climate. Now that there are 5 of us and we're living in Minnesota, I feel like we need a little more space to avoid going nuts in the winter. But we still didn't need the 3700 sq. ft. we had in our last home.

I think 2300 with a basement will be a nice size for us, and hopefully not so big DH and I feel the need to move immediately once our nest is empty (in 11-15 years, depending on whether the kids go to college locally).

Anniedeighnault - wow, 5,000 and up. Boggles the mind. Perhaps they all work from home, have at least six kids, home school and have grandparents living with them. You'd probably need that much space then! :)

Houses generally aren't nearly that big here, but there are some. My house is about 2200 or 2300 square feet I think, over two floors, no basement, one garage. It is great for our family of four, and we entertain frequently. In my urban neighbourhood my house is considered large. In my city it is probably on the large side of medium. If we had four kids we would probably need larger.

The lakeside vacation/retirement house we are building will be about 900 square feet, plus another 500 or so in the walk out basement.

our plan had a variation that was 2000 square ft dh
refused to even consider it he said it would be hard to sell if we ever needed to sell it.....
the one we chose is 2300 ..... I still liked the smaller version better..

Our last house was the smallest in our neighborhood. It is just 2 of us so it fit us well, there was still more space than we needed at ~2000 sf. Some of the other homes were well over 3000 sf. We sold it in less than a month during the housing meltdown to a growing family. So there are others out there that don't always seek out larger spaces.

Buddy of mine is in one of these massive homes....then they added on this great big sun room, so the living room sort of became part of the foyer. They have 3 kids, and each has their own private bath and walk in closet. The master which is over the 3 car garage has a room off the side which is as big as our dining room, in addition to the master bath which is as large as our library.

So he was thinking of finishing off his basement, and I said, "Why? Your family can still find each other?"

Amazing. Though they both come from a large family and it is typical for them to have 40 people for dinner including overnight guests....

I noticed that Kirkhall posted the floor plan that I built...with a couple of changes...1635 sf, handicapped asseccible, one story...no steps...3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms...double garage...and I LOVE it! There are multiple pics of it...on the building forum as well as on small houses. I built on a lake, so most of the back side is windows so I have a beautiful view. As was stated, I was blessed with a wonderful crew of Amish builders and it was a wonderful experience that I would do again in a heartbeat...even at 71 years old.

Now living full time in our 1760 sq ft one story house and we love it. Two of us and a golden retriever. Our previous house, built in 1913 was about 2700 sq ft on three floors. Both of those areas do not include the unfinished basements. Plans are in the first few images and do not include the detached garage we added last year. You can see photos of that if you work from the last photo and go towards the beginning.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vitt Hus

Sorry about the double post!?

This post was edited by jolsongoude on Wed, May 22, 13 at 7:14

Jay-thank you for sharing your shunning home! Do you have a floorplan you could post? This is the perfect "small" for this anyone...I promise to walk and feed Otto;).

Thanks Sticks - it's certainly perfect for us. The first few images in the gallery are some drawings. The main floor plan is linked below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plan

Thanks Jay! Hope this helps the OP too.

Um Jay.... your house is amazing! I am in love! That is the only other style that we might have gone with- all white modern farm house but DH really wanted shingles :)

Your photography is great too!

I think I looked at all 600 pictures! It's nice to see a home that is on the smaller side with size but not with style and aesthetics. :)

Thanks for sharing.

Lisa

Jay, You house is amazing. Thanks for sharing

I know you've heard it multiple times, but, Jay, your house IS great. It's not unlike the house we're planning, so I'm glad to see that your square footage seems adequate -- even spacious. Your rooms are just about the szes we want. Would you mind sharing the size of your main rooms? I can't read them on the floor plans.

Thanks all.

MrsPete rough sizes listed below (nothing feels tight to us):

Living Room 17x18
Kitchen 16x15
Dining Room 11x15
Screen Porch 11x15
Bedroom 1 13x16
Bedroom 2 14x15 (including closet)
Bathrooms 9x7 (including showers)

HTH,

Jay

I think your rooms don't feel crowded because of your windows and because they aren't over-stuffed with furniture.

The living room we're planning is slightly larger than yours.
But our kitchen will be smaller . . . with an attached large pantry.
Our dining room and bedrooms are within a foot of yours.

Seeing your pictures makes me feel good about my sizes.

Jay, What a beautiful home!! Thanks for sharing!

Very nice, J...love the simplicity. Your photos illustrate your good eye for design.

Only thing that's missing are some solar panels on that roof!
;)

Some day, Annie - the house was sited and designed with that in mind.

This post was edited by jolsongoude on Thu, May 23, 13 at 16:03

I also love Jay's house, defnitely my kind of layout, which illustrates the fact that money saved by packing everything into a compact footprint and limiting corners requires big tradeoffs.

How did I know???
:)

Hopefully by the time you add them, they will be less expensive and more efficient. We have 5kw on our roof and it's lowered our energy costs substantially.

haha; I feel embarrased when I got excited to read about small houses...1600 sq. ft. still seems big to me!! I'm doing 1350 sq. ft. which seems perfect right now (just me) with the ability to expand if there's ever kidlings. It's designed for 2 plus 1 child, and seems the perfect size at 1350 sq. ft. Easy to build, quick to build (relatively) and the mortgage is small enough to be paid off before retirement. I grew up in a family of 5 in 1500 sq. ft. and it was never an issue (didn't even share bedrooms). Guess "small" is still miniature to me! ; )

We are building a 2040 square foot log home. We had to be creative with the attached garage - move some of the unheated garage space into the heated envelope of the house in order to get over 2,000. Our HOA requires at least 2,000 sq feet in our particular area. Silly rules! It's just the two of us, but we do expect to use the space. 3 bedrooms - one will be an office for my dh to use when he telecommutes (occasionally). The other will be an exercise room with treadmill, a few weights, and exercise mat.

This is an open floor plan - easier for heating with a wood stove, and will work better in a log house, I think.

Anyway, we have a walk through MB closet and bathroom - they both connect to the MB and to the utility room. Easy access to the w/d area from the two rooms most likely to produce the most amount of laundry. We also have a mud room.

This is one story, partly b/c we want to live in this when we're into our 70s, and be comfortable there. But also - I have serious knee problems - stairs can be difficult. And - we both like the openness of one story houses (but finding a one story plan was difficult).

I'm excited about our house - just waiting for our lender to give us the okay to start. Our loan officer is supposed to call me when we're okayed - I am here waiting for my phone to ring. I have NO patience right now.

We raised our family in a 3,000 square foot home, which took a lot of cleaning time if you ask me! The next one we built was about 2200 square feet and lived in that for several years. I liked the house, but hated living in a subdivision.

The one we just finished building, and plan on staying in until they carry us out of here is about 1700 square feet. We designed, engineered, and built this house ourselves. It is plenty big for us. We will be able to age in place here. There is plenty of space in each room for easy wheelchair access.

Since we don't give a hoot about what anyone else thinks, or for "resale" value, we designed with fewer, but larger rooms. We have one large master bedroom, a really nice bathroom, a half bath, large kitchen with the laundry room and large walk in pantry right off of it, and the great room that is open to the whole kitchen, but sectioned with a sewing area and a living room area.

When family comes to visit we have a couch that pulls out into bed and high quality air mattresses. We can close a pocket door on our hall that closes off our whole master area for complete privacy. Lots of windows that bring nature right inside. We also have a full wrap around porch that we use constantly. No one has minded "camping" out here and we have such a good time because everything is informal.

We built a log home, and it is a simple rectangular home that is a replica of the simple old time Florida homes. No bumpouts. No convoluted rooflines. Every person that has come to visit says this is an awesome house and hates to leave.

You can have a smaller, simple, but well built, and tastefully decorated home that no huge home can ever match in atmosphere.We decided a ruby red bluestar range, wood walls and ceilings (never have to paint again) and the fantastic porch were way more pleasurable than having square footage meant only to impress someone else and would never use. We have a glass of wine or cold beer in a frosted mug every evening on our porch while watching trhe sun set.

Sandy, Could you post your floorplan? I don't remember ever seeing it. I'd love to browse a photo or two. We have a log home too and enjoy it emensley.