Sandy, while my home is on the large end of the "smaller" def. (1900 s.f.), I think I love the flow of the rooms and the manageability of it all. It just all works so well for us. We put wood floors in the upstairs several years ago and put them in the downstairs just recently (still have the kitchen to go) and they have made such a difference when it comes to cleaning. We have 3 cats who go in and out. And you know how cats like to "cough" up their food every now and then. : ) They're so easy to keep clean. And they've made the place look larger with one continuous flooring running throughout. Money well spent.

I'd encourage you to use more pattern and color. What the heck - it's your home and you can easily change it, especially if it's just paint. Sometimes HD and Lowes have a section of paint that was returned/wrong color/match and at very reasonable prices. You could choose one and experiment with it. And Denver Fabrics has good sale prices on the decorator fabric now and then. You could try a slip cover on a chair They're very easy to sew.

Btw, my dining set is on my back deck, too. It got repurposed when we tore out the old carpeting to do the wood floors. It's a white painted pedestal table and ladder back chairs. Very cottagey so it looks good. I was going to give it away then put it out there and decided to keep it. I am thinking of painting each chair a different color for some pizazz.

I think this may very well be our forever home. But if we move and build again, or buy, it will probably be an even smaller home, maybe about 15-1600 s.f. I like that "feeling closer" phrase. It's as if you really LIVE in your home, making all the improvements seem so worthwhile.

I like your cleaning house phrase, too. I've never minded house cleaning. It gives me a real sense of accomplishment to have a clean home that feels comfortable to all who come to visit. Home keeping deserves a higher status than it gets, imho. : )

Diana

Diana,

How nice of you to share so much of your home and suggestions.

3 cats? I have 2 cats and 2 dogs. Lived rural and on acreage for years too with a lot of house. This little guy has wood floors throughout...sure hope I enjoy your ease of cleaning, they are original floors with a lot of character,

Your support sent me for paint yesterday. I use my old craft paints to mix colors to see what may work and bought an herbal green for the kitchen. Will take the plunge this week. Painting this house has been a challenge as I am going over layers from previous owners, some of which must have been odd mixes and new paint isn't going on easily. One room I used bin first, but even this one took two coats of good quality paint.

As for HP "oops" paint...they have stopped doing this here. On every can it says no return. I asked them about this and they said people were buying paint, bringing it back and then rebuying at the discounted price. People do the dumbest things to save money and ruin a good thing.

AS for rugs and pattern, my kids call me the rug lady....there are 4 huge ones for the living room which I change with my mood and a bunch of others for various rooms. Rugs started long ago with the dogs since they tend to hang around me taking naps...saves the carpet from whatever their coats bring in. The kitchen has never had one, but sure love the look. Actually enjoying the possibilites and change.

I saw a new set of wood patio chairs in a catalog recently. They were painted in 4 different colors, had charming prints for the seats....looked wonderfult. Working on the inside before hitting the patio, but want to do something funky and like your idea. Will exterior paint handle the weather better? My set sure needs to be sealed since being outside, but am waiting to paint it first.

Have upholstered for years too. At first it was to save money using castoffs when first married. Have two slip covers for couch and chairs and have material to do another chair. This one will be from 4 different patterns, saw this a couple of years ago and really liked the affect. There is a book out on slipcovers that are no sew, all done with iron on tape.....tried this and didn't work for me. I'd think the tape would take a beating when washed anyhow. No sewing is going to happen until the rest of the house is in order though. Winter will set in and give me some good days to do so. And probably send me in different directions changing things.

Am familiar with Denver Fabrics, they also have 2 outlets selling upholstery fabric from 3 to 10 dollars a yard. Also have fabric by the pound which people bring in from leftover projects, they sell this for donations to various causes. Not a good place to hang around, too easy to amass the wonderful offerings. I gave many yards of fabric away when I moved....which I'd like to have back....with lack of better judgement.

The daunting part of getting things done is that I am an artist/photographer, very visual. A good thing, bad thing. Bad thing is my patience gets the better of me when things aren't looking the way I visualize. Good thing is I have tons of ideas and can see all evolving. Having the chaos of electrical, plumbing, roof made me bit testy waiting to get to the interior...that is over and now on a roll. Also have company showing up in two weeks which means jumping in quickly on some tasks put off.

This forum is just good fun seeing what others have done and their ideas, photos. I need to be a bit clearer in asking for suggestions, sometimes my head sees it and the writing misses the real question I have.

Enjoy the day....
Sandy

I think it was homemaker who said (on the other side of the forum) that she enjoyed the choppiness and closed off small rooms of her small home because she could feel free to paint vivid colors.
I will have to say that is true here. Although I am TRYING to create some flow, and we are opening things up a bit, I love that our rooms can be painted vivid colors without it looking odd or strange. In some newer homes and especially very large, vivid colors just don't seem "natural".
A smaller home makes me think about stuff. I love stuff but I'm learning I need to live with less stuff both because I don't have a home for it, and also because I don't "NEED" it. OK, I have OODLES of things I do not "NEED" (I am a collector) but I am attempting to scale back.
My biggest beef with the small house? Because we put up so many shelves for storage, I just don't have the room for the posters and "art work" that we have. Which is A LOT.
Sandy, do you find that photographing things makes you look at them differently? I take photographs of my garden designs a lot. It helps me see things through other people's eyes (I think by framing things in views I don't normally gravitate to?)...I can edit and change things much more easily through photographs than with the naked eye. I've been doing this with the interior of the house too. It works.

GGG

Diane,
In the Cozey Den post (discussions), a photo of RalpH Lauren den was posted. It is absolutely georgeous and filled to the brim with furniture and loved items. If I could get away with doing all my rooms as this one....nothing would be let go of. Thing is, our layouts prevent using some of the ideas.
I am trying colors, in safe places like the kitchen, since there is little wall space to cover....already bought green paint. Upgrade work still has me in a mess and want the kitchen back in order before I make another mess with painting. I stayed safe with a beige in the living room due to art, rugs, etc. which change depending upon my moments.

I know a gal that changes her art constantly, but places them on the floor,usually in front of a book case or closet...big paintings, etc. Have never tried this, but her arrangements work.

Regarding photography. I photographed my miniature work for the very reason you suggested. Anything out of scale, in the wrong position or alignment would show up immediately in the photo and allow me to fine tune. Had not thought about this for our real world and an excellant suggestion. Tis sort of the trees for the forest concept. Thanks for reminding me to use the concept. So easy with a digital. Are you using a paint program to make changes too?

This darn forum has me shopping. I'll save the length of message regarding what. The house has a lot going on that needs finishing and no business "shopping".

I am starting a thread on Small Home sites. In the past my searches were Small kitchen, bath, etc. Today was Small House and found a bunch of great sites. Diane, the one you liked sent me a message and one of the writers has her own site which is just as good.

It is dropping to 77 today and we have had constant rain. Can't complain, but mud areas I haven't been able to get to in the back yard need to be taken care of.....why the dogs "have" to walk there before coming in is beyond me. Lots of rugs right now for tracking.

Enjoy the day,

Sandy

I've enjoyed this thread. DH and I moved into our tiny cottage in 1973. At the time it was only 500 sq.ft. Now it is 672 roughly. We had lived in a two bedroom apt. in Spain while DH did his tour of duty for the US Navy and it was quite a bit larger than what we came home to. Our little cottage had been his grandparents. It was on 1/3 of an acre at the time, now it's down to 1/4, because of imminent domain taking a depth of 15' across the front for road widening. For years we didn't do much around our place, other things were going on, but over the past 10 years or so we've really made up for lost time. We love our little compound and I've grown to love our little cottage. We've enclosed the front porch, making it into a little library, we've opened the kitchen to the utility room, we've made a screened porch off the kitchen, opened up 3 ft along the back of the house that was the pump house area. These little projects have made a huge difference in a little bit of space. We've still got remodling to do of the bathroom and the bedroom but all that got put on hold while DH enclosed the polebarn. It was knocked off-plumb by about 3" from Wilma last year and it has huge 6"x6" posts (6 of them). Now that it is enclosed, we still have to partially rebuild a small shed that a downed tree from Wilma's fury fell into. Then we should be able to tackle the bathroom and the bedroom.

We laid laminate flooring called canyon oak in the kitchen, living room and hallway and love the way it makes the place seem larger than it is.

We also are trying to get rid of stuff and not take in anymore things we don't really need. We also have a lot of stacked art bought over the years and occasionally rotate things around to see something different, creating different moods.

We love books, and have a small library. I have over 300 cookbooks alone. I now go to the library and it's a real treat to read books for free then return them.

We saw a segment on 60 minutes the other night about these McMansions and they really are a shame, the one wife had no furniture really and even though she said she liked to cook, all she had was a huge, modern, empty kitchen. The whole place looked like a stage set and was cold and impersonal. What is wrong with people anyway? Times are strange these days, terrorists abound, oil prices are high, there are more gimmicks than you can count of how to part us from our hard-earned money. You never know what is going to happen from one day to the next. I would hate to have a huge mortgage hanging over my head, or huge elec. bills, etc. Living in our tiny place has it's benefits, cheap to heat, cool, repair, remodel. Last year we went without power for 13 days because of Wilma and we survived. I washed clothes in an old plastic cement mixing tub, rinsed them in a 5 gal. bucket. We coiled up a garden hose and laid it in the sun for solar heated showers in the secret garden behind the house. We cooked on a butane stove in an old camper in the back yard. Lucky for us Wilma hit the end of Oct. and as soon as she left our area a cold front came down on us so that we didn't need a.c. or fans. Catastrophes big or small really make you appreciate what you have.

I have a hard enough time trying to keep the dust bunnies at bay, keeping the weeds out of my gardens, and living our simple life. I would hate to be constantly on the go just to keep up with the Joneses, or McMansions.

I am thankful for our little place. It is paid for, it is comfortable. It is our little haven from the hectic world that we live in.

There, I've rambled enough.

FlowerLady

Just wanted say I'm enjoying all your musings on small house life!

I love our house, but am frustrated by the poor quality and bad thinking that went into a lot of the previous remodelling (it was a originally a church.) Maybe it worked for the POs, but I must say I'm puzzled by the 5" nails that stick out everywhere in the laundry room (when I'm feeling bored I take the crowbar down and yank out a few - there must be 500.) Lots of oddities in layout and design and construction that after 3 years we are still trying to figure out.

This our forever house - I keep thinking that with luck I'll have 40-50 years here, so I want to make it really great - doing a lot of long-term planning.

BTW, I picked up some 'oops' paint at OSH - $4 a gallon. It is a great yellow I'm going to use in our bedroom - not what I had planned at all - it's better! Now I just have to do it. I hate painting.