Just as a curiosity. Does your house have a basement? I have a three bedroom 2 bath house just under 1800. No basement and only a small attic crawlspace. We had a house in Idaho years ago that had only 1100 feet but had a full basement - it was huge compared to what I have now.

>>>> Does your house have a basement? Yes there is a 28 X 56 basement, that is almost 1500 sqft of basement 2/3 to 3/4 of which is completely buried "all the way" in the ground. I never go down there, it collects useless stuff that Sindi swears she/we/they might possible at some point in the future might maybe absolutely positively you never know have to have and not be able to find anywhere else on earth except for in our basement...

The oil furnace and HVAC air handling unit are the only things down there that need any regular or any other attention, filter change & done. A 1500 sq ft waste of space, that causes me to lose another almost 40 sq ft of floorspace due to having to have a stairwell.

I have figured the little house wastes a grand total of almost 12.75 square feet. Still a bit too much but I reckon I can live with it.

BTW CADSOFT 3D Home Architect Home Design Suite Version or 8 is excellent for designing and then viewing the design. It is not a CAD program. It does have 3D visuals - and it is amazing what looks good on paper that doesn't work when you see it in 3D. IMHO - it beats paper and pencil by a long shot.

For many people, mere efficiency is not the goal of their homes. What might be "wasted space" to you would be important to someone else. "Good Design" is not fact, it's opinion that's driven by your priorities. Some people prefer separate rooms, some people prefer open plans.

Then again I'm one of those idiot architects you so charitably describe ;)

The largest motorcoach, even at $2 million,.....is still a tiny house. And, there's many people who live in those big/little motorhomes fulltime. So, a "small house" is not always about money.
However, we chose to build a small house mainly because of the "after-the-fact economics". Our 1,715 sq ft house will end up costing quite a bit, per sq ft. But, the cost of the utilities, taxes, insurance, and maintenance will be realitively LOW. As a retirement home, this is extremely important, to us.
Also, I truly enjoyed meeting the challenge of designing a "perfect" small house, but with big house features.
On second thought, maybe it's all about money. If our retirement income was higher, we would've built a 2,500 sq ft house.

Our house is 1200sqft. I would think a "small house," in today's terms, would be anything under 2000 sqft. Given rising energy prices, and the damage done to the environment in the search for fossil fuels, I think the monster houses being built/bought now are unconscionable. Houses as big as 4000-5000 sqft are growing more popular, and I really can't see any justification for energy consumption on this level simply because someone "wants" a house that big. We live on this planet together and our decisions affect each other. It's no longer simply a case of "my money/land, so I can do what I want." What I do with my land and the amount of energy I consume/conserve affects you, and vice-versa. I think we have a responsibility to each other and the planet to live reasonably within our means. JMHO.

My house is 1400 sq ft. 2 adults, 3 kids, 2 cats. I grew up in a MUCH larger house so this seems TINY to me. The fact that DH is a packrat so there is not 1 sq inch of open space makes it seem smaller. But if we had 5000 sq ft it would seem small because he'd just junk it up.

Housing costs are MUCH higer where I live than where I grew up. If I lived in my home town, I'd have 5000 for what I paid for 1400 here. But I agree about the energy costs! Plus, who would want to clean 5000 sq ft & 3 or 4 bathrooms?

Anyone whose house is surrounded by much larger houses thinks they live in a small house. In our neighborhood 2,000 sq ft houses are "huge", 1,200 sq ft houses are "average" and "small" doesn't start until you get down to something like 800 sq ft. In a nearby town people think their 2,000 sq ft houses are "small" because the average size is more than twice that.

I have to wonder what is going to happen in a few years when all those McMansions fall out of favor and people can't sell them? With energy costs going up, up, and up, and more and more of the younger people being concerned for the environment, I think it's possible a lot of those monster houses will become hard to sell, if at all. I really wish people would consider if they really need that big house, I think too many buyers of them are overextended as it is.

My house is a ranch, with only three bedrooms and one bathroom and a full basement. It is only 1040 square feet on the main floor. So I guess it is definitely not much more than a cottage, and even in todays terms most cottages are even bigger. Still, I have lots of gardens around the house, no houses across the street from me, and it is very secluded in the summer because the houses around me are all hidden by wooded lines growing in between.
I also have waterfalls, rivers, marshes, ponds and streams all around me. It is one of the prettiest parts of the town I live in, and one of the wildest as bedroom towns go. We are surrounded by wilds, and lots of trails to hike. So I can deal with the small house. Just as long as they don't mess up the town too much by overbuilding.

My version, my design, of a small house might be quite different than yours. The front of my house (not yet finishied) is to the right (in this photo), and there's a front porch all the way across, which is 48 ft across. The depth dimension is 37 ft (not counting the 38 ft for the garage). BUT, it has 10 ft high walls plus 7/12 roofs, plus the large rear-attached garage. The doors to the 3-car garage are hidden from the street. It's a large corner lot, with the long driveway to the right side of the house. The heated/cooled area is right at 1,720 sq ft, but the house looks a lot bigger due to the porches and large garage, and the height (even thought it's a single-story). The side porch is for my outdoor kitchen (BBQ grille) and the french door leads to the indoor kitchen. It's all very well insulated (BIBs), and cooled by a 2-stage 3-ton Trane. I built it good enough to be our last house.