Interesting video- thanks! The first house definitely looked livable- the second one, well, I don't think so. I may be slashing the size of our proposed house if the financial slide continues. I don't know how you 'slash' the size of a 1200 sq ft, 1 BR house, but I feel as though we better have a 'Plan B', just in case! Luckily, where our property is, there are no minimums, other than the rooms have to be at least 70 sq ft. Many of the lots we looked at had minimums, some as large as 2400 sq ft. I'm glad we didn't buy one of those!

Jay

Jay,

At this point I would do what you are already doing. Who knows what tommorrow brings, things could be double and you might be cutting some more. Although I have stopped shopping for anything other than needs. And I am worrying about the economy daily too.

Those little houses have to be for off the grid lifestyles. My son is an oceanologist in Hawaii. He lives in a little house the size of my living room and seems to do so quite comfortably. But he is also in an area that allows being outdoors with many options. Perhaps a tradeoff to living tiny.

You might want to take a look at the tumbleweed website, even if you did think that particular house was too small. They make many models, up to about 800 square feet, and they are very cleverly designed:

Here is a link that might be useful: tumbleweed tiny houses

We had an 864 SQ FT house with attached garage which would make it 1200 if the garage had been finished, The last owners did just that. The house was a 2 and 1. Open floor plan on one side. Kitchen dinning living room all like a rail road car. Other side two bedrooms and the bath.Master was 11 1/2 by 14. Guest room was 10 by 11 1/2. Bath was 11 1/2 by?? Forgot. We had the washer and dryer water heater and pressure tank all in the bath room. There was a nice corner shower no tub.

This house was great to live in. The second time we moved into it,long story, we decided if we had it to do over again we would have moved the master bedroom door to the other side of the room. Would have given more wall space to the kitchen. this was the house we built and I MEAN we did it Joe, DH, and I and a friend.But that was 22 years ago.

THEN we lived in an 800 SQ FT house and it had a small, what we called bunk house. It held the over flow. That was a very comfortable house but no place for washer and dryer and the bathroom was not so great.

I think there are compromises as you get smaller. Being an artist I am just not willing to give up creating and my kind of creating takes space. It is the best thing I do for myself and as stated before if I do not have a dedicated space for my art workings I end up trashing the whole house.

So OK My name is Chris and I am a mosaic addict. Hehehehehe

Yes, but it's more than the size that determines how much real space you have. I used to live in a 560 sq ft one bedroom apartment. I moved from there to a 1055 sq ft townhouse and I could barely squeeze my stuff in because the place was so badly designed that lots of space was wasted (the downstairs powder room was 60"x60", for example--too small to make a full bath, but with a lot of empty space not needed for the toilet and sink, but not usable for anything else). Stuff like that. I later moved to another phase of the same development where the square footage is the same but used much better.

In the first townhouse we were always bumping elbows into something, while in this one we feel like we have much more space than we really need.

Chris, I would like to see your art sometime. I love to make things but I'm afraid I just don't have enough imagination to be an artist.

We too lived in a little space about the size of yours. We had 802 living space plus a loft that only the kids could stand up in.

But I loved it. It was supposed to be temporary living but turned into 2 years, and then turned into a garage. When we built it, we knew we would be living in it so built it well. My father-in-law was a builder, brother-in-law was in the construction business, cousin was an electrician, and my dh had also been in the business. It was simple, inexpensive, and felt like double the space.

Someday, I want to build something similar, except for long-term living, and just a little bigger so the in-laws can move in too. But like you, that was 15 years ago & we were younger and dh had a strong back. Now, it will cost more because we will have to have someone do the heavy lifting.

Still, I loved having a house with no payment, cheap utilities, and easy to clean.

writersblock I know exactly what you mean about how the house is arranged,walls and windows wise, as to how useful it is or comfortable. The last house we had had NO walls in the kitchen for cabinets. One of my china cabinets was in the laundry room and the other in my office/sewing/art studio. Finally here I have my china cabinet back in the kitchen. I am so much happier with it that way. Also the smaller house we had had high up from the floor windows so you could out a dresser under the window or...... Here all the windows are 19 0r 20 inches from the floor so we just have to have some of some of the windows blocked. It is not as bad to do so as I thought it would be. I was horrified at the thought at first.

Here we do have what to some seems like a huge wasted space master bath.12 1/2 foot by guessing 8 or 9 foot. There is a reason for it. A second mud room for the us and dogs and if later my DH or I get ill it will be nice to be able to put a comfortable chair or?? in there the ill one can sit on while the other one of us administers to whatever.

marti8a I posted a link to my mosaics below.I am a little bit insane in some of the things I do.LOL I am chomping at the bit for winter and snow to come. Might even happen this weekend!!! Considering pulling my hoses up tomorrow and just leaving one big long one to drag around.Better yet put them all away and let mother nature take her course.This year has just flown by. WOW

Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: Mosaics

Chris, I love your mosaics! Beautiful.

I love them too! What do you do with them? I think the manequin is the greatest!

Ah You like Louise. There is a whole story behind Louise I probably should not get into it here.My life story. I will just say she was a catharsis of all the pain in my life. I gave it all to her and now when I look at her the pain has turned to beauty. She makes me smile. LOL I had hoped to be able to put her in our front window at our new house. Sort of like the leg lamp in the Christmas story. Alas there is not room to do so. LOL LOL LOL My husband is thrilled. That is ok I am still unleashing my insanity one little step at a time on our little town of Midvale.

Thank you I am glad you liked my work. Oh and some of it I sell. Some I can not bear to part with after working on it so many hours.Some of it is done on antique pieces that have been in my life for30+ years and I am too attached to them to sell them. I do plan on doing the back splashes in bathrooms and kitchen in this house and I will add window sills and do them. I guess I will have to try to be conservative just in case we have to sell this place some day. Hopefully by then I will not care about being conservative. Hehehe

Chris

LOL, I think it is all good.

There is a house, owned by a single man I think, on the highway we take to go visit our parents. Every holiday, there is a an old convertible parked out front with 2 female manequins sitting on top of the back seat. On July 4th, they are wearing bikinis, and at Christmas they are dressed as Santas elves.