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How Small Can You Go

When thinking about downsizing your home, you have to consider how small of a home can you really live in with your family. In The New Small House, Mary Ann Romans mentions that newer homes have dropped from the average size of 3000 square feet to 1200 square feet when the average home twenty years ago was 1600 square feet.

She ads that by downsizing your home you decrease your utility costs as well as your mortgage or rent payments. While uncomfortable, it is definitely, an attractive trend. Read Frugal Benefits of a Small House.

But how small a space can your family survive in? I have discovered how small my family can go through trial and error. From vacation outings to counting the actual rooms in the home that we use on a daily basis, it is clear that the four of us could easily move to a house half the size of our existing home, not even including basement space.

Vacations have taught us that we do need at least two bathrooms, and separate bedrooms are preferable.

As I have a boy and girl teen, I know we need three bedrooms, one for us, and one for each of them. We don’t need a guest room and we could easily give up two private offices and condense into one small media room. We also rarely use our dining room, so an eat in kitchen would be plenty. We only use the formal living room for the kid to play the piano, so that room could go to, as the piano could go in the family room.

I have also visited apartments and small homes of friends and relatives and tried to envision us those smaller spaces. It really wasn’t too big of a stretch. Most 1600 square foot apartments have three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen/great room open floor plan with a nook here or there to fit a desk and bookshelves.

When trying to decide how small you can go, walk around your home looking at the rooms you use daily and the rooms you use once or twice a month. Eliminate the rooms you don’t use daily. Eliminate extra bathrooms, leaving one for the kids, and one for the parents at most. Decide if you can do without the home office and guestrooms, or combine the two into one.

By sticking to these rules, you will allow each family member to keep the amount of private space they currently have and still move down to a smaller home.

Now all you have to do is try to sell your larger home in a bad economy.

If you liked this you should also read my blogs at the homeschool blog, the parents blog, and the frugal blog. You can read my recent posts here.