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Is bigger always better?

For many homeowners, less is so much more...
The average American home has more than doubled in size since 1950. But a number of people are bucking the McMansion trend -- and finding their smaller homes to be more than ample.

By Christopher Solomon

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As an increasing number of Americans see it, our overfed physiques and gargantuan SUVs aren’t the only things that could use some slimming down -- the ballooning American home needs to go on a diet, too.

Consider the evidence: The average American home swelled from 983 square feet in 1950, to 2,349 square feet in 2004 -- a 240% increase. Yet the American household shrank by 18% between 1970 and 2003, from 3.14 people to 2.57, on average.

But does square footage equal happiness?

In recent years, a less-is-more upswell has begun, stoked largely by architect Sarah Susanka’s bestseller, “The Not So Big House,” and related books. Susanka and her cohorts’ message is simple: Smaller can be beautiful, and better.

Trashing the big = success model
“There are always going to be people who want the big house, even if they don’t need or even use all of that space, and the reason is that a part of our culture associates bigness with success -- a big car, a big house,” says Michelle Kodis, author of “Blueprint Small” and other books. But, Kodis adds, “There is a whole other group of people, which is quite significant, who want just enough space, who don’t want to be showy, who don’t need 10,000 square feet to show that they’ve made it in America.”

Susanka has zeroed in on this group even further. “It’s at least a quarter of the population of the United States (referring to what author Paul Ray calls the “cultural creatives”) who look at what’s happening in suburbia and say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want that.’ They have historically purchased existing houses in the inner ring of the suburbs. The reason they’ve done that is that the houses have character and the neighborhoods historically are strong.” These people are often educated, progressive types of varying income levels who think about more than just their own needs. “You could say they have ‘green’ values,” Susanka says, speaking from her not-so-big home office in Raleigh, N.C.

The trend toward smaller, more finely outfitted domiciles is particularly obvious in urban areas right now, argues Richard Gollis, principal at The Concord Group, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based real estate research firm. That’s because cities are home to the “urban barbell” -- older people without children, and young professionals without children, who want to enjoy the vibrancy of a city.

“We’re starting to see that buyers are willing to trade off size, square footage, for location,” says Gollis.

Small as radical
Susanka’s idea was so simple it was radical: “It’s time for a different kind of house,” the architect wrote, manifesto-like, in her 1998 book “The Not So Big House.” “A house that is more than square footage; a house that is Not So Big, where each room is used every day. A house with a floorplan inspired by our informal lifestyle instead of the way our grandparents lived.” She derided most spraddling suburban tract homes, with their unused dining rooms and their too many bathrooms, as spacious but not particularly comfortable -- less nests than “massive storage containers for people.”

That book, and the five that have followed, clearly tapped into something. More than one million of Susanka’s books have been sold since 1998, including the latest, “Outside the Not so Big House: Creating the Landscape of Home,” which just appeared. A bevy of books by other writers in recent years have struck a similar theme.

How much room does a couple or a family really need, anyway?

“As long as you use all of the space actively, that’s the amount of room you need,” says author Kodis. “The goal of smaller-space living is not to cram yourself into a smaller space to make a point.” Instead, in such a home, “There’s no wasted space, but it’s comfortable.” For example, how many families honestly use their formal dining rooms or living rooms -- a few times a year? Then why pay for homes with them, and pay to furnish them? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on creating a very well-suited kitchen/dining/living area, since most families spend their time there, ask Susanka and others.

How small is small?
Indeed, the very definition of “small” varies depending on each family’s needs. Having children won’t preclude you from going smaller because it’s less about buying a home under the median square footage and more about rethinking your needs.

Here’s Susanka’s general rule of thumb: After seriously evaluating how they use their home, day in and day out, homeowners usually can expect to comfortably reduce the size of their next home by one-third.

Susanka recommends using the money saved to personalize the home with lots of fine details and “built-ins” -- sleek storage, great floors, interesting ceilings and recurring, unifying details (from a tile motif, to a pattern in the wainscoting and other woodwork). That is, they remain even if the house were turned over and shaken. Taken together, these make the smaller home particularly charming and livable. (For tips on maximizing space, click here.)

That’s happening, to some degree, among the urban barbell, says Gollis. “What we’re seeing is very small units loaded with the very best features -- Viking and Wolf ranges, very expensive bath features, nice tiles and marble on the floor -- really almost like a yacht-cabin approach, like a ship, everything in its place,” he says.

One urban example of small spaces, thoughtfully rendered, is rising in downtown Seattle. The developers of the 94-unit Lumen condominium complex have made a priority of cultivating a feeling of airiness, through the use of light and creative floorplans. “From the front door to the outside (glass) wall, there’s a 40-foot run of cabinetry” built into the units, says co-developer Alan Winningham. Movable glass partitions, like Japanese shoji screens, will allow each home to be divided into different configurations. Each condo will have a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that opens onto a balcony that will feel like part of the living area, he adds, and make the homes feel larger than their 500 to 2,100 square feet. Another option will be a platform bed with gas struts that will lift to reveal a storage area.

Why small can be better
But why think small, you ask, besides just modesty? Experts say that the more modestly proportioned home has many advantages:

Less use of materials. A smaller house doesn’t only use fewer natural resources, it requires fewer large furnishings to fill it.
More comfortable. “Humans have a tendency to want to nest just like other animals, so big cavernous spaces just aren’t as intimate and comfortable as a room that’s scaled down to a person’s size,” says Kodis. In other words, Versailles may be impressive to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. A lot of today’s 5,000-square-foot homes are designed to overwhelm, not welcome.
More efficient. Smaller spaces are cheaper to heat, and take less time to clean.
Addition of pleasant details. People often can’t afford to do much customizing to big houses -- there’s simply too much of them -- but in a small house you can redirect money to add delightful touches. Susanka, for example, added handsome (and costlier) cherry veneer on the door to her work studio, an extra touch she sees every day that makes her happy.
World peace? OK, maybe not. But “smaller space keeps you more connected with your family,” and leads to better family relations, suggests Kodis.
One family’s success
Tracy Stanton is a believer. A few years ago, the environmental consultant decided to incorporate some of Susanka’s ideas when expanding the one-story, 1,800-square-foot 1950s rambler she owns with her husband in Bethesda, Md. “It had no curb appeal; it wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t interesting either.” The couple looked hard at its needs and decided to scale down its renovation, only adding a second-floor study and making several renovations to the ground floor.

“We both love the outdoors and light, so we tried to bring as much of the outdoors inside as we could. So we have skylights in our second-floor addition, and natural wood and earth tones … things that made us feel that we were sitting out on the back porch with our feet up,” Stanton says. During renovation, when the contractor uncovered the old structural two-by-four studs, the coupled decided to have them covered with a handsome wood veneer in order to make a more interesting ceiling. “It feels more roomy and has got more texture to it than just a flat ceiling,” Stanton says.

Downstairs, among other changes, the couple gutted the kitchen and opened up the floorplan. Now, “you can see from the front door all the way through the house and into the back,” she says approvingly. The kitchen is “open and airy and light.” And, importantly, the house doesn’t overwhelm the neighborhood.

Stanton did realize one thing, however: Some of Susanka’s ideas for built-ins -- custom cabinets and the like -- can add up quickly. Even after abandoning some of those ideas, the couple still went about 15% over budget, she recalls.

How much is this gonna cost me?
Ah, the money question. You can downsize to a smaller home and save money, or build a little jewelbox and spend just as much as before, or more. Susanka suggests downscaling the size of a house, but then using the cost savings for beautifully detailing the house.

Often, the homes in books have been drawn up by an architect, who generally charges between 10% and 15% of the home’s construction cost, depending on the services. But don’t let the “A” word scare you off, experts say. “You can have a custom home without spending a fortune,” insists author Kodis. “It’s really about the types of material you purchase. It’s really about the size.”

Hearing readers’ concerns, however, Susanka is now at work on a book called “Remodeling Not So Big,” to appear in 2008. “It’s going to be about very simple things you can do in Anyhouse, USA to make it better,” she says.

Average size of new homes built in various developed countries

Country Sq. feet
United States 2,349
Canada 1,800
New Zealand 1,900
Australia 2,200
U.K. 815
Ireland 930
Japan 1,000

Sources: U.S. Census; Canadian Home Builders Assoc.; 2006 2nd Edition Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey; other