Could you live in a smaller home?

[Ima saver]

I want to go smaller next time. I really don't need 3 bedrooms and a library, but everytime we look at plans the house gets larger and larger. My husband wants to rebuild this house and make it bigger. We use to have parties a lot in our last house and needed a bigger place.

[funnyvalentine]

I live in a 670 sq ft house with two little cats and a big dog. I do have a 70 sq ft greenhouse, which is not counted as part of the house, and it makes the house feel much bigger. I don't need any more than this; I have a nice living room, a cool backyard and a home office.\


I live in affluent North Jersey, where many of my clients' kitchens are bigger than my house. The tax base is insane, and every square foot costs. I think that many of my neighbors get caught up in the cycle of impressing their friends and neighbors without any clear thought on what they really need.

[stngymama]

We live in a 800 sq ft house. There are two grown-ups, two teenaged girls, 2 dogs and 3 cats. We have 2 bedrooms: the girls share a 10 by 10 ft space with one of them having to use part of a closet in the "master" bedroom. Of course only one bathroom. Luckily we're in a temperate climate and can be outside 90% of the time. We also have a large enough property to have two other separate, albeit small, buildings one for storage the other an outrageous playhouse (2 stories) built when the girls were young. I think the climate is the only saving grace for us!
Living in the SF Bay area, we couldn't have afforded anything bigger until recently and early on decided we'd rather not pay a huge mortgage under any circumstances and particularly not now when the kids will be off on their own in a few years. We have a $760 mortgage and will be paid off in about 13 years. FREEDOM!
It also helps that when we were first married and until my oldest was crawling, we lived on a boat with NO room (the shower was on the back deck )