One of the simplest strategies for living a greener life in a more eco-friendly home is to subscribe to the teachings of architect Sarah Susanka. Susanka is the author of the bestselling “The Not So Big House” series, in which she makes the compelling case for choosing quality and efficiency of space over square footage. Her upshot – a smaller, carefully planned home will always feel more comfortable and cozy than the vacuous expanses of your typical McMansion or Starter Castle. From an environmental perspective, the benefits of not so big are obvious…a smaller home requires fewer resources and less embodied energy to build, and generally consumes less energy to heat, cool and illuminate.
Dave and I live in a 1,200 square foot house built in 1952. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, it is quite energy-inefficient (we’ll be working on that, one project at a time) and we do have a long-range plan to expand our livable square footage to approximately 1,900. We have lots of family and friends visiting us in Colorado, and putting visitors up in my office with an inflatable mattress on the floor and sharing a single bathroom with all of them is a true test of family and friendship bonds. Of course, we’ll be blogging about our energy efficiency improvements and sustainable remodeling project efforts along the way.
So if you are thinking about a new home, think about how not so big principles could help you buy or build less house than you might otherwise have done. Better still, think about how you might implement not so big to stay in your current home and make it work for you. In particular, Susanka’s books “Not So Big Remodeling…” and “Not So Big Solutions for Your Home” can help you be happy staying put. Your soul and your wallet will thank you.
What? You say need room for all of your stuff? Re-think that too. We’ve all fallen into the trap of filling up space with stuff we rarely (if ever) use. A move to a new home can be a great time to sort and shed stuff (be sure to google “donate used your city” to locate organizations who can put everything from eyeglasses to clothes to sports gear to vehicles to productive re-use). It is also an excellent opportunity to start a new habit of buying and accumulating less. Look to George Carlin for humorous inspiration . On the serious side, consider Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff”.
So, get inspired to live larger by living not so big – dig into Sarah Susanka’s great work, and check out the quick video below which shows an example of not so big put into practice in our home.
Dear Dave and Lara,
Thanks for a great YouTube post, and congratulations on your Away Room–a perfect example of a room that does double duty.
One thing I love about the way you’ve designed the TV to move around as needed is that it solves the problem of needing a second TV for when a larger group descends to watch the game or a movie together.
And being able to pull the TV closer to you gives you the effect of a “big screen” TV without it having to overwhelm the space. As I suspect you know, I often say that the size of the screen is really irrelevant. It’s how far away from the screen your eyes are that makes the difference. So if you want a big screen TV, sit closer. That’s exactly what you’ve done, but you are making the TV do the work instead of having to move your chairs closer. Very clever!
For those who are interested in smaller better designed homes and ideas like the ones you show here, I hope you’ll encourage them to visit the http://www.notsobighouse.com website. Not So Big Remodeling, which you mention in your article, will be coming out at the beginning of March, and with any luck will help to make a lot of not so functional older homes a LOT better!
Thanks for a great video clip, and I hope you’ll share more of your not so big improvements in the future as well.
All the best,
Sarah
Sarah,
Thanks for your comments on our blog! You have been an inspiration to both Dave and me since your first book. When we lived in Minneapolis we had about 3,000 square feet, much of which we never used unless we had guests in town. When we moved to Colorado 6 years ago, we started the process to simplify and downsize. It’s been fun and rewarding to put into practice your basic principles in our own homes and now that I have my own real estate company, promoting these ideas to others.
We both look forward to the release of Not So Big Remodeling, as I know we will get great ideas for our own projects, but also because many of my clients buy older homes around Fort Collins (built between 1900 and the 1960s) and then need to update them to make them more functional for how we live today and more resource efficient. I will definitely direct folks toward your newest book, as well as your others and the website.
We do intend to continue sharing our “not so big” success stories via the blog and videos and our hope is to inspire others to log on and share theirs as well.
Best Regards,
Lara