Little House

House
Originally uploaded by Poundstone.

Watching 60 Minutes last night, Morley did a story on the houses nouveau riche Americans are building now. They're getting bigger and bigger. The folks he interviewed had no shame about the size of their homes - apparently 30,000 square feet for a family of two or three seems reasonable to them. One woman actually had to stop and count when asked how many bathrooms there were in her house. (Turns out there were seven. For a family of three. Oh, and six televisions.)

Meanwhile, here in our 900 square foot, 1.5 bedroom, 1 bath apartment, I've never felt more at home. We're still working on getting everything in its proper place - the key to living in a small space - but it's just unbelievably lovely to me.

For a long while I've been interested in living in small spaces, and have looked at many books on the subject. Apparently it's a hobby of certain architects to build tiny houses for themselves. It's the ultimate challenge: all architectural elements must fit together seamlessly for it to be a comfortable place to live.

It's strange, though, the reactions I get when I tell people I live in an apartment. Probably mostly beause we're having a baby, and people think that' the time you "should" be buying and moving into a house. But people mostly seem to get freaked out by the space constraints. Well, I've got some news for folks: most people in the world don't live in spacious houses with a living room, dining room, a bedroom for every person, and a backyard. And somehow they survive.

For me, living in this space is a continuing exercise in determining what I really need. I keep running across the William Morris quote: "You should have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." This seems like a better philosophy than, say, "You should have as much space in your house as possible so that you may amass ever-increasing amounts of possessions."