how big of a house do you need?

[k15n1]

How big of a house do you need to live the SS life? More precisely, if you are accustomed to a house of a certain size, how much more space do you need to store your jars, canner, apple press, etc?

 

[SSDreamin]

That would depend - would I be able to have a basement and/or root cellar? If so, I could do with a lot less space above ground...

 

[elijahboy]

depends on if i have kids

the situation now i would need atleast 1500 sq ft of house because 2 kids sharing a room is not fun

have to have 4 bedrooms and a large kitchen with a big pantry. the living room is no issue as only adults are allowed in my living room. 2 bathrooms

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I have a 1982 sq ft house. I make the most use of it and have a really big pantry and I store lots of empty and filled wine bottles and bee equipment, but really if I'd be wiped out by a catagory 5 hurricane, I'd go way smaller to have less space to cool (and heat, although not often needed). I think small rooms and a small house, intelligently built with smart built in furniture that has multi-purposes would be a better ticket.
Earth shelthered would be my first choice. Less equipment needed, cheaper to operate, safer as far as storms go.....
Its nice looking to have this big ole house, but that means more maintance, more insurance, more energy consumption and eventually more junk accumulating.
Look back 3 generations ago. What did your great-grands live in? Mine had a house about half the size of mine and they had one child more than me with no bathroom, until later years. We all just spoiled. Not that I want to go outside for my BR needs, but really I look around and I say to myself,"I don't need all this junk."

 

[me&thegals]

We have 1900 sf, which is more than enough. We do have a nice-sized pantry in the kitchen, a full basement and a large storage area underneath the front porch (in the basement). This is all far more than enough room for our family of 4.

 

[FarmerChick]

2100 sq ft and we use it all. I would not go smaller than 1900-2000 if I ever had to have another home. BUT in this 2100 sq ft we have a monster sized mudroom with sink and hubby uses that as hunting room storage and I have a big pantry along one wall with tons of shelf space.

we don't like crowded. we like some space to chill

no matter what size home your family can handle, having that 'extra' space available for pantry, stocking storage room is important. under the bed is a great spot for pantry items also. put in small tubs and load up with your canned/preserved items and found space.

also re-arranging closets into an organized situation could free up more space for storage in general. when I let our closets go rouge, I just lose valuable space. when I organize them I find great space.

 

[hqueen13]

no matter what size home your family can handle, having that 'extra' space available for pantry, stocking storage room is important. under the bed is a great spot for pantry items also. put in small tubs and load up with your canned/preserved items and found space.

Trouble is that you'll fill the available space no matter how much space you have! LOL It just somehow sorta happens

We live in a 15 x 80' trailer, that is roughly somewhere just over 1000 sq ft total. We have 2 bathrooms, including a master bathroom suite with a soaking tub (but a TINY shower, the other half doesn't like to take showers in there he doesn't fit in there really well, LOL).

The storage is POOR and not well built, so there is a LOT of wasted space.

What I need more of:
- there is no basement or attic. That means a lot of things that would be stored in one of those two places are stored in the house.
- Better cabinet space in the kitchen. There is a lot of wasted space.
- A pantry. There isn't one and I can't figure out how we're going to store canned food items!
- A mud room. Well, we kinda have a mud room, but it is also part of the laundry room. And clean laundry and mud don't mix.
- At least two extra rooms: one as a guest bedroom, and a second that is a work/office/relaxing room that can have a fold out bed in it.

The funny thing is that there is an empty house down the road from us that used to be park headquarters. We got to walk around in it once (still have the key in fact) and I fell in LOVE with the floor plan and size. It would only need a bit of redoing of the kitchen, and a modification of the bathroom (and a bathroom would need to be reinstalled in the upstairs), but otherwise I LOVE it.

 

[FarmerChick]

I have to say for an uncluttered type like me, I still have tons of space to fill up. It truly depends on how much stuff you have and want in your home. before I became 'unclutter queen' I could sure agree with you on the fact that all space somehow gets filled but my new adopted minimalistic living gave me back my space.


HEY---that other park headquarters...are you allowed to live in it? if you remodel just a bit? is that doable?

OR if you can't....could you arrange to be able to use a room in that home. make a monster pantry out of a room if you shelf it? and it wouldn't be disturbed?
sounds like great space for the taking if allowed.

 

[CheerioLounge]

Wow! I'm a bit envious! Our "cabin" was 440 sq ft, until we added the bedroom. Now we have a whopping 670 sq ft! It's a bit small, but there are only the 2 of us and the dog. We are still very much in the process of improving the house. We have no kitchen cabinets, just shelves on the wall above the "counter. The "counter" is just a frame of 2x4's with a plywood counter topped with temporarily set tile and the sink. It serves the purpose, but I sure would love some cupboards! We also have no closets. Fortunately, we also don't have huge wardrobes! Everything we own fits in one 4 drawer dresser. We did leave space in the addition to put in a closet if we decide we need one. I don't really foresee a need, except maybe for resale value. When we sold all of our possessions and moved to the South Pacific, we decided that if we came back to the states we would not start to collect things again. We have nothing in this house that isn't used on a regular basis and that's the way it's going to stay!

 

[SSDreamin]

OK, if we use what we have now as a basis for what would work for us, what I have now is a LOT of wasted space! Our house is just shy of 2500 sf. I have a HUGE kitchen (14 x 23), which I really love, but it could be half that size with a slight configuration change and I'd be just as happy. Our living room is 14 x 30. We 'live' in half of it. This house is a two bedroom + den - bedroom two is 14 x 20, den is 14 x 16 and the master is 14 x 24. Who really needs THAT much space for a bed and a dresser??? As it is, I have 'sectioned' off the master into three rooms. Even the bathroom here is too big - there is 60 sf of empty floor space in the middle of it. Just unusable and wasted. There is no basement here, but we have a full length, walk up attic for storage - that is, the entire space above the house AND the three car garage. And we have three people living here (or two full timers and one that visits on weekends, depending on how you look at it ). It takes an insane amount of propane to heat, and I feel kind of foolish showing it to family - they have all freaked out at the size of the rooms. I want to say "I know, what were those people thinking?!"

My 'ideal' SS house would be about 20 x 20, two stories, with a trap door in the kitchen down to a basement and root cellar (saw that in an old farm house we looked at and really liked it) and a small attic space. The size would be manageable and easy to heat. The use of built-ins and the elimination of extra furniture and useless items would make it quite serviceable for our needs, I think. I base this on a 16 x 20 1 1/2 story cabin that we were looking at to put on our property. It would've worked perfectly for it's intended purpose (hunting/weekend retreat), but I pointed out to DH that, with a few minor alterations, it would be a great year-round home. I do PREFER two bathrooms, but have only had that luxury briefly and have managed fine with one. I suggested to DH that we could put the small 3/4 bath in the 'pipe dream house' ( ), then he could install my dream outhouse (yes, I have a dream out house, and it's cool! )and we'd then have two bathrooms! To me, out buildings are the most difficult part of being SS. We are having a hard time configuring a solution that will work for our needs right now :/