Back in the late 19th century/early 20th there were parlors. We had a house built in 1892 that had a lovely parlor with pocket doors. Then there were formal living rooms, which we paid a lot of money for the furniture for and never used. I remember a home I had in Cleveland with very pricey furniture in the living room. We would pass through it on the way to the formal dining room (which we never used either).
When I was a kid, we spent time in the basement…furnished or semi-furnished, of course. Then we moved the basement upstairs and it became a family room and that’s where we spent all of our time. I remember those red-shag carpeted family rooms with the glass-back bars. Do you?
Then in the 70s and 80s the “great room” concept came into being. A much superior idea, I thought. We’re scaling down even more now, making rooms do double-duty and doing with less. The phenomenon has been called the “shrinking house.” Like our large vehicles, our massive houses are getting too pricey to operate. We went from small houses in the 50s to much larger houses in the next few decades, back to smaller houses.
It’s time to cut back, live more simply. We can save some trees by not buying all of that furniture, and maybe we can actually connect with our families because we don’t get separated in those gimongous house.
For example:
- Sarah Susanka created the “Not So Huge House” to “bring to light a new way of thinking about what makes a place feel like home”
- The Small Home Society pegs itself as a resource for the small home movement
- Small Home Style is a magazine dedicated to all things small home.
These people use terms like “sustainable resources” and simple, and we’re speaking 800 sq. ft. houses here. The small house movement is, shall I state, “growing.”
What about you? Are you ready for a small home?
Tags: baby boomers, shrinking house, small house society
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