777 square feet

[goldingoddess]

I'm thrilled, and a bit nervous too. We just had an offer accepted on a home after 6 months of looking and upwards of 15 offers made (we live in the bay area where the market is still very competitive.) The house we are buying is well below our budget so that we can spend the next several years paying off debt. The house is small, but the draw for us is that is has two extra lots attached and the yard backs up to an open space preserve.

But how an I going to fit the three of us (plus 200 lbs worth of dogs and cats) in 777 square feet? Right now we are living in about 1300 square feet. I can't even figure out where we would have oom for our dressers. There are two bedrooms. We use a family bed and have a 1.5 year old. My husband works at home 2 days a week, so one of the bedrooms has to be his office. The place has a one car garage that we will likely have to use for storage at first. Also my husband and I have hobbies that take up a lot of space, he is a musician with 6 guitars a keyboard and all sorts of recording equipment, and I sew.

Are we just going to be cramped for the next 5 years? Or is there a way to do this comfortably?

[ParisApril]

It sounds like your DH needs an outbuilding for his office and his music! The garage maybe?

We are 4 people + 60lb dog living in 850sq feet, 2 bedroom, 1 bath. My DH is a bike mechanic so we converted the garage into an insulated shop for him. The kids have bunk beds in the 2nd room. We have a full basement that is 850 sq feet as well but right now it is not finished. Someday we would like to have another bathroom, a rec room and a bedroom down there. We don't need it now so as much as I hate to look at it, it is not a priority.

Once you get into the space I'm sure you will figure out where things will fit. Your place sounds great. Congrats!

[cristeen]

First of all, get rid of the dressers. Then go through your wardrobes and purge, purge, purge. Does this place have good closets? Is there a laundry room? Is there somewhere you can set up a family closet? How about a free-standing wardrobe?

As for the 2nd bedroom, I'd either plan for that to be office/sewing room or turn the garage into sewing room/music room, depending on the insulation situation.

I'd also recommend checking out the decluttering board, and get some advice there on how to go about this down-size.

[woodchick]

DH, DD2 and I share one dresser and one sorry excuse for a bedroom closet. The dresser has three drawers and we each get one. Our hanging things go in the closet and our 'unmentionables' go in one of those over the door shoe pocket things that hangs on the inside of the closet door.

We downsized our wardrobe to fit in our tiny space. (our condo was 580sq ft when we moved in. We've since finished 3/4 of the basement and now have 850sqft for 4 of us, no dog).

[goldingoddess]

Originally Posted by cristeen

First of all, get rid of the dressers. Then go through your wardrobes and purge, purge, purge. Does this place have good closets? Is there a laundry room? Is there somewhere you can set up a family closet? How about a free-standing wardrobe?

As for the 2nd bedroom, I'd either plan for that to be office/sewing room or turn the garage into sewing room/music room, depending on the insulation situation.

I'd also recommend checking out the decluttering board, and get some advice there on how to go about this down-size.

Yes, I think we are going to have to convert the garage to a livable space to be able to enjoy our hobbies.

Unfortunately the laundry area is an extension of the kitchen and is also the walkway to the only door to the backyard, which will be getting A LOT of use. I'm thinking of either doing a stackable washer/dryer, or seeing if we can put them in the garage. It sounds like we might be moving everything into the garage, lol.

The closets leave a lot to be desired. They are very small.

[justmama]

Try to use your vertical space since you have very precious little horizontal space. We are a family of one adult and 3 kids living in 900sq ft quite comfortably. Bunk beds and a twin bed in the master bedroom for the kids and I squish into the smaller bedroom by myself and cram my sewing hobby in there too. It's like a little cocoon. We use as little furniture as possible and everything does double lduty. We don't have extra pots and pans and sets of dishes. Everything gets used and if it doesn't, it doesn't stay. Consolidating your wardrobe into only the most wearable pieces might help and even though one bedroom is your husband's office, you can use the closet for off-season wardrobes and storage.

[PenelopeJune]

Yup, purge purge purge.

It's totally doable. My family of four lives in 600 square feet, though we have no pets.

Hang all the clothes that you can. Maybe you can share dressers for things that aren't hung, like underwear and socks. If your closet doors accomodate them, get those things that hang on the back of them to hold shoes and belts and such.

I don't have a permanent home for my sewing machine. I get it out when I need it and sew at the kitchen table. I have shelves for fabrics and stuff, but it's all crammed into tubs as small as possible.

[ParisApril]

Originally Posted by goldingoddess

The closets leave a lot to be desired. They are very small.

Believe it or not you will get used to small closets. DH and I had to take the only tiny closet out of our bedroom to fit the bed in. We have one small ikea wardrobe that we both share now. But we don't collect clothes so it's no big deal.

Don't get rid of any furniture until after you've moved. Wait to see what fits. you may need extra dressers to store things that are out of season in the garage of somewhere else.

[FireWithin]

We lived in less than 700 square ft of space with four people,. It was totally doable, especially since we had a lot of outdoor space. We did have garage storage space that is not included in that number. It helped us not live as cluttered.

One issue for us was where do guests stay? that was a big deal, but the size felt fine. We probably live in 800 and it feels roomy. The downside for us is that we don't have a lot of outdoor space. that's a bummer.

[Shellie]

Congrats on the home purchase.

And purge, I agree....purge.

Living with few material things is a lot easier than living with too many things for the space. I know this first-hand.

[goldingoddess]

Well, we did the home inspection yesterday and spent a lot of time at the house. The place has such good energy. I was able to visualize us in the house and it will definitely work, especially since we have the garage to use as a holding room. We are definitely going to get rid of our dressers and just keep the changing table/dresser and use the closets for clothes and such.

The kitchen is another story, it is so tiny and has no room for a table and has very minimal counter space and no pantry. I think we're going to have to find something that can serve both as a kitchen table and a kitchen 'island' to maximize storage and work space and be able to have somewhere to eat. I'm hoping ikea will have something to this effect. The kitchen is the original cabinets and we won't have the money to renovate for a while if ever.

The backyard is unbelievable though, it is almost a half an acre and has 6 fruit trees already and then half the yard is open, perfect to fence off from the child/dogs and plant a massive garden, and maybe even have chicken.

As for purging we'll be doing a lot of that, though we are pretty slimmed down already from doing a 900mile move less then a year ago.

thanks for all of the tips and if anyone has a kitchen island/dinner table combo I would love to hear about it.

[34me]

So glad you are thinking positive. The yard sounds amazing. We are a family of 5 (11,13 and 16 yo kids) and only 100 pounds of dog but we live in just over 800 sq feet. What really helped us for storage is that we stacked our front loaders and stuck wire shelves in the other spot and use it for a pantry and place for the microwave.

[Lucy Alden]

We had 4 in a 880 sq foot house. We shared 2 dressers that we put in our laundry nook. It made putting laundry away super easy. The kids room closet actually housed their toys and misc. I think the statistics say that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. It's amazing how little you actually wear. We pared down our clothing quite a bit but never felt in the least bit deprived.

I feel you on the sewing bit. I've always wanted my own crafting room/nook. I had a little rolling drawer with all my fabrics, bobbins and notions. The biggest pain was having to put the sewing machine away each and every time.

We ended up buying a larger home with more land when I became pregnant with #3. I still miss our little home. I always knew were everyone and everything was. It felt snug and cozy. And it really helped keep us in check on material things.

I wouldn't stress the downsizing. You'll get creative and figure out what goes where. You might actually be surprised at how much you don't need and how well everything else fits.

Congrats on your new home.

[cheenya]

One more quick suggestion, think vertically. Motorhomes often use cabinets attached to the ceiling. Things like that can be a good addition to the layout of a small home.

[yeahwhat]

If you know the layout of the house and the dimensions of the rooms, start planning now what will go where. I'd use graph paper and plan it out on paper, but I'm nerdy and obsessive that way.

When you're packing, mark boxes and furniture (using masking tape) with the room it's going. That'll help simplify moving in. It'll also help you realize how much space you do and don't have for your possessions.

[LessTraveledBy]

You know... that is actually not a small space for your family. It is just that you are used to having so much space that you did not need to use it effectively. You CAN do this, and, who knows, you may never want to have another bigger house again. Simplify, purge, and you will be fine.

We are about to spend the next 7 months in 225 square meters (dh, dd and myself). We are loving it!

[wombatclay]

Congrats!

There's a small house living thread around here somewhere...

We're a family of 5 plus a cat and dog in a cabin that's roughly 850 sq/ft. One room downstairs, a sleep loft upstairs, bathroom in a curtained alcove off the main room. We're building an addition on our own (it will bring the total cabine sq/ft up to 1150 and will hold a living room/homeschool space room and a sleeping room for the children since they'll need a bit more space as they grow!). Our last home, when it was just DH, Me, and two cats was 1600 sq/ft with a full finished basement and full finished attic not included in that sq/ft. So I can totally connect with your excitement but also the worry!

One thing I suggest in terms of purging... go ahead and get a storage unit. Pay for a certain number of months (often you get a discount for a 6 month rental). I used a storage unit as a "whole house closet" for those 6 months... I purged an amazing amount of stuff when we moved but having that space was a sanity saver. It gave me the ability to live in my new space and see what was actually going to fit and what really had to go. By the end of 6 months I knew what worked and what didn't, and I didn't have to run out and buy things to replace purged items (for example, we have lots and lots of book cases... we basically lined all the walls with bookcases and use baskets to hold clothing, food, books, school supplies, winter gear, dog food, toilet paper, etc... but when we first moved in the bookcases went to the storage unit because I didn't want to give up floor space. Later when I hit on the "line the walls" solution I had bookcases sitting there and didn't need to buy new stuff.) The trick is to make sure the storage unit is temporary... they're a money-hole and should just be a short term tool while you adjust.

As for tips... the Not So Big Books have beautiful pictures of small spaces, and the Little House on a Small Planet book is inspiring too. Making Space (Making Room?) is a book with neat ideas for finding space... things like how to build a complete pantry in 11 inches of space along a hallway or wall, building storage into stairs (lifting the treads to store things beneath each step), creating space for pets, and so on. For us the "line the walls floor to ceiling with storage" idea works pretty well. You can hang a curtain, a shoji screen, use matching storage containers, etc to make the storage "disappear".

And when I was packing up our bigger home I assigned a certain number of boxes to each function (instead of dividing it up by "room" I divided it up into things like "cooking", "sleeping", "dd1", "dd2", "reading"). Then when the boxes were full, that was it. If I wanted to add more things in that category I had to take something else out. It was a bit silly, but it helped me purge because I could actually see how much "stuff" was associated with each activity... plus since we moved into a single room cabin it made mroe sense to pack things up using function since everything was going into the same space!

Good luck and enjoy the adventure! Congrats on the new home.

[wombatclay]

Oh... dining! Right now we have wooden TV tables... you know, the kind that fold flat? We push them together to make a single table, the girls sit side by side on the piano bench (yup, we have a piano!) and DH and I sit on IKEA Ivar style chairs. After a meal the tables are wiped down, folded up, the piano bench goes back to the piano, one chair goes next to the front door, and one chair goes next to the kitchen sink so the girls can climb up as needed.

In the past we've used a larger folding table (plastic, from Lowes, with a cloth over it) that we'd fold up and slide behind the couch between meals. We still pull this out for meals where more people are eating. And DH built these spiffy Japanese style tables that stack up... individually they're about a foot tall, and when we use them we sit on the floor or on pillows. Between meals they stack into a sort of "bookcase" that holds all the table ware and takes up very little floor space while doubling as a craft table (since the stacked height is perfect for the girls to sit/color/read). This comes in handy for casual meals or meals for the kiddos (following a montessori "do for themselves" approach).

And the ability to hide things away is key since we don't have a "dining room" or even a "kitchen" as such... we eat in the open space connecting the "living room space" with the "food prep space".

IKEA does have several tables that fold down into sideboards... some have storage as well. You may want to start with a really inexpensive folding card table and nice table cloth just to get a feel for how much island vs how much dining space you really need. That way you'll be able to buy the best match. Just a few weeks, maybe a month, should give you a really good feel for what would work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'll admit that one of the things I'm looking forward to with our addition is that we'll be adjusting the original "one room" to be a kitchen dining room. DH built a beautiful wooden dining room table several years ago and it has been living in the shed because there is no room for it in this house. It's funny, but one of the driving forces behind adding onto the house was the desire to be able to use this table once again. He built the table taller than normal so that it can double as a work station... a true "farm house table". So it will eventually be similar to a kitchen island/dining table but for now it's just too big.

[Juliacat]

My house is even smaller, but we don't have much stuff. We have our office space in the dining room, but we don't usually work from home and when we do, one of us has to take the kids someplace else. We have the dressers in our bedroom one stacked on top of the other and we also have a bed that has built-in dresser space.

There are 4 of us in 680 square feet and we make it work. The rules are

1. If it can be mounted on the wall, it will be mounted on the wall. (We don't try this with our kids though )

2. If we can get along without it, it will be donated or not bought in the first place.

3. If there's a space-saving alternative, we'll go for it, even if it means spending money. (The flat-screen TV was still cheaper than buying a bigger house)

For a while I was sick of being squished, but since we rearranged our living room I've actually been pretty happy here and don't even notice the size of the place any more. If we move, it will be to be closer to our kids' schools, not to get a bigger house. Hope this helps!