One of the things I’ve observed about the downsizing movement in homes is there is a tendency to avoid the importance of design. Good design principles are not only for looks, but for improved functionality. I often see tiny and small homes that were clearly not designed, but merely built. Typically they have all the check-offs for a residence like kitchens, toilets, beds, and living space. Yes, you can live in them, but quite frankly, many are just plain ugly and to make matters worse, their functions are not well thought out. These are what I call smugly (small and ugly) homes.
To be fair, the smaller the home the less creativity you might be able to apply when designing a home. Further, economics is always an important consideration. Putting Italian tile on every flat surface might be more attractive than Formica, but it’s also not practical for many. There are many reasons people are choosing to downsize. Some are doing it for mere simplification. Others are doing it to reduce their cost of living. Still others are doing to leave a smaller footprint on the planet. Despite the reason, it still makes sense to seriously consider design. Even more so with smaller homes than with McMansions.
From my perspective, the important components here are attractiveness and functionality. Quality of materials and construction should be a given, so I won’t dwell on that. Attractiveness is obviously a subjective term. Some find beauty in simplicity, regardless of appearance. I’m not one of those. I appreciate simplicity, perhaps more than most, but just from an economic perspective it makes no sense to build something ugly when I have an alternative. We want the homes to be interesting, attractive, and fitting within their environmental setting.
Functionality is a different story. One could make a case that a bathroom with a working toilet is functional. But is it ergonomically optimized? If the toilet paper holder is on an opposing wall four feet from the toilet, you’ll notice the lack of forethought that went into that decision the first time you need the toilet paper. This is why you NEVER leave decisions like that to builders. NEVER! It’s actually not their job, but if you don’t make decisions, they will and you’re likely to get a less than optimized space. We intend to think through every single light switch, every electrical outlet, every window, every door, every appliance, and yes, every toilet paper holder.
Our rationale for building a small home community was multi-layered. First of these was to sell the property and in doing so, perhaps illustrate to the world that there are options beyond what is typically available. We’re gambling that there is a market for smaller, affordable new homes. But we also concluded that people don’t want just another cookie-cutter, stereotype of a home. In other words, we didn’t believe smugly was the way to go. From the beginning of this project, I set some personal goals as follows:
- Keep the price below $250,000
- Build no two homes exactly alike
- Make them attractive
- Make them functionally optimized
- Insist on high quality
- Every home should appear harmonious with its setting.
- Minimize the removal of trees to only what is necessary for the dwelling
It appears that our gamble is paying off. The feedback we’ve been getting has been overwhelmingly positive and the current residents could not be more happy with their decision to have said no to smugly homes.