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Last year we moved from a huge house in the boonies to a shoebox in a prime location. We still don't miss having the extra space. We spend 99% of our time at ho

Last year we moved from a huge house in the boonies to a shoebox in a prime location. We still don't miss having the extra space. We spend 99% of our time at home in the family room just like we did before, and the small house is much easier to maintain. Also, having a lot of living space makes it hard not to stealthily accumulate junk. I had always prided myself on not doing this, but when we moved we ended up filling an entire 8'x30' dumpster with crap we no longer had room for and didn't really need.

dogma1138 11y ago
What's a shoebox(my 2 bed flat in central London is 53 sq/m I've seen plenty of sutios in NYC that size (~500-550 sq/f))? There have been plenty of studies that show that small apartments lead to actual physical and mental health issues. While I can accept your anecdotal case that you are very happy with your "shoebox" size apartment it doesn't mean it's good, beneficial or something that should be acceptable. Smaller housing means smaller kitchens which makes home cooking less pleasant and likely, not to mention that small apartments might have a kitchen which isn't fitted with more than a microwave a small fridge and a hotplate or a tiny stove. This leads to people using takeaway or eating at restaurants which isn't good for you, even if you go to the fanciest place you can think off the chances off that the food there is just as caloric and "healthy" as your run of the mill fast food. A 2-3 course meal at a good restaurant tends to have 1.5-2 times the calories that a super-sized McDonlands meal has, you can easily eat up 2000-3000 kcal in a restaurant with that nice appetizer, big juicy steak, and desert. Home cooking on the other hand results in many cases in much smaller caloric intake, and the act of cooking it self has quite a few positive mental and physical effects on it's own. Smaller housing means less family/entertainment space which means you usually can't invite many people in, which means you do your socializing outside usually again in restaurants/bars which is while plenty of fun and pretty acceptable also has a negative impact. Smaller housing means you are more likely to deffer having children or decide to upgrade your relationship status, smaller housing also makes many people feel like they do not get enough privacy at home even if they are very intimate with their partners which adds to stress. Smaller housing means usually means poorer air-quality, less light (smaller windows, less of them etc.) and general feeling of claustrophobia which can lead to depression even if you do not feel that it does. And this is just the tip of the iceberg because there are many more factors why people need their space, that doesn't mean you need to live in a 7 room house, it just means that the rooms you have need to be of sufficient size, and the overall design of the apartment needs to be more open and brighter. I honestly can't fathom why people actually argue that it's fine to live in a small apartment, I've seen places in London that have a folding bed and if the fridge is open you can't open your "front door". This is 5th Element level of quarters and we are openly accepting it, yes that 20 sq/m flat in IKEA looks extremely cool if it was a hotel room, or a dormitory it would be more than acceptable but for people to live in such place for any length of time is not something we should approve off not to mention push towards.
- kevinskii 11y ago
  Oh, by "shoebox" I meant a house where the servants' quarters aren't even in a separate wing. I guess our definitions are a bit different.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    >Oh, by "shoebox" I meant a house where the servants' quarters aren't even in a separate wing. I guess our definitions are a bit different. Is there a reason for the patronising comment? I was actually being honest and asking what would you refer to as a "shoebox" in sq/m or sq/f because as I said often when I had discussed flat sizes with friends that live in the US they didn't realize that a spacious 2 bed flat in London is the same size as a spacious studio or 1 bed in NYC. So if you are willing to be serious for a second what is the floor space in your little apartment that you love so much?
    - kevinskii 11y ago
      Sorry, that wasn't intended to come across as patronizing. My house is just over 1400sq/f, which is on the smaller side by American standards. I think a lot depends on whether you have a family. As a bachelor I lived comfortably with a roommate for years in a 600 sq/f apartment, but I wouldn't want to do that with kids and a dog. In short, I don't think we're really in disagreement.
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        Yeah 1400 sq/f is almost double the average household size in the UK unfortunately... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535136/Average-British-family-home-size-shrinks-two-square-metres-decade-increasing-numbers-forced-live-flats.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535136/Average-Brit... It's quite a shock especially for Americans who move to the UK many to London then going to see flats just to get a reality slap when a 2 bed flat is the size of their old garage in the burbs.. And I personally don't know if I should laugh or cry every time some one links me a "tiny house" video which turns out to be larger than my flat (and the flats of most people I know that don't live in a detached house) which costs about 3800$ a month in rent...

dogma1138 11y ago

What's a shoebox(my 2 bed flat in central London is 53 sq/m I've seen plenty of sutios in NYC that size (~500-550 sq/f))? There have been plenty of studies that show that small apartments lead to actual physical and mental health issues. While I can accept your anecdotal case that you are very happy with your "shoebox" size apartment it doesn't mean it's good, beneficial or something that should be acceptable. Smaller housing means smaller kitchens which makes home cooking less pleasant and likely, not to mention that small apartments might have a kitchen which isn't fitted with more than a microwave a small fridge and a hotplate or a tiny stove. This leads to people using takeaway or eating at restaurants which isn't good for you, even if you go to the fanciest place you can think off the chances off that the food there is just as caloric and "healthy" as your run of the mill fast food. A 2-3 course meal at a good restaurant tends to have 1.5-2 times the calories that a super-sized McDonlands meal has, you can easily eat up 2000-3000 kcal in a restaurant with that nice appetizer, big juicy steak, and desert. Home cooking on the other hand results in many cases in much smaller caloric intake, and the act of cooking it self has quite a few positive mental and physical effects on it's own. Smaller housing means less family/entertainment space which means you usually can't invite many people in, which means you do your socializing outside usually again in restaurants/bars which is while plenty of fun and pretty acceptable also has a negative impact. Smaller housing means you are more likely to deffer having children or decide to upgrade your relationship status, smaller housing also makes many people feel like they do not get enough privacy at home even if they are very intimate with their partners which adds to stress. Smaller housing means usually means poorer air-quality, less light (smaller windows, less of them etc.) and general feeling of claustrophobia which can lead to depression even if you do not feel that it does. And this is just the tip of the iceberg because there are many more factors why people need their space, that doesn't mean you need to live in a 7 room house, it just means that the rooms you have need to be of sufficient size, and the overall design of the apartment needs to be more open and brighter. I honestly can't fathom why people actually argue that it's fine to live in a small apartment, I've seen places in London that have a folding bed and if the fridge is open you can't open your "front door". This is 5th Element level of quarters and we are openly accepting it, yes that 20 sq/m flat in IKEA looks extremely cool if it was a hotel room, or a dormitory it would be more than acceptable but for people to live in such place for any length of time is not something we should approve off not to mention push towards.

kevinskii 11y ago
Oh, by "shoebox" I meant a house where the servants' quarters aren't even in a separate wing. I guess our definitions are a bit different.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  >Oh, by "shoebox" I meant a house where the servants' quarters aren't even in a separate wing. I guess our definitions are a bit different. Is there a reason for the patronising comment? I was actually being honest and asking what would you refer to as a "shoebox" in sq/m or sq/f because as I said often when I had discussed flat sizes with friends that live in the US they didn't realize that a spacious 2 bed flat in London is the same size as a spacious studio or 1 bed in NYC. So if you are willing to be serious for a second what is the floor space in your little apartment that you love so much?
  - kevinskii 11y ago
    Sorry, that wasn't intended to come across as patronizing. My house is just over 1400sq/f, which is on the smaller side by American standards. I think a lot depends on whether you have a family. As a bachelor I lived comfortably with a roommate for years in a 600 sq/f apartment, but I wouldn't want to do that with kids and a dog. In short, I don't think we're really in disagreement.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Yeah 1400 sq/f is almost double the average household size in the UK unfortunately... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535136/Average-British-family-home-size-shrinks-two-square-metres-decade-increasing-numbers-forced-live-flats.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535136/Average-Brit... It's quite a shock especially for Americans who move to the UK many to London then going to see flats just to get a reality slap when a 2 bed flat is the size of their old garage in the burbs.. And I personally don't know if I should laugh or cry every time some one links me a "tiny house" video which turns out to be larger than my flat (and the flats of most people I know that don't live in a detached house) which costs about 3800$ a month in rent...