Tuesday, 15 December 2009

• A Reply to "Small is Beautiful: When it comes to homes"

  

  When I read the post "Small is beautiful: when it comes to homes" I found myself disagreeing with almost every one of the blessings and virtues of owning a small home. Granted, it's hard to disagree with obvious facts such as "The heating bill is lower in a small home" or “There are fewer places for things to get lost” but I'd like to approach this topic from a different angle and offer up the viewpoint of someone who is thoroughly unsatisfied with the size of her small home. I live in a 1200 sq. foot, three bedroom house with two bathrooms. I share this residence with my parents and my fifteen-year-old brother.

  “There are so many people paying to heat rooms that they never use or many uses once every blue moon all as a status symbol or because they "need" the room.”

  Yes, there are people who rarely use some rooms in their house, but what difference does it make? Sometimes it’s better to have a room you barely use than to not have the space to put people. When my brother’s friends come over, they take over the living room, dining room, and kitchen. My parents have to stay in their bedroom and I stay in mine because there’s not space for all of us. We can’t have our extended family over at Christmas because we barely have a dining room as it is and can barely fit one small table in there.

  I may not technically “need” the room, but you don’t technically “need” more than one pair of pants either, and I’m willing to bet everyone reading this has at least two or three pairs. You don’t “need” a car, makeup, or a lifetime subscription to Xanga.  But these things all make our lives easier, more fun, or more convenient on some level, so we get them. If there’s one thing I learned in my Economics class, it’s that cost is different from worth. Something may be expensive but if you’ve made up your mind that it’s worth it to you, you get it. It’s arguable that some people go too far and get over their heads in debt, but at the same time, if you feel like you can afford a bigger home and make payments, why shouldn’t you get it?

  “Why do people think they need so much more room now then they did 100 years ago?”

  Again, it just makes our lives easier, especially if you live with other people. My grandma was the youngest of ten kids, and they had a tiny house with only four small room. One day when my brother told my grandma “I wish I could go back to when you were a kid; things must have been much simpler back then” she replied that “They were. But they were much, much harder.” She’s told us that it was hard living that close together with her brothers and sisters. When one of them got sick, all of them did. They didn’t have any privacy. None of them had room for many possessions to speak of. I know I couldn’t do it; I’m a very private person and I need my space. If I had to share a room with someone again (I did it my freshman year of college) I wouldn’t be happy.

  “[In a small house] Families spend more time together”

  My family lives in a small house, and we definitely don’t spend much time together. I don't need to spend time with them. I can hear my dad snore, my brother play video games, and my mom open a cabinet from my own bedroom, even if I don't want to because it's three in the morning and I want to sleep. I can sit back in my bedroom and tell you exactly what every single person in the house is doing. The only thing our house does is make us all claustrophobic and whiny. My brother and I usually retreat to our respective rooms and my parents take over the living room.  My mother gripes about the small hallway because whenever she walks down it someone else comes out of a door and they have to maneuver around each other.
  

  Also, we can't have family over for Thanksgiving or Christmas because we don't have a dining room. Our house has an open design-there are no walls between the kitchen, hallway, living room, and dining room. The "dining room" is sandwiched between the kitchen and living room and we barely have enough space for a small table.  I think everyone would like another living room for my brother and his loud, large friends to get away in. If we had a bigger house, maybe we'd want to sit down to dinner together, because there would be elbow room for all of us. Maybe we’d have relatives over more often. Maybe we'd want to rent a movie together, because we wouldn't have to fight over who has to sit on the floor during it, and who gets the three small seats.

  “[In a small house] No room for furniture you can't afford anyway”

  What about people like me and my family?

  My parents got our house when they were newlyweds and it was just the two of them. Now that my brother and I have come along and have almost grown up, they have admitted that they wished they’d moved into a bigger place shortly after we were born, and we're currently looking at houses that have about 3000 sq. feet. They're not mansions, but at the same time they'll give us each more room. The above argument is from the viewpoint of someone who can’t afford to get a bigger house. We can afford a bigger house and furniture to go in it quite easily.

  It seems like a lot of the points from the “small is beautiful: when it comes to homes” entry have to do with what the poster sees as wasteful or excessive, such as “There are so many people paying to heat rooms that they never use” or “The heating bill is lower” and “No room for furniture you can’t afford anyway” These things may be technically true, but excess and waste are in the eye of the beholder. What I enjoy and consider a normal-sized home someone else might find to be extravagant, and what they consider a cozy, close house I might find to be way too small. It all depends on who you ask-there is no right or wrong answer here.

  How do you feel about this argument? Do you agree or disagree?
  

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