American homes getting smaller

Bigness wearing off

Vilas Bhuchar, Nov 22, 10.

In 2007, at the height of the housing market boom, average home sizes were about 2,300 square feet. Today, the median home size has dropped to about 2,100 square feet and more than one-third of Americans say their ideal home size is actually under 2,000 square feet, according to a new survey by real estate site Trulia, reports CNBC:

“The whole glow of bigness kind of wore off all of a sudden,” said Sarah Susanka, an architect and the author of “The Not So Big House” book series.

Builders are responding by chopping out rooms that people just don’t use anymore, particularly formal living rooms and sitting rooms.

“You’re not having the king and queen of England to dinner but Joe and Kathy from next door — and they’d prefer to be in your informal space!” Susanka said.

Even media rooms, game rooms and libraries are on the way out, added Boyce Thompson, the editorial director for Builder magazine.

Every year, Builder does a concept home that represents where the market’s at. This year, it was called “A Home for the New Economy,” which weighed in at around 1,700 square feet – and, interestingly, was only designed virtually.

Instead of having a formal living room and a family room, the Home for the New Economy has one big “great room” and instead of a home office, an extra bedroom on the main floor doubles as a guest room/home office—or even an in-law suite. They were even careful to chop out unnecessary hall space.

“The key today is to provide flexible space,” Thompson said.

So, instead of a game room, you may have a gaming area in part of your great room. Instead of a library, you may have a reading nook.

The “proliferation of bathrooms” is also on the way out, Susanka adds. For a while there, it seemed, every room had its own bathroom and people just didn’t use them. It’s time “to bring some sanity back to the equation,” she said.

But just because a house is small, doesn’t mean it has to feel small. Architects are finding all kinds of design tricks to make a home feel bigger, from varying the ceiling height — seeing that a ceiling is higher in the next room makes it feel even bigger — or putting a direct line of sight to an outdoor space like a porch or deck. As your eye sees past the room to the outside, the space feels bigger.

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Photo credit: Builder Magazine