How much space do you need to live comfortably?
I thought of this question as we're spending three weeks in an RV with two adults and two large dogs. Its working but there are times when we're tripping over each other, even though this is a 40' long vehicle, there just isn't a lot of floor space for a couple of very lazy hounds. But its adequate.
But that got me thinking about living in small spaces. Over the years my living space has varied a great deal. The smallest was three months living out of a Toyota Previa minivan. The Previa has exactly 4' x 8' of room behind the front seats which was enough for a bed with some bins underneath and not much more. But since it was just me, it was fine, but not luxurious.
And Ive lived in a couple of small homes, including a cabin that was 12' x 20' for quite a few months. I built a tiny home on the same yard that was only 10' x 10' inside and was very efficient with a cantilevered queen size bed protruding out the back of the main living area and an outdoor bathroom beside it. It was in a warm climate so a lot of time was spent outdoors.
Raised three kids in a 900 sq ft house that had the basement rented out so that was kind of tight. But with a backyard with the kids to run around in, it was livable. I think the biggest house we've ever lived in had about 2000 sq ft of total living space, up and down.
Im a proponent of living small though. I think in general, many people buy far or rent far more space than they need - when I look back at the homes of the 40s and 50's parents raised 6 kids in houses that would be considered tiny homes by today's standards. Not sure how we got to "need" so much space.
How much space do you need to live comfortably? Curious to know the difference between north American standards and other places.
New Jersey, USA. Specifically southern jersey, more Philly than NYC.
It's definitely a function of having outdoor space or other third places and ability to use them. If there weren't library, parks, and coffee shop within 4 blocks these requirements would be somewhat higher, but not too much.
My rough formula for minumum comfort is about 200sqft per person plus 400sqft common space including bathrooms. Family of 4: 1200sqft. Plus at least 1/10 acre of yard for play and projects. I grew up free roaming in 50 acres of woods (didn't own much of it but nobody cared), so even a large city lot feels so cramped. I count 'actual square footage' including basements and attics, because you need a place to store stuff and put infrastructure.
That said, minimum is a very tight minimum because with 2 young children having extra space to escape to for a moment of silence is heavenly, especially in the crappy weather where going elsewhere is unpleasant.
Ultimately, I'd rather have several versitile smallish rooms than massive open spaces. Noise isolation died with open floorplans.
Layout also makes a ton of diference. A well-laid out tiny kitchen is a lot less frustrating to use than a poorly-laid out large one. Unfortunately, it seems many kitchens in the houses I browsed seemed designed more for looks than functionality.
I'm also 6'3", which means I also need about 2sqft more than a person of average height to be able to lay and sit down comfortably. It's an odd thing, but it seriously impacts things like bathrooms. It's not fun using a toilet that was obviously installed and tested by someone who was 5'3" (average height when my home was built).
Having windows makes tiny spaces less bad, but a bedroom should always be able to fit at least a full mattress in it with 2 foot on either side for end tables. My one child's bedroom can barely fit a twin on a bedframe.
Yup, for me as well, how much we need is definitely a function of publicly available spaces and amenities.
My ideal would be one smallish room per person, two bathrooms total, plus common areas. 1100ish is actually plenty for three -- assuming there's adequate public access to some kind of exercise place, pool, running place, library etc
Plus many acres of woods and trails and fishing location within walking / few minutes drive
Oh man, I would love to have all of my bedrooms reasonably small (king in one, fulls in the other two), which would mean chopping 1 in half, a second by 1/3, then giving half that space to the one bedroom and then the rest release back to the rest of the house.
Tight bathrooms are the bane of my existence. If I go to redo mine, I'm knocking out my walk-in closet and converting the entire bathroom into a wetroom with a 8ft+ long tub. There will be a self-clean cycle from retractable dishwasher-like arms. I'm only half kidding.
Yeah I have no idea why they make bathtubs that small. What's the bloody point I'll just shower if half my body is going to be cold anyway. Maybe because regular water tanks don't hold enough to fill a bigger tub???
So, assuming you have all the outdoor space you'd want, would your indoor space requirement be any different if it were just you in a 1-br apartment? I also find city life quite cramped, but 200 sq ft per person sounds pretty roomy, even for 6'3".
I wouldn't rent a 1 BR apartment, because I'd want a minimum of a 2 BR apartment for my needs, namely a work space and a bedroom. I could probably cram in a 1BR or studio, but it'd be a lot less pleasant for having any guests.
100 sqft for a kitchen
50 sqft for a bathroom
200 sqft for living/dining area
150 sqft for a bedroom.
100 sqft for an office/crafting area (probably the second bedroom)
I think I’m pretty close in height (~185cm or so?) and I completely agree. Sure I could also do with losing weight, but even an unhealthily scrawny version of me still has shoulders and elbows that are non-negotiable.
Last year we finally moved into a place that has a dishwasher, and let me tell you my lower back has never felt better! I think the kitchen benches are a little higher than the last place too, which is so very appreciated!
One thing that I didn't see discussed is availability. In "desirable" areas where I live in the PNW (US), and where I have lived in the past (St. Louis, MO) it can be hard to find available housing that is built small and also built for families. I don't have a large family (only 4 of us), but many of the houses that have enough bedrooms for us invariably include way more than we need. The worst offender is the "main" bedroom, which often seems built to support a mattress showroom. A lot of this only gets worse as the construction gets newer. So in order to take advantage of new energy efficient designs I end up having to compromise by getting an oversized house stuffed on a small plot with an HOA.
I would love to see a shift back to smaller designs being constructed on the current sized lots. Give me a bit more yard to work with, while shrinking some of the oversized rooms please.
I wanna sacrifice one of my rooms and turn it into a greenhouse/solarium.
Hi, are you me? I also live in the PNW and am originally from St. Louis.
...uh but I don't have a family of 4 tbf lol.
Maybe I'm parallel universe you, or you from the future!
I currently live in 900 square feet plus a patio and a garage with my husband and it is plenty of space
I live in a large desert tent that is 10x14' and 6'4" at its tallest point. It's tight, but has been manageable. I have friends who are coming in the fall to build me a tiny house...I'm so ready to have 4 walls. I haven't decided yet how big I want it. My shade structure is 20x16, which is quite big... im thinking maybe 15x15? But I don't know...I'll be in it for a long time, but rooms can be added down the road. It's just me, no pets. Outdoor bathroom and shower. I gotta lay down some lines and see what it actually looks like to really decide. It might be better for me to go a bit bigger than smaller in the long run, and just mirror the 20x16 that is my shade structure.
For me the living space itself doesn't need to be large, but the work area does as I have large equipment/hobbies and few people are welcoming (my wife included) to an engine block being disassembled in the dining room.
During our recent home shopping, one of the requirements was for a garage in the 700sqft or more range. The house we chose happens to have an oddly shaped garage that clocks in at 1,100sqft.
I've lived comfortably, alone, in 350sqft of studio apartment. Largest I've lived in was somewhere around 2,500sqft and it was too much house. We are currently in 1,600sqft house, but 100sqft of that is an unused "sitting room" at the front of the house. New house is listed as 1,900sqft, but that is spread across a ground floor and a basement, half of which is the "mechanical" room, so effective square footage is in the 1,500sqft range. We have comfortably lived together in a well laid out one-bedroom 900sqft old house, but now that we both work from home it'd be a tighter squeeze without having separate office spaces for both of us and three bedroom houses in that size are hard to come by.
Reminds me of the time I did that with my electric lawnmower because I didn't have any other adequate space to work that day. Thankfully we were still cool with eating on the couch those days.
I'm a bit of a hobbyist so I frequently feel like I don't have enough room. I've lived in some quite small places and my current townhome is by far the largest place I've lived in (1600 sq.ft.)
It's definitely "good enough." We could live here the rest of our life and have a kid or two. It would get tight though. Our main living area is tightly packed together combo kitchen/dining room/living room. It feels tighter when more than a couple people visit. I'd move some space from upstairs or the basement to the main living area. We also have no yard, with two dogs that is the main thing I'm looking forward to when we move.
I'm in a 2000 sqft condo with a wife and two kids. I would say probably 50-60% of our space is virtually unused.
Condos that size are quite rare. Was it two units? Penthouse?
Yeah, it’s a two floor penthouse.
It depends on a large number of factors. For instance, if you're working remotely and don't go out a lot (as is the case for myself), having more space can be nice just so you don't go crazy, as can having a separate room for work usage.
Currently I have plenty of space (two adults in a 2 story ~1700sqft house), but no spare room to use as an office. For my usage it'd be best to split off half or a third of the master bedroom into another room, but that's not how it is so I deal with it. The extra floorspace is welcome for Beat Saber, though. There's a fair deal of badly utilized space in the floor plan… a house that's a good 300-500sqft smaller would probably be fine if it were smartly and efficiently designed.
In the past I've lived in 1k-1.2ksqft apartments with the same roommate and those were ok, but had even worse usage of space and as a result felt more cramped than they needed to. This was highlighted a few months ago when visiting a friend in Tokyo, whose apartment was somewhere around 800sqft but didn't feel too bad to be in even with 3 people spending time there because it made good use of space.
If my situation changed radically and I suddenly was living alone and started commuting to work again, I could get by with a lot less. A thoughtfully designed 500-600sqft apartment would probably be fine, as long as it has a somewhat reasonable kitchen and a room with a corner to discreetly place a litterbox.
I have an almost 2000sqft rancher and this does not exist in my home. My options are either right next to a door, sacrifice closet space, or put prominently visible in one of the not-bedrooms.
That said, my house is wonky.
This is one of the areas where multiple floors are advantageous. In my current setup the litter boxes are in upstairs bathrooms, where guests usually have little reason to go (downstairs half-bath fills their needs) and odor (which occurs from time to time, even for the most studious cat-caretakers) is pretty well contained.
It’s a bit of a nuisance when house shopping, but this among other reasons is why multiple floor houses are strongly my preference.
I was very comfortable in an 1100sq ft one bedroom apartment with 11ft ceilings. However I didn't have a place to do projects, and now that I have a kid it would not be enough space for the little cannonball. I'm tall, my husband is tall, and we have a very energetic future tall person so I'll be honest I like having a lot of space. I'll say about 1800sq ft to be comfortable and 2400sq ft to be happy haha.
Depends on the budget.
If I have infinite money for services and tool rentals etc, I can live in a smaller space. ...But I don't, so I need somewhere to store all the crap I might need one day =)
As a remote worker I really need a separate room just for working, a place where I can close the door and be alone. Then when I stop working, I can go through that door and Not Work.
In apartments, I believe it's about 900 sqft for a family of 2 plus 1 kid. 250 more for every other kid, but it can be postponed until they are about 10 as they can share the room.
This depends heavily on the floor plan. If the floor plan sucks, add up to 20%. It can also go down to about -10% if the plan is very good. Good plans have larger, separate kitchens. Bad plans have tiny kitchens, huge living rooms and the worst plans combine large living room with at tiny kitchen inside a single room, waste space on a hallway and make all rooms long and narrow.
You can trade space for better furniture and vice versa. Rent is a continuous cost, furniture is one-time, but complicates moving. Pick your poison.
For me, private outdoor space with greenery is more important than indoor space. Even in a very large home, I start to feel cooped up and frantic after a few weeks if I can't easily spend time in a nature-like setting away from other people.
My partner, our two dogs, and I live in the attic of an 8x10m (~860 sqft) workshop. In practice, the space is a fair bit smaller than its floor plan would suggest; there are two huge dormer windows that really help, but most of the walls slant 45° and limit the areas that we can easily access (especially for my 6'6 partner). There is also a big stairwell in the middle of the space.
It was originally designed to be a wood drying room, not an apartment, so the floor plan is also not ideal. Nearly a third of the space is taken up by the enormous bathroom. And the galley-style kitchen area is awkwardly sized; the floor space is much wider than is ideal for a galley kitchen, yet too small to fit a kitchen island or a dining table. It would be a great kitchen for a large family who all cook together, but that's simply not going to happen with a studio apartment.
In addition to being our bedroom/kitchen/living room/bathroom/laundry, we also have an office space with two large desks, and I have a large craft table where I do sewing and other hobby activities. I work from home, and I am also a huge homebody in my spare time, so I spend a lot of time here.
But there are two things that really help me not feel cooped up. Firstly, our apartment has big windows with an excellent view of the surrounding rural landscape; here is a photo of our bedroom area to give you the idea.
Secondly (and most importantly), it is located on an 80-acre farm with few neighbors. Our dogs love to be outside all day when the weather is pleasant, and I spend a lot of my free time outside as well: gardening, woodworking (which I mostly do outside due to space constraints), and simply wandering around. While I have lived in much larger places in cities, all the streets, the parks, the bike trails, etc., have usually had other people around, which has left me feeling a lot more confined than I feel here.
Although many of our ancestors had large families living in small homes, I think they were probably a lot more comfortable than we might assume due to the greater accessibility to uncrowded outdoor spaces.
Not exactly an answer, but I recommend checking out this YouTube channel called Never Too Small. They have videos of people walking through their perfect small homes, and it always gives me ideas about how to be more space efficient and prioritise the important stuff.
Florida, USA. I currently live in an RV, a 22' trailer parked on a relative's property. (EDIT: Just realized I can actually calculate the square footage since I know the length and width. 176 square feet.) I would say that although it technically sleeps eight (one queen size "master" bed, two short but wide bunk beds, and a dinette booth that is supposed to convert into another short but wide bed), with the default furnishings installed there's just about enough room for one person. There definitely isn't enough floor space for two beings to walk around each other without one constantly having to sit or cram out of the way so the other could get past. I'm considering taking out the dinette booth for more floor space, because even just for one person that would open up enough space to get some relief.
That being said, however, I think I'd go spare if I weren't able to spend the days inside the house on the property. Although it's a decent-sized rural property (I LOVE all the greenery and trees in view), spending any unnecessary time outdoors in the Florida summer is not a pleasant prospect, so that's not a way to get more space. Also, I currently have mylar blankets taped over the RV's windows to reflect sunlight as I unfortunately wasn't able to park it in a place that gets afternoon shade, so the inability to see through the windows just makes it even more cramped in there. Not to mention the luxury of having a real kitchen, toilet, and shower!
My ideal, though I don't know if this would ever be a possibility, would be to build a small house of my own on some adjacent rural property. I don't want a large house even if I were sharing with a lifemate of some kind, because having lived in bigger spaces I know I wouldn't be able to keep up with the cleaning and maintenance, and I also know that the clutter would breed to take up all space until we were spending all our time in the bedroom anyway. (Massive executive dysfunction, gotta learn to plan your life around it!) Two bedrooms at most, a living space, a decent kitchen, probably a mudroom / laundry room, and some kind of outside storage -- a garage or shed, probably. I'd love a basement if Florida soil permitted, but alas. Otherwise I want everything on one floor. By the standards of some people, that's probably not a small house, especially for just one or two people. But it's smaller than the houses I grew up in, and smaller than the house I'd been living in for the last 15 years with only one other person. I'm a homebody, so I'd need enough space to breathe while still trying to minimize as much as possible. It's a delicate balance to think about.
Weighing in as my partner and I have been through our fair share of "small" living quarters.
When we moved in together it was into a 320 square foot studio in San Francisco. We had a murphy bed and a couch in the closet. It worked pretty well, but it was definitely cramped. We lived there for 10 months until we moved...
Onto our bikes! We bike toured Europe for 5 months living in a 1.5 person tent. I'd say the footprint is about 4x6 1/2 feet. We did have a few luxury days where we got a hotel or hostel room, but I'd say we slept in that thing for probably 4.5 months. It was very, very snug. And by the end of the tour we were ready for a solid place to call home.
Since then we've lived in a 700 square foot apartment in Madrid, a 500 square foot apartment in Amsterdam, a 1800 square foot home in the bay area (that was plush living), and now a 800 square foot home by the sea. Honestly, we've always wanted more space (minus the 1800 square foot home) and most of all a garage. We believe in n+1 when it comes to bikes and currently have 5 "indoor" bikes that we keep inside to avoid corrosion from the fog.
I think the need for space is really driven by the stuff you've accumulated and the wants you might have. For us, it's being able to host folks - so a second bedroom would be helpful. Or to store all the "gear" like bikes, camping gear, dive gear, wine making stuff, sewing things, etc... We make due with the little storage we have but a bit more space would be helpful. That said, if we were asked to condense again, it would be easy enough.
As many others have said, I think it depends on how you want to use that space.
When I was in uni, I had a 500sqft apartment all to myself and it felt big. While I loved spending time alone in the living room, just watching TV and doing my homework from the couch, I spent the majority of my time outside my apartment. I went to lecture halls, libraries, coffee shops, restaurants. I had other places to relax so my apartment just became a place to eat and sleep.
Now that I work remotely, I think 600sqft would be the minimum area I want since I'd like to have a separate area to work and live. I toured a few apartments in my area that were <600sqft and while there was enough space to have a small couch, TV, and my desk, there wasn't much space left between those things. It felt pretty cramped. In fairness, those apartments also had a lot more room in the bedroom compared to my tiny uni apartment so that could've been a factor.
Converting to metric: