817 Square Feet

Yup, you betcha... that's the size of our little L.A. house. When we started looking at places online I couldn't even visualize what a house that small would look like. Our house in Canada is more than twice that size plus a basement. Oh yeah, did I mention that our L.A. house doesn't have a basement!? I guess they don't need to worry about things like frost lines. Anyway, I digress...

The craziest part is that it turns out this house is the perfect size for our little family. Our girls share the big bedroom which they seem to love so far. Asha thought that sharing a room meant bunkbeds and was a bit bummed that her 9 month old sister was a bit young for that just yet (not to mention the fact that Asha is physically and/or mentally incapable of getting down from a top bunk). Essentially all of the rooms are a bit shrunk down but it turns out rooms don't need to be all that big. We all end up in the same room together all day anyway so we don't really need any more rooms.

When you have less room to work with you find yourself using what you have much more efficiently. I think those housebuilders in the 50's knew a thing or two about efficiency of space. There are built-in shelves and closets all over the place. It also helps that we had to fit all of our worldly possessions in a truck and trailer to come down here so we don't have much stuff! But really, how many slotted spoons did I need?

And the best part of it all? Less space to clean. It used to take me half an hour to sweep the floors and just when I would start to bask in my accomplishment I would think "dammit! the basement!". Not only is there now less space to clean but everything is pretty much always visible so I'm much less likely to leave dark corners piled with stuff.

So I hereby swear that I will never live in a house that is bigger than 1,000 sq feet again and I want you to hold me to that! I'm pretty sure I'll look back on this in oh about 13 years when I have at least 2 teenaged girls and laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of that. We'll see.