Our first house was not even 900 sq feet total. You read that right, NOT EVEN 900 sq ft – and we were happy there. The first 2 1/2 years of Jules’ life was in a 2 bedroom 1 bath with a big garage. We fit well in that house but concerns about school districts spurred us into looking for a new one. We ended up with more than double the space in the blue house and it was sitting on 1/2 acre of land as well. It did not take long to fill that house to overflowing with stuff. A full house, a full garage, a full playhouse and a full shed. Jeez.
Now we just purchased a new place in North Dakota and as we are planning how to move forward with our plans, I am reminded of a post I read in Life Edited. Life Edited pulled the below image from a Wall Street Journal article about the book “Life at Home in the 21st Century”. (once again you read that right…a post about an article about a book) It’s really the Life Edited post that opened my eyes with their round up of data on house square footage and the change that has occurred over the past 50 years. It mirrors what Dave and I did. We started with less than 900 sq ft and doubled it for our next place. But how we lived in that larger space is echoed in this image.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the average newly constructed home is 2,422 (as of 2017) – this is actually a decrease from 2015 where the average reached an all time high of 2,467.
I hope that means that more people are realizing that there are places in their house that they never use……AND that having that extra room invites us to have more crapola. How can we fight off the inevitable creep of stuff?
Reminder as to what my library clean out looked like:
*and that’s just one room! I shudder just looking at it.
Does all that extra space make you happy or just frustrated that you have to clean a room that you rarely step foot in or has your ‘stuff’ there for the guests that stay twice a year.
Here are some handy data points from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (I love data points!!)
Click here for the webpage
UG! Ladies!!!! 2 hours and 15 minutes? Let’s stack your day with work, house work and then free time……The average commute time in the US is 25 minutes. Say closing time is 5 pm, you will be rolling up to your house around 5:30pm and starting your household chores (not including the actual time it takes to eat the food you prep)….your free time starts at 7:45. Ew.
Stay tuned for my plans on how to keep this to the minimum for our family.
**Also on a final note – this post on 21 Surprising Statistics That Reveal How Much Stuff We Actually Own from Becoming Minimalist is an eye opener.