Learn to Live the Not-So-Big Lifestyle
(Page 3 of 4)
Oct. 14, 2008
By Troy Griepentrog
If a house is built to meet the specific needs of an owner, how is it able to adapt over time so that it can last for generations?
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When an architecture firm is looking for a space for their offices, they frequently pick an older house and remodel it. Remodeling is an amazing tool; we can personalize the space to fit our present needs. The character of the original structure is really important; if it’s not there, people tend not to see the potential.
We can really shift houses and their energy substantially, but we tend to keep the characteristics that delight us. A good house tends to get better over time. This is something that nobody mentions in 99 percent of the literature I’ve read about sustainability, but it’s incredibly important.
What’s the biggest challenge for people when adapting to a “not-so-big” house?
The biggest challenge is getting rid of some of their stuff. I also wrote The Not So Big Life, which asks people to look at how they engage their lives. It’s really about how we use our time, but I also talk about how we tend to accumulate stuff to fill a void we feel inside ourselves. We want to feel a certain meaningfulness in our lives, but because we can’t find that, we tend to try to buy it. So, the bigger house is a version of this. Once people have the bigger house, they don’t want it to feel empty, so they buy stuff to fill up the big house.
When you’re downsizing or moving into a not-so-big house, there’s no place for a lot of that stuff. So, you have to put on a different set of glasses and look at what has meaning to you, and what you want to surround yourself with that’s really going to enhance your life. Some people are ready, willing and really want to do that. For some, it’s much harder.
Explain the concept of an “away room.”
We have so many noise generators in our houses these days. If you’ve got kids playing Nintendo or have a TV going, it’s hard to have a conversation in the same open space as those noise generators. So, an away room is an idea of making a den, a small room, that opens off the main living area (ideally with French doors) so you can still see each other, but acoustically separate from the main living space. That means if you want to read a book or have a quiet conversation, you can do it in the away room. Or you can enclose the kids in that room and let them make noise while the adults are off making dessert or having a conversation.
The French doors are important because the away room is nothing but an audio escape. If you want a room that’s really private, you can put it on a different level. That’s not what this is about; it’s about still having the connection with the rest of the household, but only visual connection, not audio. And that’s a huge way of reducing the size of the house; our houses have gotten bigger because we try to escape each other’s sounds.
