For many years (thirty-two, to be exact), we’ve lived in a 2,700-square-foot, three-bedroom house. At its most populous, it sheltered the five of us, an exchange student, a dog, two cats, and more pet reptiles than I wish to remember. For the past several years it’s just been Thomas and me and our good dog Charley. We’ve looked around at all this space, filled with all this accumulated stuff that I am determined to get rid of when we move, and have thought, surely the new house could be much, much smaller.
That was our intent, going into the design process. Thomas needs a big workshop, because he often does big work. But the house itself could be intimate and efficient. It could be one of those fine “not so big” houses we admire so much, maybe a thousand-square-foot jewel like our first house back in the sixties. As it turns out, the new house is just as big as the old one, and I’m still trying to figure out why.
I think at least part of it has to do with the land we’re building on. It’s a broad, flat, featureless three acres with big views in every direction. Imagining a small house there, with years and years to wait before new trees could grow up to it, has the oppressive feeling that you get from those old yellowed photos of tiny soddies on the Great Plains with seven grownups and hoards of children standing out in front with their farm implements and haunted eyes. My grandmother died young in such a place.
The other part has to do with personal space: We both seem to need a lot. I can’t really justify it; it’s simply part of how we live. Spinning, weaving, researching and writing, starting seedlings for the garden and nurturing other large plants, making wine—so much of what we do at home is solitary, large, and/or messy. Then, of course, we need the space to come together, to share meals and newspapers, music and small talk and adventures of the day. It all adds up.