There's no way around it. Building a house is incredibly expensive these days.
It’s so hard to wrap our heads around it because it happened so fast. We’re used to seeing the price of construction go up relatively slowly and steadily so we don’t really notice the gradual cost increase of things.
But there was nothing gradual about the skyrocketing costs of construction that began in 2020. And now we’re all baffled at the cost estimate we receive from a general contractor because it’s completely unrelatable to what we’re expecting to see.
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And, sadly, it’s been long enough now, that it is what it is. We can't be hopeful that prices will go down, because they don’t appear to be doing that. For many materials and some labor (depending on your location) they continue to rise.
So now that we all feel slightly disheartened, let’s see what we can do about it!
The best answer I can give you is we can all build smaller homes. The other answer I’ll give you is that we should not compromise on the quality of construction materials we use (I’ll get into that later.)
Smaller Houses
The average new home built in the US right now is about 2,300 square feet. In 1949, the average home size was 909 square feet. That’s a big difference! And we know that family sizes have gotten smaller on average. So there are less people living in bigger homes.
I am all for living in a comfortably sized home. I’m not trying to encourage anyone to live in a tiny home (unless you’d like to). But a comfortably sized home is probably smaller than you think.
It’s natural to want space to move around, to have variety in where you can ‘be’ in your home, and to feel like there is room for all of your things. Spaciousness feels good! And what’s great is that you can get that feeling in a smaller than average home.
Make Your House Feel Bigger
Vaulted Ceilings:
This is a great strategy to make a space feel bigger. Taller ceilings create more volume, giving you the spaciousness you crave.
My favorite way to create a vaulted ceiling is to use scissor trusses for the roof structure. Scissor trusses have sloped bottom pieces (called bottom chords) to allow for sloped ceilings while also allowing plenty of space above the bottom chord for attic insulation.
Larger Window Openings:
Big, expansive windows open your house up to the outdoors. This makes the inside of your home feel bigger and also connects you to nature. And what’s nice is that, in general, 1 larger window is less expensive than 2 smaller windows equaling the same size. A few well positioned large windows will make your home feel bigger than a lot of smaller windows.
As a side note, I’m not recommending flooding your entire house with giant windows. There’s an important balance between window openings and solid walls to keep your house comfortable and affordable.
Flexible Spaces and Outdoor Entertainment Spaces:
Large homes are often driven by the desire to have large entertaining spaces. As someone that likes to host parties every once in a while, I can totally relate to this desire. However, it’s hard to justify making a house bigger and therefore increasing the cost of construction to accommodate a few parties and holiday hostings each year.
If this is you, a great way to control the size of spaces like a dining room is to have a semi-open floor plan that lets you move your dining table around to other parts of the living area and expand the table for more seating space.
Expanding outside is also a fantastic way to make more space for large gatherings. Creating a covered patio outside the house will be cheaper than adding another room in your house or making your living room larger.
The main takeaway for this is to get creative in how you can rearrange your spaces to fit more people in them without making the house bigger than you need it to be for your day-to-day living. This is something you need to be thinking about at the beginning of the design stage.
Space-Saving Design Strategies
Smaller Bedrooms:
Large primary bedrooms are very common. Think about how you really plan to use your bedroom and if you need as much real estate as you’re thinking.
Reach-in Closets:
Everyone loves walk-in closets. But often they provide no more storage space than a reach-in closet, they just take up more square footage. Try out a reach-in closet to see if it’ll meet the needs of your bedrooms.
A Well Laid Out kitchen:
Kitchens don’t need to be big to be comfortable and effective. They just need to be well laid-out. I have lots of posts on wellness kitchens and getting the layout right. Read a couple here and here.
Smart Organization:
Storage systems these days amaze me. You can fit so much stuff into a relatively small amount of space. Getting organized isn’t easy, but once you’ve figured out how to efficiently place all of your belongings, you’ll be amazed at how little room it takes up.
'Extra' Rooms That Add Square Footage
On the flip side, there are also some things I find important or necessary in homes that end up increasing home sizes. These are the types of spaces families weren't designing into their homes in 1949.
Here are a few spaces that are often considered extra in a house. If you are really trying to control the size of your home to keep costs down, then there will be compromises that need to be made to get what you need.
Aging-in-Place:
If all homes could be aging-in-place ready, that would be awesome. This means that there’s a place on the first floor that could one day become a bedroom (assuming there isn’t already a bedroom on the first floor). It also means that everything on the first floor is a little bit bigger to accommodate wheelchair access if ever needed. Doors are wider, hallways are wider, and bathrooms are bigger.
If this is something you’d like to consider for your home, then it might make sense to build a one-story house, or at least a first floor primary bedroom so you don’t have to add any extra rooms for future one-story living.
Workout Space:
I love working out at home. And it’s important for me to have a dedicated space for working out. This of course adds square footage to the house. To keep my house size under control, I’d need to determine what’s most important and probably compromise on the size of other spaces to make sure the workout room doesn’t get cut.
Home Offices:
If you work from home, you’ll need a space to work. I know some people are fine working from their kitchen table or a couch, but if you know you need a dedicated office space, you’ll be adding square footage to your home. And if you have two people working from home and one’s on the phone all the time and it’s really annoying (such is my case), then you’ll probably need two office spaces.
Everybody has different habits and different ways of living in their homes, so there isn’t one right size that’ll work for everyone. Figure out your goals and values, and you'll know what you need.
Don’t compromise on materials:
I truly believe that cutting costs shouldn’t be in the form of sacrificing material choices and long term durability of your house. It might sound very enticing to save some money by going with a cheaper vapor barrier or picking vinyl flooring, but you’re compromising the durability of your home, the air quality, and your family’s health and comfort, plus the health impacts on the planet and the other people living on the planet.
And when you choose cheaper, less durable materials up front, you’ll be paying for them in the long run.
Build small, and don’t compromise on comfort and health:
There is never going to be a perfect solution. Prices aren’t going down. We can’t build what we could 5 years ago with the same amount of money.
That’s where understanding your goals and values becomes so important. Compromises are going to have to be made.
But the three compromises that shouldn’t be made are your financial health, your family’s health, and the health of the planet.
Not sure how to make your floor plan smaller and still fit your needs?
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