The Small House Book (4 page)

economy are mutually exclusive. We can have exorbitance, or we can have

the serenity that a sensibly-scaled home affords, but we cannot have both.

Like anything else that is not essential to our happiness, extra space just gets

in the way. It requires maintenance and heating, and ultimately demands that

we exchange a portion of life for the money needed to pay for these extras.

For most Americans, big houses have come to symbolize the good life; but,

all symbolism aside, the life these places actually foster is more typically

one of drudgery. Mortgage payments can appropriate thirty to forty percent

of a household’s income not counting taxes, insurance, or maintenance ex-

penses. When every spare penny is going towards house payments, there is

nothing left over for investments, travel, continued education, more time with

the kids, or even so much as a minute to relax and enjoy life. At this rate, an

oversized house can start to look more like a debtor’s prison than a home.

In 2008, a used house in the U.S. averaged about $244,000. That is far more

than the average American can afford. Affordable housing has, in fact, be-

come the exception. How seldom one hears of moderately-priced real estate

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A cabin at The Whidbey Institute’s Chinook Conference & Retreat Center (right)

referred to simply as “hous-

ing” and the pricier stuff as

“unaffordable housing. “

The perception of afford-

able housing as something

below par is not solely the

result of this skewed ter-

minology. The structures

produced under the banner

are usually as elephantine

as the more expensive option, but with shoddier materials and even worse

design. Through the eyes of the housing industry, square footage pays; qual-

ity does not.

Square footage is really the cheapest thing that can be added onto a house.

The electrical system, plumbing, heating, appliances and structural compo-

nents of most any dwelling are similar in at least one key way. They are all

expensive. This costly core is housed by the relatively cheap volume that

surrounds it.

In light of all this, it might seem that you really can’t afford to buy anything

less than the most house you can get your hands on. At first glance, it ap-

pears that the more you buy the more you save, but it’s the hidden costs that

get people into trouble. After all, more house than you need comes with more

debt in total, more utility bills, more maintenance than you need and more

foreclosures and more bailouts than any of us needs ever again.

Houses in Langly, WA, Bodega, CA and Mendocino, CA (pages 29, 30 & 31, respectively)

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Taos Pueblo (above) and a house on Highway 550 in New Mexico (right)

Aesthetics

Today’s market suggests that, for many of us, the perceived prestige of enor-

mity takes precedence over design and even structural integrity when choos-

sing a home. It seems that even a shoddy status symbol, with its expansive

vinyl walls and snap-on plastic window grills, can somehow connote distinc-

tion. The finer qualities of design have become as difficult to market as they

are to achieve, so they are being replaced by highly-prized square footage.

Just as something is typically appre-

ciated as good or beautiful when it

is deemed necessary, it will be con-

demned as ugly or evil when it is

considered pointless. Under the right

circumstances, murder becomes hero-

ism and trash turns into treasure. The

distinction between valuables and gar-

bage is based primarily on our notions

of utility. What two people see as beau-

tiful will vary as much as what they

consider to be useful.

Accordingly, the selfish squandering of

valuable resources and the emission

of toxins without
any
worthwhile pur-

pose are always corrupt and unsightly.

Beauty may be in the eye of the be-

holder, but an oversized house is an

ugliness we all have to contend with.

A house in Bodega, CA

Make Yourself At Home

A good dwelling offers more than shelter and security. A truly good house

evokes a sense of home. Our sense of home comes from within us. It emer-

ges when we enter an environment with which we can identify. This sense

is not exclusive to one’s own house. It can surface whenever we feel safe

enough to be completely ourselves — beyond all insecurity and pretension.

A house founded on pretension and insecurity will seldom, if ever, make us

feel anything more than pretentious and insecure. For a place to feel safe, it

must first earn our trust. It must be honest, and an extra couple of thousand

square feet tacked on in a vain attempt to conceal our insecurity is not hon-

est.

Home is our defense against what can sometimes seem like a chaotic and

demanding world. It is a fortress built from the things and principles that we

value most. The inclusion of anything else is like a crack in the fortress wall.

Order and tranquility are compromised when things that are extraneous to

our happiness surround us. Unnecessary elements in the home dilute the in-

tensity of the life within. Only when everything in our immediate environment

is essential to our contented survival will home and the life within take on a

truly essential quality.

Too many of our houses are not a refuge from chaos but merely extensions

of it. The sense that our lives may not be entirely whole results in a desire for

something more to fill the perceived void. This can lead to the purchase of an

oversized house in which substance is obscured by excess. The happiness

we really seek cannot be found by purchasing more space or more stuff.

Those who do not recognize what is enough will never have enough.

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Taos Pueblo

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