How to Enlarge Your House in Less Than 20 Minutes

Do you remember the old story about the woman who kept nagging her husband for a bigger house, so he started bringing the livestock in a little at a time. After a while, the house was so crowded that they could hardly move. The husband finally emptied the house, and it seemed so much bigger to the wife than before because he changed her perspective about it.

That's sort of what I did today. My 1,560 sq. ft. home seems cavernous now after virtually touring through tiny homes from less than 100 sq. ft. to up to a spacious 320 sq. ft. home on YouTube. It made me realize we have plenty of space in our current house; we just have too much unnecessary stuff. And we need to learn to be creative when it comes to storage.

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Living in 89 sq. ft. -  Jay Shafer of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company takes you on a tour. House located in California. Love the look of this tiny house.

Designer/Builder Jay Shafer in front of his tiny house

Photo from Itsrusticliving.blogspot.com 

2. Shotgun Shack Redux: Mortgage-free in 320 sf owned by Gary and Debra Jordan of Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Their son's "bedroom" is the loft.

Photo: http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/5-tiny-homes-youll-love-big-time.html

3. Tiny Texas House at the Homestead Cottages - this one is closer to home: Canyon Lake, Texas

Photo from hillcountryrelax.com

4. There is hope for the future! I'm so impressed with this 16 year old boy who's building his own small home to live in for college. The video shows his work-in-progress, and he's paying for it with his summer and part-time jobs.

Austin Hay showing the 130 sf home he is building

Photo from faircompanies.com

I'm not sure I would ever live in this small of a space if I had the choice, but it's nice to know there are these types of options if I had to drastically downsize financially. One thing I would have to learn to do is recognize what's important to hang onto in life, and let go of the things that aren't. That's been a struggle for me, but I'm getting better at it. Maybe that comes with age. And if you need some inspiration to de-clutter, it helps to watch Hoarding: Buried Alive occasionally to keep one's hoarding gene in check. 

We tend to think bigger is better, but bigger brings on a lot more maintenance, higher bills, and greater responsibilities. One thing I've enjoyed when it came to downsizing from a 2,800 sf home to my current 1,560 sf home is that I can clean the smaller home in a few hours versus taking all day to clean in the larger one. And that's like a gift of time to myself.