I have a 1 1/2 story ~1250sf house built in 1900 and I really like the room sizes; the living room is 12x16 (with two doors kittycorner to each other to disrupt the layout), and PO knocked out the wall between the kitchen and dining room to make one 22x16 room which I look forward to completely redesigning someday. There's a maddeningly inefficient mudroom with a half bath and laundry and two exterior doors and the door to the kitchen all crammed into a 12x12 space with virtually no storage options. We can have several people over without feeling squished (at least when it's appropriately furnished) but at the same time when it's just the two of us we're not rattling around which is my frequent objection to very large rooms. I think "flow" can be overrated; I'm looking forward to when the house is all decorated so that each room is another surprise. Our previous house was an open-plan type and it was a bear to heat compared to this one. Here we can close the doors to the room we're in, turn down the heat to the rest of the house and fire up the tiny space heater to keep that room nice and toasty. Actually our master bedroom is too big IMO at 12x16-ish, there's wasted space I can't do a darn thing with because there is only one furniture arrangement that doesn't block the one small heat register off which will be very expensive to move. :-( I wouldn't mind a bit if it were 12x12 like in our previous house, I really liked having a nice cozy nest for a bedroom. All the upstairs rooms have those slanted ceilings which can make furniture placement a little tricky; the highest parts are 8' and drop down to just under 4'. Thankfully neither of us is terribly tall! Storage is a wee bit of an issue because the dirt-and-stone cellar is quite nasty and once we insulate it we won't really be able to store anything in the tiny attic either, but at the same time it's given us incentive to get rid of stuff we don't absolutely need. I do REALLY miss my oversized 2-car garage and dry, clean basement but such is life. Val, check out the "bathrooms off kitchens" thread over on the Old House forum. You'll see that it's actually pretty common and most people find it easy to get used to. (Never fazed me at all because I grew up with such things - it's very common in old houses because it kept all the plumbing in one place.)

When we first moved to Colorado from NY in 1990 we purchased a 1200 4 bedroom 2 bath house. We had 3 kids and since it was our first house together we had no gauge for how big was big. To us, since we were just starting out 1200 felt huge! Once we moved in though we realized for 5 people it was tight. One of the problems though was the layout of the house, 3 or 2 bedrooms and more living space would have probably worked out much better. So we moved into a larger house about 10 years ago which is 1850. I always wanted a formal dining room and den, so now it is just 3 of us (we have a 7 year old son, and the older kids are grown and have homes of their own now) and to be honest it feels "huge". I actually got rid of our dining room set and we never use that space. The extra living room area never really gets used much either. We have a rental that is 850-900 (2 bedroom, 1 bath) that eventually i want to move into. My husband thinks our current house is perfect for us, i would eventually like to downsize to our rental. Maybe he is right but for me, cleaning this house is a lot of work. Sometimes i feel like moving from our smaller house to begin with was a mistake. In retrospect, while it was a bit cramped, our smaller home was cozy and had a really wonderful backyard with a covered patio that i missed once we moved. While I do love our current home sometimes it just feels way too big for 3 people.

When we got married 20 years ago, we bought a 1940s cottage with 1140 (maybe 1160) of heated square footage, with a walk up floored attic and a 1/2 basement (rest is crawl space) that held the washer and dryer and furnace. Very tiny bathroom and 2 bedrooms. I called the bathroom the water closet. We used to have parties of up to 50 people and sometimes had overnight guests. Seemed like with carpet the sound travel wasn't too bad. Ten years ago, we added a bed and bath and a small laundry off back of kitchen. Husband wanted to take up carpet in bedrooms (he'd removed carpet in living and dining areas when we first moved in) to expose oak floors. Well, now the sound travel is abominable. With that and all the clutter we've collected over the years, I don't want to have anyone over for dinner much less for overnight stay! I used to be a big proponent of small houses, but I've grown to believe that unless you have a great floor plan (we don't, it's too open, and hubby refuses to put a door on opening to hallway leading to bedrooms), small houses just aren't the ticket to marital/familial bliss. We now have about 1673 heated sq ft, and what I wouldn't give for a total of 1800 or 2000. That would seem large to me. Living in a small house w/bad floor plan has taken a toll on our marriage. I think in the long haul a decent sized house can actually be cheaper - cheaper to put cabinets in a bigger kitchen, etc. THings don't have to be so custom to work well. I'm over small. Of course, I used to be a tree hugger too until all the trees in our yard kept falling on the house. Move me to a tract house in the 'burbs and I'd probably be happy at this juncture in my life! Sorry to be a party pooper.

With recent experience living in 2 small homes, these are some things I would need if customizing a small home for my own needs: ~ bigger rooms but fewer rooms ~ 9 ft. ceilings (my current home built in 1910 has 9 ft. ceilings (I know that I don't need/want higher ceilings than 9 ft.) ~ bigger windows, but fewer windows - my previous home had only 8 windows in the entire house, but they were big and I felt we had plenty of light in that house. My present home has lots more windows and is not at all dark and dreary, but I think I can live with fewer windows if they are big. ~ while I might consider carpet in the bedrooms, I would still want hardwood floors in most of the other areas ~ a large walk-in pantry is essential for not only canned goods and food staples, but dog food, those large pots, paper goods, recyclables, and if there was room for the washer and dryer, all the better and I'd want this large pantry near the back entrance hall/mud room ~ a covered front entrance, but a good-sized screened in porch in a more private location ~ a kitchen with ample dining table space is fine, but I don't want the kitchen looking out into the living room space and I detest those kitchen "breakfast bars" that so many house plans show! ~ a walk-in closet in the master bedroom would be great - I've never had one ~ a carport would suit me just as well as a garage ~ even a small front entrance foyer is better than no foyer IMO and it would have a closet for coats, tote bags, brief cases, etc. ~ I don't want a huge master bathroom, but anything would be bigger than the 5'x5' space in this house. Guess that is my wish list for now!