my cabin was 400sqft when it was built in 1850 and has since been expaned to a wopping 625sqft... next year i'm gonna put a dormer in so i can have an upstairs.A Lean-To or cave is always nice when you're striving to be "progressive."
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Oooo... wait till Bill Gates hears about THIS.
Interfering with how people want to live borders on stalinism.
I wouldn't have one of those cluster mansions myself (and they're all over Atlanta), but I don't want the idiots on the city council telling me that I HAVE to live in an 800 s.f. box . . . even if (or especially if) it has red Hardi-Panel siding!
Just for the record, our first house was an architect-designed, 820 s.f. passive solar contemporary. But WE chose to build that way, nobody told us to.
The PAC NW is MAJOR volcanic hazard / earthquake country.
The less building there of all kinds, the better.
Once again Businessweek giuves me comfort with another article proving that I made the right decision when I let my subscription lapse.
My first house was under 500 sq.ft -- and it was a two-bedroom!
"Highly evolved", as in no longer living in freedom, but in a repressive nanny state, where only the leader of the collective knows what's good for you.
WA ping request
Town and Country magazine (yep, I read it at the dentist's) has an article about how even the very wealthy are going small, at least in second homes. Although, they don't call them houses, they call them "jewel boxes". :)
Code words for "we got ours, screw any newcomers."
I work in surveying in King and Snohomish Counties, WA, so I deal regularly with land use issues and regulations. The prevailing governmental attitude here is "We, the Government, know best." Rather than allow people to fan out normally, they designate Urban Growth Areas (UGAs), where high density is allowed. This allows them to keep large amounts of the counties at low density yet regulate what owners there can develop. (Recall the recent regulation in King County prohibiting development on up to 90% of 10+ acre lots.) In the UGAs, houses can be built with as little as 6 feet between foundations, with eaves being much closer. The first time a house fire spreads to burn a whole neighborhood, these idiots might rethink their paternalistic regulations. Maybe.
my cabin was 400sqft when it was built in 1850 and has since been expaned to a wopping 625sqft... next year i'm gonna put a dormer in so i can have an upstairs.Yawn. Let 'em live in a little cracker box and feel all warm/fuzzy/progressive.
I, on the other hand, am an American. My tastes run 'larger'.
180K for an 800 sqft home? What kind of a complete idiot pays 225 per sq foot on a shack?
For the record : 2003 NEW HOME : 3023 sq ft : under 170K
Easy enough for a single guy with money to live in a small house with a large workshop attached. But if you have a wife and kids, it ain't gonna work.
Of course the kind of folks who write this sort of article or want Seattle to micromanage private housing probably don't have any kids, and don't think they are necessary. In fact they are undesirable. So we get the bauhaus cube instead of a swingset.
The culture of death at work behind the shiny words.