I can’t get my head around an article that I read this morning.

“America’s Homes Are Shrinking—and One Standard Feature Is Disappearing”

It says houses on the drawing board are getting smaller. This can reduce the cost of a house. How do you reduce the size of a house and get bigger square footage? The article says “losing a hallway or two”. This is the part I can’t get my head around.

What are you suppose to do? Have all bedrooms and bathrooms entered into from the living room, dining room, or kitchen? I guess I can understand if you have one big open area that has doors to all rooms. That is rare for the average house in Pike Township. What happens when you live in a two-story house? Even if there is a loft on the second floor, it usually takes up several hundred square feet. Is this something that we can look forward to in the future?

I can understand when builders put heating units in an attic. Very common in small condos. Instead of having the heating unit in a closet somewhere on the first or second floor, you gain about 25 square feet putting it in the attic. I have even seen this done in a large new home built by a major builder. Square feet is something that Realtors, and Appraisers use when looking at pricing. Dollars per square foot.

Interesting that assessors use the outside footprint of the house when determining property taxes. The assessor may say your house has 1700 square feet (average size in Pike Township), but if you measured all the “living space” in your house you may come up with a much smaller number because of walls, closets, utility rooms, pantries, etc.

Can you get you head around this?

Tim