Just a few musings about living small….

 

Today I built a 12’X12’ deck off the back of my house.  Mind you I have built a lot of big decks for my customers.  Decks with all the bells and whistles, and massive square footage (they have the discretionary cash to do so).  I have a working budget that consists of…, let’s just say a 12’x12’ deck is within my means.   This deck basically accommodates the nice iron table and chair set my wife brought with her form OP Ks. Its been sitting here and there on the lawn.  So I basically built a deck to accommodate the table and chairs.  And that is literally all it accommodates. But you know what, that is all it has to accommodate.  I don’t need to go bigger.  That is what I needed in the back yard; a functional place to put the table.

      I see big every day.  I work on big houses with big basements and enormous great rooms, and humongous decks, and ostentatious chandeliers.  I spend my days in houses that are big enough to comfortably sustain four families, but which house two people with seemingly unending needs to do more with “the space”.  There is a lot to be said for doing well and living the American Dream.  Hey, without those folks itching for the latest upgrades, I wouldn’t be working much.  But I feel somewhat obligated to put in a plug, once in a while, for the virtues of living small. Small can have some real advantages.  Let me just put a few out there:  you can hear your child when they are up in the middle of the night puking.  You don’t actually have to have a made.  You can mow the lawn in a half an hour.  The heat and cooling bills are less than the average college tuition.  You are forced by necessity to get rid of crap. 

     I don’t mean to say I wouldn’t love to be in a McMansion and have an eight car garage, and a deck larger than the oval office.  I am just saying, if life hasn’t doled out the discretionary cash to manage a home the size of the Vanderbilt, maybe there are some up sides to your lot in life.