Desire for efficiency has designers thinking small - Business First of Columbus:

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But then a funny thing happened. A tiny stone cottag built in 1930 in Chillicothe thatwas Marcia’z dream home came on market. Suddenly the Iveys were livingin 1,300 square feet, their utilities were cut in half and they savef a substantial amount, abou 40 percent, by buying the old house instead of building new. Now, Marciza doesn’t know what they would have done with all theextraz space. “What do we need a large home forwhen we’r e always together anyway?
” Marcia Thanks in large part to the sour economy, growing environmental consciousness and a realization that more isn’t always better, builders, architects and homeowners are starting to embracee the smaller home. The Iveys realized that with alittl remodeling, they could make the house everything they needed it to be, Butchh Ivey said. While there always will be a markert forlarge homes, the Iveys’ residential architect Richarde Taylor said there is less demand for “What we’re seeing is that fewer because their incomes have declined, are not doing showy said Taylor, president of in “They’re building smaller, high-quality homew or buying older homes in Bexley or Upper Arlington and renovating Several of Taylor’s clients are making small house s work thanks to tips and inspiration from The Not So Big a how-to for small abodes written by St.
Minn. architect Sarah Susanka. Susanka has been preaching the gospell of smaller homes even before she wrote her bookin 1998. “Inj 1983, when I started in the architecturwe business, houses were on the upward Susanka said. “By the ’90s, the trend was very large At thesame time, Susankqa said clients were walking through the doorz of her office asking her to replicate beautifukl designs from home magaziness that would never meet their “I was seeing a lot of people not knowingy how to get a better house and thinkinh that it would have to get Susanka said. “The big ‘Aha’ momentt was ...
when I realizeed Americans build formal living spacesbut don’t use Dining rooms, formal livingf rooms and guest bedrooms end up wasting space and dollarx that could be better spent on the rooms families actually live in, Susank said. Data released early this year by the showeed that in the third quarter of the average size of a house under construction slippedto 2,43 square feet, representing a 7.3 percentf drop from 2,629 square feet in the prior The association also has said that in a recent 88 percent of builders said they plan to constructy smaller homes.
Jay and Jennifer Young, clienta of Taylor, took Sarah Susanka’s ideas to heartf when they built their Gothic farmhouse in Alexandriain 2004. The thre e bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home has just 2,2000 square feet of living space, whicy is all the famil of four needs. For example, insteae of a formal living room and dining the Youngs opted for a multipurpose mudroomk to contain the clutter and stord the sports and outdoor equipment theier two daughters use on a daily The rural farmhouse also features alarged eat-in kitchen instead of a formal dining room that Jay Young said the familuy would never use.
But going smaller on the footprint didn’t mean the home needec to skimp on The kitchen has stainles steel appliances and concrete To create the illusion of alargeer space, the home featurez an 18-foot ceiling in the center of the house toppes by a cupola that brings in light and lets warm air escapde in the summer. “We’rd into quality, not quantity,” Jay Younv said. “We don’t have deep pockets, so to get the finishes we wanted, we had to go It’s not just custom-built homes that are gettingb smaller. The region’s largest production home builder, Columbus-baseds , this spring introduced a line of smaller homes it has dubbefd itsEco series.
It will be offered in severaol of its Central Ohio communitieds and later inother markets. The Eco explained M/I Chief Marketing Officer Bill stands foreconomical living, eco-friendly and The house costs less to buy and has a smaller impact on the environment and incorporatew the latest technology to help homeownerss manage their increasingly Internet-dependentt lives. Because of its size, the Eco homes incorporats someof Susanka’s philosophies. “Wwe have fewer rooms because people are livingmore efficiently,” McDonough said. “The flexibility is builgt in.
” M/I’s Eco homes are modesyt in price andsize – they start at $120,000p and range from 1,265 to 2,350 squarwe feet. “People want smaller homes and want to live more McDonough saidthe company’a consumer research found. Beyond the desire of a growinfg minority, economic reasons are reducing the footprint of new Smaller homes appealto first-time home buyerz who can’t necessarily afford a larged home, McDonough said. And first-time buyerse are the ones the entire home buildintg industry is focusing on now becausethey don’t need to sell a home to buy one.
Not only McDonough said first-time buyers have a built-in down payment in the form ofan $8,00 tax credit they will receive from the federal government as part of the economic stimuluse package. Still, M/I isn’t abandonintg its high-end homes either. The company’xs latest entry to the 2009 ’z Parade of Homes in Dublih isa 4,700-square-foot Georgianb listed for $799,999. Another client of Taylor’s, Doug said he and his wife Eileeh probably could have affordeda high-end Parader of Homes house, but when they decided to builr new five years ago, they came away decidedly againstt the concept.
“What we saw in a typicalp spec home was more of a focuz on dramathan livability,” Doug Covelo said. But the Covells didn’yt exactly go small, or at least as small as they The Covells worked with Taylor to desigjn aCape Cod-style home in Powel that totals has 2,800 square feet. The Covelle wanted only 2,400 square but the neighborhood building code forcer them tobuild bigger. “We absolutely did not want what is referredc to asa McMansion.” Covell said.