The size of homes in Canada has ballooned since the 1970s, peaking in North America in 2015, and now receding slightly. We have been conditioned to think that more is better, so when it comes to shelter, it’s not surprising that Canadians go big at home.
Relative to other nations, we are blessed to start with a large land mass. Only Australia, New Zealand and the United States (on average), have bigger homes than Canadians. At 1,948 sq. ft., we outpace the next largest nations by a lot. The next closest, Denmark, is a full 473 sq. ft. less. The smallest is Hong Kong at 484 sq. ft. in total. So, what does this mean?
Well, more space is arguably less efficient. It has a bigger physical mass, a bigger footprint in the ground and is also likely to have a larger carbon footprint (all things being equal). More indoor living space means less outdoor living space. It also means you need to buy more stuff to fill it and more rooms to clean. Usually it costs more to build, repair and insure, too. Don’t get me started on the taxation. If properly executed, less is more – cliché and all.
So, define ‘properly’ you say? Let’s start with a recent project as a case study.
Open it up
Smaller spaces feel larger when they are open concept in design. If renovating an old house, this can mean removing load-bearing walls and installing heavy structural beams and columns. When building new, engineered joists and wood beams offer longer spans and require less costly efforts to remove load-bearing walls from the design. If you prefer to close things off, large sliding door options abound. Glass partitions, barn, and pocket doors can transform an informal or common area into a private space with decent sound attenuation. A large open-concept basement or main floor living area can easily have a private space for dining, an office for work, a gym or laundry closed off from the main areas, while leaving the rest of the spaces open between each other, allowing for longer views and easier travel about the main living areas.
Build it in
Storage – the most searched term on the HOUZZ website – is critical to any house, but is highly imperative in reduced-size living. The area under basement stairs, in laundry rooms, media areas, bedrooms, attics – anywhere really – is critical. When things are put away and organized, spaces look bigger. “Stuff” is a lot of the reason why we build such big homes. Aside from purging what we don’t really need, and buying less junk in the first place, designing and building custom storage solutions maximizes every square inch. If you can’t afford custom, using stock off-the-shelf cabinet solutions can be a great help. With a little customization, you can make it look built-in.
Get creative
Aside from some condominium designs, where structural walls are immovable, in most other forms of housing, anything is generally possible from the perspective of a layout change within the four perimeter walls of a building, as long as the budget allows for it. That mid-stair landing may offer an alternate access point to allow the splitting of an oversized bedroom into two, providing additional living area you need without adding to the footprint. Sure, the stair extension can have a visual impact to the room below it, but a creative bulkhead, paired with lighting, can make for an interesting and purposeful-looking structural element to add visual interest, rather than take away from it. While closing a window for built-in millwork may reduce natural lighting, it can fix the storage challenge and overall functionality of the room. Skylights, solartubes and well-designed electric lighting can offer solutions. In older homes built with low-ceiling basements and crawl spaces, underpinning of the foundation wall, while costly and labour intensive, can add 50 per cent or more of additional living area without expanding the home outward past its existing footprint.
Keep it professional
While there are lots of home projects that are DIY-worthy, in this instance, we would ask DIY-WHY? Architectural design, space planning, engineering structural changes, maximizing storage and mechanical/electrical system changes all require the skills of professionals to get it right and ensure life safety and proper execution.
We have all seen poorly designed spaces in our day, and I would argue that a properly designed 2,000 sq. ft. home trumps a poorly executed 4,000 sq. ft. home any day of the week!
Guiding architectural principles
- Basics, such as stacking staircases in a multi-level house, eliminate lost space above and below the stair, which occurs when not aligned.
- Keep powder rooms from opening into main rooms, especially concealed away from dining rooms and kitchens. There is not enough room here to explain why; just comply.
- Bedrooms should be no less than 9 ft. x 9 ft., and include a closet if you want a comfortable-sized bed, the storage required to keep things organized, and be able to walk around the bed. Tighter than this and you are looking at a twin bed, pushed up against a wall.
- Try and centralize forced-air mechanical equipment. Put it in an insulated space in the attic if you can, if it’s your source for cooling. This frees up the living area in the basement and ensures you use nature’s passive flow of convection currents to spread things comfortably throughout, eliminating temperature stacking and eddys, which reduce flow.
- If you can afford it, heat hydronically from a combi-boiler. In-floor or modern radiators offer more even heating and take up much less space than a conventional forced-air furnace. They are hyper-efficient and better for people who have allergies. Basements heated with in-slab tubing are warmer and drier than their counterparts, making them more comfortable to spend time in.