I have a 2700 sq ft loft, plus a two car garage and a 400 sq ft deck (fuck, my home gym alone is bigger than a lot of these microdwellings). I don't have very much furniture. Frankly, as gluttonous as it sounds to have all that for one man (+two cats), I fuckin love it. It's wide open and not cluttered, about as peaceful as a home can be in my opinion. I don't get claustrophobic on airplanes or in elevators, but I get it bad in a cluttered home. The top floor of my place is a 900 sq ft room that is used as a living room, dining room and kitchen, with floor to ceiling (11 ft ceilings, too!) windows on one end. It's the opposite experience I had growing up, where there were always a bunch of kids, we messed the house up all the time, and the only place I had to myself was a tiny bedroom. The smallest place I lived was a 600 sq ft studio, which wasn't that bad, and was all I could afford on a graduate student stipend. But at this point in my life, I don't think I'd have an easy time adjusting back down.
For the record, I absolutely love your place. It's large and spacious, especially for one guy, but you seem to fill it well. The deck and large windows with trees in the living area gives it a sense of peace and you forget at times that you are in fact in a city. I had an industrial converted loft space in Maine that had huge ceilings - like 20ft ceilings - and it was amazing to have those ceilings. Turned out to be a total expensive bitch to heat though. Like yours, when you were inside you often forgot that you were surrounded by buildings and people and dogshit. Having high ceilings makes a huge difference in terms of claustrophobia. I had two places in NYC, one with 11 foot ceilings and one with 7ft drop ceilings. Even though the second was larger in square footage, the first felt far better to live in.
I just wonder how you fill all that space up. There comes a point when you can't buy any more stuff to fill it with, right? Or spend ages keeping it all tidy. I live in a really small room with a kitchen, and I keep it clean and tidy all the time. It doesn't feel small because of similar high ceilings and the long side is nearly all window. But I really enjoy to live with only the things I need, to not waste space and resources. It feels spacious because it's layout is efficient. Don't you feel like wasting space?I have a 2700 sq ft loft, plus a two car garage and a 400 sq ft deck. [...] I don't get claustrophobic on airplanes or in elevators, but I get it bad in a cluttered home.
I don't. I have not much more furniture than the last place I lived, which was about one third as big. It's easy to vacuum and sweep around nothing, so keeping it clean isn't really an issue. I have a bathroom that I haven't used in god knows how long, so it's a bit silly to have to clean that, as water stains just naturally build up, and I have a shower that I have literally never used once in the 2.5 years I've owned this place. I run the water from time to time to make sure that rust doesn't clog the pipes, but again, it doesn't require much maintenance. I bought the place, because it had just gone into foreclosure, so I got a remarkably good deal. Before that, I never saw myself as the type to have such a large condo. It's fairly easy to get used to, however.I just wonder how you fill all that space up.