16 August 2012

All the..small things:

 In this house, we love Blink 182...but anyways, I have this strange obsession with small spaces. 3000 square foot home? No thanks. I would like a cramped 1300 square foot craftsman please. What is wrong with me?!

Let me give you a fine little piece of ex-Kylie-home-history.

Home 1:
was when I moved out of my parents house shortly after I turned 18. It was a glorified shed. It was actually a guest house in someones backyard, but it was all of 150 square feet, but it was home. My home. The first one I made all by myself and I look back on it with the BEST memories ever. I had to get creative with storage, never had enough room for clutter, and it was SO EASY to clean. I miss that sweet little shack.
These are the only photos of it I could find:



 My 1st Christmas tree as a "grown up". Thats my dining room table behind it. Yeah, tiny.

 My girlfriend and I hanging out (we may have had a drink or two..) in the storage cubby above my kitchen. Yes that tiny space down below was my kitchen!

 My bed/dressing area. The glare in the mirror was my front door. This place was NO JOKE it was so tiny. But I loved it, oh so much.

Home 2:
 This was the condo that Jake and I lived in when we first moved in together. We both agree it was the worst 6 months of our lives. Don't get me wrong, the condo was DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, and our landlord was the cats meow, but we couldn't afford our rent, therefor we certainly could furnish the place, and my creative self just couldn't be free. We had the absolute bare minimum as far as furniture and decorations went, because we just COULDN'T AFFORD more. And that sucked. We had this beautiful 1100 square foot condo, and our extra bedroom was 100 percent empty, and there was nothing on the walls. (Plus we fought constantly cause we had no money and could barely afford groceries and it was just a bad experience for the both of us)
 Only photos of home 2 I could find:

 Our sweet little dining space. (please ignore the quality of all of these photos, it was before my iphone)
 That was our psycho pups Lilly, who sadly had to go live with a new family. But thats another story. You can sort of see how open and big it was. I really did love the place! We were just too poor at the time!
This was when we were moving out. It was a nice large space. But I do not know why we had so many boxes. There was no way we had that much stuff.

Home 3: Our last home. Our sweet little 500 square foot La Mesa cottage. Again, BEST memories. It was so.damn.tiny. There was 1 closet in the entire house, we couldn't fit a table in the "dining room" (if thats even what you want to call it) and it was perfect in every way. We saved a freaking ton on rent each month, (and Jake got promoted so he made a ton of extra money anyway), it was the best neighborhood ever, and we got to decorate and DIY to our hearts content. That place was PACKED with stuff, but we did our best to be creative with storage, so it never felt too cramped. At least to us.
 Our last tiny little home. That door over there in the corner was our only closet. It served as a his-hers (more like hers hers)/cleaning closet/linen closet/junk you dont want people to see closet. But I absolutely loved it here. I miss it already! I get homesick looking at all these photos. Okay, time to move along...

 SO as you can tell, big spaces=bad memories, small spaces=sweet memories. I.LOVE.SMALL.SPACES.

As I shared a few weeks ago, Jake and I have been meeting with different builders about a new home, and visiting different subdivisions and so on and so forth. Here's a fun little fact about tract homes in the south. They are all gorgeous. However, they have not one ounce of individuality. Im not kidding here folks, my head literally hurts from all the brick homes with large front porches and green lawns. (what a princess).

 That being said, yesterday I had to take my dad to the airport, (hope your havin fun in San Antonio pops!) and on the way there (its like a freaking eternity to get there and in the middle of bum-f*ck eqypt) I spotted these sweet little craftsman homes, with no brick in site, bright-ass front doors, and gorgeous colors that in no way resembled white/rust/or brown brick. I decided to make a little stop on my way back and my heart was stolen. STOLEN I TELL YOU!


p.s this house has a bright-ass magenta door. I am in love with it. Literally, have you seen "my strange addiction" where the guy is in a relationship with his car? Or the crazy ass woman who clearly needs medication, who claims to have sex with the Eiffle tower? Well, I get it now. Thats how I feel about this perfectly sweet starter home. Bad news is, this beauty has sold, and the other options in this much smaller subdivision aren't as sweet, but still awesome none the less. I immediately called the listing agent and we have an appointment to view the other 5 homes for sale tomorrow.  Here are some images via trulia so you get the idea:

 This kitchen is miniscule compared to the others we have seen. But there is just something about it! and there is no pantry that I can see either so I will need to get creative here...hmmmm projects in a brand spankin' new, never been lived in home, anyone?
 Hey! There is no fireplace either, and I am not even sure if a sectional couch would fit in this tiny living room. But something about it makes me feel at home.
 Want to know another thing I hate? The fact that the master is on the 1st floor, and the other 2 bedrooms are upstairs. WHY THE HELL DO BUILDERS DO THIS. DO you think I want to trek my breast feeding ass up the stairs to attend to my crying baby at 3 in the morning? No I do not.
 I am assuming this is one of the 2 upstairs bedrooms. Cute size it looks like, but who knows, it could be more like "closet size"
 Oh yeah, did I mention no dining room either? But its not exactly like we're throwing dinner parties every weekend, HELLO, NEW TO THE AREA, NO FRIENDS OVER HERE!
 MAGENTA DOOR MAGENTA DOOR! I get house-horny for this entry way. I am serious I want to kiss those gorgeous wood floors.
This is actually a brighter orange in person I think. And i'm prettysure the door is magenta now. But whatever you get the idea. I want a white picket fence, and some pretty flowers against my green lawn right here.
here are the 6 homes in their cute little individual glory. I just love them and I don't know why.


Seriously though, the other houses we have looked at are 4+ bedrooms, with giant formal dining rooms and whirlpool bathtubs and yards that would need a john deer to mow. But they just don't  do it for me. Ya know? That feeling like "this is where I wanna come home from the hospital with my first child feeling". Thats what I got, JUST from spying in windows, stalking trulia, and hoping fences to peek in every backyard.

 So I got to thinkin' about the issues I have with the house.

1) no fireplace. Thats not really that big of an issue. I can always buy one of those little mantles and put some candles underneath it, right? Hey you fireplace owners out there, how important would you say it really is?

2) Stupid-as-f*ck master downstairs: Again, not too big of an issue. Since really, the entire house will be ours, we could make the large downstairs into a super sweet office/guest room/extra living space. I think it would be fun! As much as I'd like to think that we have friends flying in left and right to stay with us for weeks at a time, thats just not a-happenin'. We will have guests in there 2 weeks out of the year max, so an extra living space instead of a master could be nice, right? I can easily adapt to a smaller bedroom upstairs, so we can be next to the (one day in the far far away future) nursery.

3) No pantry: this is a bit of an issue. But it can be easily fixed. some nice wood shelving in either the "extra living space master bedroom" or something like that. It will help me work on my creativity, people!

4) No room for dining: again, not really an issue. We have no dining room table now, basically cause its pointless since we never use it, and I know it'd be the same in the new house. Why on earth would we need an 8 person formal dining room when we dont even know 8 people in this town to begin with?! A cute little "breakfast nook" would be plenty sufficient. Right?!

and those are my only cons so far. I haven't even been on the inside yet. and I am already planning my furniture and what I would like to do to change bits and pieces. (I may or may have not called a professional painting company to get a quote on what it would cost to paint the outside a super fun color). So whats your opinion on this tiny house business? The way I see it is, its just Jake and I right now. And even when we do have a baby in 3-4 years, its a BABY, they don't exactly need room to stretch out. And by the time our family grows larger, we will hopefully have enough equity in the home to sell, and buy that large dream home everyone talks about.

I just  love small spaces. I am not sure what it is. The being creative with furniture/storage, the fact that you have a lot less floor space to vacuum, or the fact that a small home means being that much closer to who you share that small home with.

I think I have made up my mind.




P.s. If you follow me on pinterest, you will probably notice a LOT of small-space organizing/decorating inspiration. I.just.can't.help.myself.

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4 comments:

  1. Love the small homes and the colors. definitely think smaller is better and cozier :)

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  2. I'm totally with you on the smaller homes thing. Ideally, I would love a home that was big enough to comfortably fit our small family and dog, but not so big that it would take forever to clean it. Also, I think that when you have a bigger home, you just end up acquiring more junk you don't need. I love the cubby on top of the kitchen in your first home!

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  3. LOVE the houses!! They are sooooo CUTE!! Is there any land behind them? That's the only thing, I need some green space and I need my neighbours to be a little farther on the sides.

    Thanks for sharing this at The DIY Dreamer.. From Dream To Reality! Looking forward to seeing what you link up this evening :)

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  4. Love your selection!!! Those prints on the rug is what I got recently for my house. industrial design

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