Small Houses

Choosing the most suitable place for living is one of the most important decisions, especially for people with family. A house will be preferred over a department for many reasons, in economic terms, the house is built on a piece of land which has an economic value that will not be lost even if the house falls down, and in amusement space terms, a garden is always necessary to spend some time with the family on spare time.

A house is the real definition of privacy; it turns out to be the last refuge. A house performs different tasks in addition to providing shelter to its inhabitants whether from the inclement weather or from social environment, a house becomes a real extension of the personality of its residents.

The model of the traditional house confined between four strong and static walls has been one of the first models to present substantial changes, since given life parameters that can be found on different places, the old design turns out to be ineffective.

But a big house has become an expensive luxury these days due to budget issues. A big house on a residential area, for instance, will be expensive not only at the moment of acquiring it, but taxes will also become a terrible concern for the owner every year.

Having pointed the importance of having of house but considering also the expenses involved, it is easy to see that the most suitable option for living is a small house. Small houses involve some other advantages too, they are easier to clean and since they do not have too much space, the owner feels less tempted to accumulate things that have no real value; there are significant savings on expenses like electricity and other basic services, maintenance costs are lower since in a small house usually there are no many things to repair. The owner can change the color of the house whenever he wants without having to spend too much on paint, and since a small house does not accumulates too much dust, the dwellers will be affected less by respiratory diseases.

Small houses are also being recommended by ecological movements. In Vancouver, Canada has emerged a new movement known as EcoDensity which intends to reduce the ecological mark of the city by means of encouraging a type of environmentally friendly densification which consists of increasing the amount of people living per square mile. Building small houses from this point of view may be useful to allow for population growth without considering the environmental effects.

For all the reasons listed previously, small houses have become preferred by consumers, and designers and architects are working to create more ideas to make the small house a homely and pleasant place without having to spend too much money.

Traditional small houses tend to look very similar to a fairy tale small house, while on the other hand; small houses with modern design tend to be simpler.

Some people may consider the reduction of space an issue or disadvantage on small houses, but interior decorators are working to provide useful ideas to dwellers, in order to take a maximum advantage of the space available. For instance, in the case of a dorm, which usually has a bed, a couple of little tables and a cabinet, it is recommended to exclude auxiliary furniture in order to save space for circulation inside the room. Room color can produce a visual effect; from this point of view light colors are the most suitable to make the room look wider.

There is no need to build walls inside a small house in order to separate different rooms, there are fiberboards specially designed to divide one single area into many different rooms, for instance, kitchen and living room could be placed inside the same area and there are kitchen cabinets with decorative purposes which can separate in a stylish way both environments.

In past decades, a big house was required for a family given the number of member which also used to be big, families of at least 8 or even 10 members were not going to fit comfortably in a small house. But today most of the families have at most 4 or 5 members, and also single people is looking for a house to establish, or couples which are in pursuit of the ideal “love nest”.

On each case, no big and complex constructions are required, and getting the greatest advantage of interior decoration, wonders can be done to turn a small house into a very nice place to live on.

Among the characteristics of new architectonic designs are diversity and a lack of style, although there are some common parameters of experimentation and reflection on architectonic production, being the most important of them mutability and flexibility.

The combination of both elements has aided to the development of reversible systems of construction, which tend to more economic, fast and easy to build as possible as it gets. The flexible construction solutions are configured beginning with three principles: a unique space, versatility and adaptability. In this case furniture and a variety of elements play an important role of the development of the architectonic space.

Furniture, walls and many other different architectonical elements are conceived in general as multifunctional pieces which may be useful for more than one activity and at the same time to delimitate spaces.

On the other hand mutable spaces propose a total control of space available on each area, characterized for the flexibility which allows a constant adaptation from the environment to the needs of the residents, while on old houses which used to be built with fixed walls was complicated to get.

Seem to be after all that for different reasons, and from different points of view, these modern small houses that are becoming more and more popular each day are the most suitable for the needs of modern citizen and modern families due to the combination of the creativity of architects and interior designers.

Example of a small house