5th-Wheel Wanderings

Like most newlyweds in the mid-1960s, our first home was an inexpensive one-bedroom apartment.  I imagine it didn't have more than 250 square feet of floor space.  Over the years, we moved on to a two-bedroom apartment  A month of so before our first son was born, we bought a 12' by 60' mobile home.  About three years later, we bought an actual stick and brick house that was 1200 square feet plus a full basement.  We had three bedrooms by then, making room to have another son a year or so later.

Next, we sold that home and purchased John's family's funeral home.  There we had a 3,000 square foot house attached to the business which was another 3,000 square feet.  We loved living there.  We had plenty of room for overnight guests and were able to entertain and hold church gatherings there.  Would we keep going bigger and bigger?  No.

When we sold the funeral home, we moved into a small condominium where we lived during the three years John attended seminary.  I loved that home.  For the next few years, we lived first in a rented home of about 1,200 square feet and then a smaller vacation condo in the Colorado mountains while John was serving churches there.  It isn't really convenient to live in a place designed for weekend ski vacations.  We had quite a bit of space but very little storage room.

When John was called to a church in the Denver area, we rented a neat townhouse until we found a home we wanted to buy.  We loved that house in Centennial and lived there till we decided to become full-time RVers.  The same couple has been renting it for nearly six years.  Yea.
We have really enjoyed living in small spaces most of our married life.  In fact, I also grew up in a house that had only 900 square feet and didn't feel cramped.  All of this may explain why we have been content to live in an RV with about 300+ square feet of space for six years and why we just purchased a winter home that only has 716 feet of floor space.  We feel comfortable in this kind of space.  It is compact, easy to clean, and convenient. 

There is a Tiny House movement these days.  And the Swedish store IKEA features furniture that can equip small living spaces of 100 and 400 square feet in their stores.  I must admit, 100 to 200 feet is just not enough space for us these days.  But less than 1,000 feet is great for our style of living.