Most people think "luxury" means a 5,000-square-foot mansion with three rooms they never visit. They're usually wrong. Honestly, the biggest mistake in modern home design isn't about style or color palettes; it’s about scale. Sarah Susanka changed everything in 1998 when she published The Not So Big House, and decades later, her philosophy is more relevant than it’s ever been.
We’re obsessed with quantity. We want more square footage, more bathrooms, more "stuff" to fill the voids. But have you ever noticed how everyone ends up huddling in the kitchen anyway? That's the core of the not so big house movement. It isn't about living in a tiny shed or being a minimalist monk. It’s about tailoring a house to how you actually live your life, not how you think you should live to impress the neighbors.
What People Get Wrong About Scale
Size is a trap. If you walk into a massive foyer with 20-foot ceilings, it feels impressive for exactly ten seconds. Then it feels cold. It's drafty. It's hard to heat. The not so big house approach argues that we should trade that wasted volume for better materials and smarter layouts.
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Think about the "formal dining room." In most American homes, that room is used maybe twice a year—Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year, it's a glorified hallway for the cat. Susanka’s big idea was to take those square feet and put them where they matter. Maybe that means a bigger pantry, a sun-drenched reading nook, or just higher-quality windows that don't leak air.
Space is expensive. Not just to build, but to maintain. When you reduce the footprint, you free up budget for things that actually touch your life. I'm talking about solid wood doors that have a satisfying "thud" when they close, or custom built-ins that hide the mountain of shoes by the front door. Quality over quantity. It sounds like a cliché because it’s true.
The "Away Room" Concept
One of the most brilliant parts of this design philosophy is the "Away Room." In the era of the open-floor plan—which, let's be real, is just a giant echo chamber for the television and the dishwasher—we’ve lost our privacy.
The not so big house doesn't mean you don't have walls. It means you have smart walls. An Away Room is a small, acoustically isolated space. It’s for when you need to take a Zoom call without the kids screaming in the background, or when you just want to read a book without seeing the dishes in the sink. It’s a pressure valve for the home.
Why We’re Still Building Too Big
Real estate agents and developers are partly to blame. They sell by the square foot. It’s an easy metric. If House A is 2,000 square feet and House B is 2,500 square feet, the buyer thinks House B is "better" value. But that’s like buying a suit that’s three sizes too big because it has more fabric. It looks terrible and it’s uncomfortable.
We also have this weird obsession with resale value. We build homes for a "future buyer" who might never exist, instead of building for ourselves. We add a fourth bedroom we don't need "just in case." This leads to the McMansion phenomenon—bloated houses with complicated rooflines and no soul.
The Environmental Impact Nobody Mentions
Building smaller isn't just a lifestyle choice; it's an ecological one. A not so big house requires fewer raw materials. It needs less energy to stay warm in January and cool in July. Even if you cover a 4,000-square-foot house in solar panels, a well-designed 1,800-square-foot house will almost always have a smaller carbon footprint.
Efficiency is beauty. When every room has a purpose, the house feels "full" without being cluttered. It feels alive.
The Psychology of the Alcove
Humans are funny creatures. We like open vistas, but we feel safest in "prospect and refuge" settings. This is a concept from environmental psychology. We want to be able to see the room, but we want our backs to be protected.
A not so big house uses architectural "jewelry" to create these feelings.
- Window seats that let you sit "in" the view.
- Lowered ceilings over a breakfast booth to make it feel cozy.
- Varying floor levels to define spaces without using walls.
These details are what make a house a home. You don't get these in a builder-grade "Great Room" where the scale is so distorted you feel like an ant.
A Lesson from the Past
If you look at bungalows from the 1920s or Sears kit homes, they were masters of the not so big house style before it had a name. They had built-in sideboards, breakfast nooks, and porches that acted as outdoor living rooms. They were designed for human beings, not for real estate spreadsheets.
We can go back to that. It starts with asking: "How much space do I actually use?"
Honestly, most of us could cut 30% of our floor plan and not even notice it was gone. What we would notice is the lack of a mortgage that keeps us up at night. Or the fact that it takes 20 minutes to vacuum the whole house instead of two hours. That is real luxury. Time is the one thing you can't renovate into a house later.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Project
If you're thinking about building or remodeling, don't start with a floor plan. Start with a list of activities. Where do you drink your morning coffee? Where do the kids do their homework?
Prioritize the flow.
Avoid "dead-end" rooms that serve only one purpose. A guest room that is also a craft room or a home office is a much better use of space than a dedicated "guest suite" that sits empty 350 days a year.
Invest in the "Third Dimension."
Ceiling heights and light are more important than floor area. A small room with a high, vaulted ceiling and a well-placed skylight will feel three times larger than a basement room with the same square footage.
Focus on the "Entry Transition."
In a not so big house, the entryway is critical. You need a place to drop your keys, take off your coat, and decompress. If you walk straight into the living room, the house feels chaotic. Even a tiny "mudroom" or a dedicated foyer area makes the rest of the house feel more organized.
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Look at your storage.
Huge houses often have "walk-in" everything, which just encourages you to keep junk you don't need. Better to have "reach-in" storage that is meticulously organized. Think like a shipbuilder. Every inch counts.
Building a not so big house requires more thought, not less. It requires an architect or a designer who understands proportions. It requires you to be honest about your habits. But the payoff is a home that hugs you back instead of a house that just sits there demanding to be cleaned.
Stop thinking about the "total square footage" and start thinking about the "total quality of life." That’s where the real value lives. If you want to dive deeper into these specifics, look into Sarah Susanka’s original diagrams on "diagonal views"—they are the secret weapon for making small spaces feel infinite. Focus on the details that catch the light and the spaces that bring people together. The rest is just empty air.