Editor's Note: Small is Beautiful

There is nothing like a serious challenge to help you focus your thinking. This focus often leads to better conclusions than you might have considered otherwise.

The challenge for many people today is how to get what they want in their dream home — a dream home that has been downsized to fit their new budget realities. It is causing people to sacrifice some grandiosity and instead to give other considerations a higher priority.

Take Bill and Marise Craig, whose 16-by-19-foot weekend cabin wasn’t big enough to handle full-time life after retirement. After considering an entirely new home, they instead decided to add on to their 18th Century core. The post-and-beam addition fits right in with the older portion they’ve loved for years.

For Heather Starke, the challenge was to continue entertaining family and friends after she moved into her new lakeside home, so she made her kitchen the center of her new design.

One way to give a smaller home the feel of a much bigger house is to have a huge “room” just outside every window and door in the form of a wraparound porch. That solution makes the home of Steve and Patricia Sodorff feel twice as big as it is.

Paul and Jeanne Arsenault opened up their relatively small house by putting huge windows on every exterior wall. By doing so, they got their “cottage feel with views,” and gave it the impression of a much bigger home.

These are just some of the ways to make your wallet go farther and to make your new home feel larger yet richer.

The April 2011 issue of Timber Home Living magazine is full of ideas for, and photos of, smaller homes.

The view from the deck of the Arsenault home. Click here for the full story and more photos of the home.

Photo by Tim Murphy/Foto Imagery