Don and I like to walk during the evening, usually when the summer’s heat has waned but it’s still light enough to see in front of your feet. We have our typical route, which cuts into this small neighborhood in back of his condo. “It’s too bad they don’t make neighborhoods like this anymore,” he often laments. What he means is, you often don’t see newly built neighborhoods with houses that are under 1200 square feet, or in modern middle-class America, affordable houses.
So to add insult to injury, I read an article in Better Homes & Gardens that might tell us why those 1200 square foot homes are not popular anymore.
Preteen boys shoot baskets on the driveway and pile onto the dining room benches for PB&Js. “They don’t mind being packed in like sardines,” says mom Chris.
Later on, the article tells you exactly what “being packed in like sardines” really is - 1800 square feet.
This, of course, is amusing to me. It’s no wonder the real estate market is flopping and people are foreclosing on their homes. Most people are under the disillusion that 1800 square feet is actually small.
Call me cynical, but all I can think is, “looks like another couple headed for divorce.” And it’s amazing how your perspective totally changes after you’ve been divorced. All that stuff that was so important to you is no longer so wonderful, because once you’re divorced, well, all of your stuff is dwindled down to half-is-mine and half-is-yours piles, most of which is jettisoned overboard because split families have to downsize into tiny apartments. Imagine that, you have to live in an apartment which is smaller than your house!
