Smallest home practical for couple who grow/can/dry/grind/butcher/cook all their food? (wild, barn)
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My husband and I will be building an ~800 sq ft (probably more like 700 sq ft interior) strawbale house early this summer. We decided on something small because we need it to be finished in a season and we could always add on later to increase the space. The kitchen in our house plan is the largest room (open room concept for kitchen/living/dining) and a utility "closet" that will be big enough for washer/dryer. We will start out with 2 bed/1 bath and add an outdoor summer kitchen so we can do all of our food preserving outside.
Currently we live in an apartment about 700 sq ft (I know it's under 800 though), 2bd/1 bath and while it is comfortable my biggest complaint is the small kitchen and unusually large living room. It should be the opposite!
But our plan is to start kind of small and add on later if we don't want to take on debt (we have a budget) AND finish in time before next winter.
Older places in my area had what was called a summer kitchen, basically a screened in porch where the cooking and canning could be done without heating up the entire house during the summer.
One old friend of ours had set up space in his garage with deep sinks and countertops and a stove so he could do his canning and meat cutting out there over a concrete floor with a drain for easier cleanup, and wasn't making a mess in the house.
My cabin is 400 square feet on the main floor, with a loft for sleeping that while it has 400 square feet of floor, the pitch of the roof reduces the usable amount of space to around 200 square feet, however, the area between the walkable space and the edge of the roof could be covered and used for storage, so figure an area of about 200 square feet, 3 feet high at the front, 1 foot high at the rear.
The kitchen is about 10 feet x 14 feet because of the way the wood stove is set, but the whole main floor is open space so although the living room is about 10x10, you don't feel boxed in. I have a franklin type stove in one corner with stone masonry behind it that both protects the wall, and acts as a reflector and passive heat source as the rock absorbs heat during stove use, but bleeds it back into the living space when the stove isn't burning.
By adding an 8 foot screened in porch to 2 sides, you add about another 320 square feet of living space for the summer months where you can eat or have your living room.
If you have a building separate from the house attached by a breezeway where you keep all your freezers, canning and meat working and laundry spaces, you don't need a large house if it is just for a couple of people, and it's a lot easier to heat in the winter.
You don't want to have huge areas of counter space or huge sinks taking up living space for work that is really seasonal, so you don't need as much living space to heat, and that way you have a stove in your workspace so you can work out there, but doesn't make a mess in the house or waste space outside of the season when you are actually doing your preserving work.
Plus, it was really nice to have all the dirt and blood and hair in an area you could simply hose down to do most of the cleaning
Everyone has their own ideas, keeping the costs down can be cut by several means. If you have a chainsaw mill, you can cut your own lumber, (lot of work) or split small 8 inch trees in half to make joists for the floor and rafters for the roof.
If you know how to lay stone, you can make walls or foundations or skirt the home much cheaper than some forms of building, and you can add thermal mass and sandwiched insulation as well.
If you can utilize some of the resources available on your land to make your home, it can really offset a lot of the out of pocket costs and convert them into your own labor.
If you already live in a house and are doing all of this, you should be able to determine if the new house has to be larger, or the same size you now have.
Asking someone on the internet how big you should build your house is probably not the best approach. Only you know how much stuff you own, and how much room you use/need when you do your canning, etc.
One family of 4 might be just fine in a 900 SF house, yet another might need twice that to store their stuff.
Only you can determine exactly how much space you really need, or can afford.
Concrete has had a rather checkered history. Its partisans have claimed almost miraculous properties for it, but results have been very mixed.
The results for concrete are very mixed - no pun intended - because the mix and application can be flawed. I witnessed such myself. I was a grunt on a small construction team putting in new porch with four new post holes - and their concrete "foundation."
The 'chief carpenter' was overseeing the mix of water with the batch of dry materials. He didn't bother to measure nor check the slump and actually told the others to "put in more water" for workability (! EGADS !).
Luckily, the concrete "soup" wasn't in a critical application - but it certainly would not be near its design strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete
...
As to the historical potential for concrete - one need only look at 2000 year old Roman ruins composed of their unique concrete.
The results for concrete are very mixed - no pun intended - because the mix and application can be flawed. I witnessed such myself. I was a grunt on a small construction team putting in new porch with four new post holes - and their concrete "foundation."
The 'chief carpenter' was overseeing the mix of water with the batch of dry materials. He didn't bother to measure nor check the slump and actually told the others to "put in more water" for workability (! EGADS !).
Luckily, the concrete "soup" wasn't in a critical application - but it certainly would not be near its design strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete
...
As to the historical potential for concrete - one need only look at 2000 year old Roman ruins composed of their unique concrete.
I finished this book just a few weeks ago. It's a historical and technical account with plenty of fascinating detail. The author who has no connection to the concrete industry details both the good and bad about various sorts of concrete from its beginnings 12,000 years ago to the present day.
The concrete of today certainly can't perform as Roman concrete did 2,000 years ago. The Pantheon, made of unreenforced concrete, is still standing.
I highly recommend this book to the survivalist and scholar.
We do live in a house where we do this now. That said, we are already down one child at home, and will likely be empty nesters this year. A simplification is in order. Current home is 1300 sf.
The washer and dryer will stay, Although a clothesline will be built into the living area(wood heat dries things FAST) for winter and another outside for the rest of the year. The dryer will be used for times when one of us needs to have something clean quickly, which is not very often.
We will have a summer kitchen, as well, either on an attached porch or in a separate building. I will make it usable in winter with a simple mod kit for cold season use. Hot water will be from a solar and wood-fired system, with a propane on-demand backup. Heat will be from a rocket mass heater, and cooling(may want a bit when the summer temps are triple digit all day, and a low of 85+ at night for a few solid weeks) will likely be a small wall unit in the bedroom. I like it cool where I sleep.
Probably doing a double-stud wall, superinsulated structure with a standing seam metal roof. Radiant barrier, tight pack cellulose, air sealing, etc. Acid stained concrete floor. Lots of porch for outdoor living.
Also going to have a couple of barns, root cellar, icehouse, etc. Going to be interesting to see if I get enough cold weather in the Ozarks every winter to make ice reliably. Solar pump in the well, filling a cistern, elevated or pumped by solar as well. All this should keep the electric bill to a minimum, or allow us to be completely energy independent on a much smaller dime.
With the outbuildings I have planned, we don't need much space, but I do want to ensure we have enough to operate as we need to, and still be able to operate if one or both of us are disabled for whatever reason. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time seeing where one can have enough space in baths, laundry areas, or similar spaces. if disabled, with the really small home plans I see. Not to mention the lack of sufficient storage space for our admittedly well-stocked pantry. We are thinking about 1000 sf. or maybe 900 will be all the smaller we can comfortably go.
As previously stated, we are going to become "empty nesters" this summer. No more kids for us.
The last part of the above post deals with planning for utility when we age and/or become disabled.
We do intend to have a room used as an office/sewing room, etc., which can be used as a bedroom for guests or unintended live-ins. I also intend to build a "guest" apartment in one of the outbuildings for further ability to house extra people. Anyway, the whole getting "old and decrepit" thing is what is causing us to think we need 900-1000 sf. Gotta have a lot of room to spin a wheelchair or use a walker...
Reading this makes me rethink our desire to add on to our 1,680 square feet house. When the kids are gone we will have 3 extra bedrooms to do with as we please. Home office here I come. That is down the road 10 more years though at least. Our daughter is only 7 now. LOL
We do have an outdoor kitchen of sorts though. The grill is sitting there anyway. One of our plans is to build an actual outdoor kitchen area / grilling area. Then again we also plan on putting in a pool and a jacuzi.
Someone mentioned having a large living room and small kitchen and thought it should be differant. We like the flow of our home and like having a large living room. We also like having a large kitchen though. I prefer a large living room especially when we have friends over. The layout of our home has a sliding glass door that opens up to the back yard and this set up is perfect for entertaining. The dining room and kitchen are in front of the home.
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