In the 18 years between 1985 and 2003 the floor area of new homes in Australia has grown by nearly 40%. In 2005 28% of homes had four bedrooms or more compared with 17% in 1976. During the same period the number of people in each household has dropped from 3.1 to 2.5.
Fewer people live in bigger houses, with more stuff.
In contrast, Australian homes of the 1920s and 1930s became smaller than their earlier counterparts. Building materials were expensive and families were becoming smaller and a period of house-size rationalisation began. Hallways disappeared, bedrooms were functionally sized and sleep-outs became popular. Wirelesses replaced the piano and in smaller homes dining rooms disappeared into an all-purpose living room. A focus on outdoor activity placed the family car in sharp focus with garages and driveways widening suburban blocks.
a 1920s home offered by Knight & Harwood builders, Melbourne*
House design naturally alters over time to accommodate changes to the way we live. The demise of service staff in the home means that the working areas such as the kitchen and laundry are now at the heart of the house; living areas now accommodate televisions rather than radios or pianos and many homes have a computer room, home office or study. However homes are also larger taking up more of our suburban blocks than ever before. Rather than a focus on the outside, there is a focus on the inside (with the exception of the outdoor room, which is the inside taken outside).
I live with my husband and two children in an early Arts and Crafts style home built in 1919. It was probably built for an upper middle class family of the time and there is evidence of the dividing walls between the private and ‘service’ areas of the home – there was likely a live-in maid. Our house has had minimal changes to its layout over the years.
Recently we decided to update the kitchens and bathrooms of the house. We are in the early stages of this process and have found the first hurdle – trying to find an architect that respects our wishes not to increase the size of the house. The first desire of architects we have seen is to make our house bigger, add more bedrooms (we already have four) and create an enormous master suite.
According to Archicentre the top trends for renovations are the rumpus room, parents’ retreat, ensuites, walk-in-robes, decks and outdoor kitchens. In addition storage is a big issue because our big houses need lots of stuff to fill them and lots of stuff needs storage.
I feel all out of date requesting none of this (I do want a back verandah – is that a deck? I guess so). These trends would be alien to an era before our time when children shared bedrooms, when the main living area was the back lawn and kids playing outside meant that parents didn’t need retreats.
I feel our house is big enough, I just want it to work better. I like the rational approach of building a house to meet your needs, not exceed them. A refocus on getting outdoors rather than cocooning indoors.
Wish me luck, because I can feel a fight with the trends coming along. Will I cave in or will I stick to my guns?
What would you do?
References:
The Australian Bureau of Statistics
*Chuffley, P Australian Houses of the Twenties and Thirties, The Five Mile Press, 1983
Archicentre - Trends Renovations 2008
20 comments:
Great post! It is a little scary how many 'living' rooms a family home apparently needs these days. We don't have a garage and although it would be handy (we just have a small shed) we have decided not having a garage is probably a good thing as it makes it more difficult for us to collect 'stuff'. I agree with you that it is more important to make the space you have work better. Cheers, Tricia
Just this weekend there was an article in the paper about house size trends. Something about the elaborate victorians gave way to simple and efficient tract homes after the depression (or maybe it was war). There was speculation that the current economy would drive a new set of requirements into the homes built for tomorrow... ...that said, the architect works FOR you, and should respectfully seek to satisfy your wishes. You have reasons for what you want, so stick to your guns!!
One more thing to mention: The kitchens wete 'eat in' kitchens. A table and chairs in almost every pre-80s kitchen was the norm. I miss that.
I call decks verandas too. We are becoming way to American.
Stick with your own thinking - the world has need of intimate spaces and cozy areas I think ....rather than the family disappearing into vast disconnected rooms...
great post Megan!
Friends with teenagers tell me that the worst decision they ever made was to go all open plan. They wish they had lots of smaller rooms for them to disappear into.
An architects job is to interpret the wishes of the client - not to dictate them.
In new houses we have recently toured I have noticed that the three bedrooms away from the master bedroom now have their own rumpus attached. This is in addition to the main lounge space and the theatre room. Each person can have their own bedroom and their own rumpus space!
Our new house is a post war red brick commission house and it's tiny; two just big enough bedrooms, a bathroom that we reduced back to it's original size, an eat in kitchen, lounge that you walk through and a wonky third bedroom that we are using as a study/sewing room. We're planning to extend but I'm surprised how well we've managed to fit our lives into such a small space. People have told me that it was not uncommon for large families to happily share these houses. It also seems that everyone moves in imagining the big rennovation they will do, but that the plans shrink as people get used to the houses (we all have pretty much a variation on the same house around here - makes it easy to know where the loo will be). I think we'll still extend, but I'm asking myself if it needs to be as much as I first thought. There's virtue in a house that I can vacuum pretty much from one powerpoint and have it done inside half an hour.
I say stick to your guns.
Stick to your guns. The smaller the house, the less there is to clean. Yuck.
I cannot see the rationale for a parents' retreat — retreat from what, for heaven's sake? They're your kids!
I sort of don't mind the combined kitchen and living/family room idea – so long as you can't see the fridge when you're in the living area. I hate that.
But our kitchen in our old Subi house (built in 1906) was its own room. Big enough for table and chairs. It was lovely to be separate from the rest of the house, especially when cooking curry!
Uh, our renovation plans include a second level (third if the council let us put in my long dreamed of reading room), two more bedrooms (total: 5), one more bathroom (total: 3), bigger kitchen, bigger family room. Total size of our house will increase from 19 to 32 square.
Does that answer your question?
That was a very interesting post. I have always wondered about modern days homes and wasted space. Our home is about 20 yrs old and has some wasted space, but not much.
I've just moved into the biggest and newest house I've ever lived in. It's a 70s house though, so it doesn't have most of the things McMansions have. I can't imagine those cavernous houses, I keep losing things in this one.
Stick to your guns. Perhaps looking for environmentally conscious architects would help? They might be more sympathetic to small.
Houses now seem to be either tiny two bedroom places or the McMansions variety. Around my way there are lots of town houses or apartments, and they are so small - it would be really difficult to have one child, let alone two, in such places.
But I must admit that I have always had a separate family room. I need a room where you can get away from the TV.
You might have to look for an eco-friendly architect? Theoretically, they should be more in tune with your wants, which are perfectly reasonable! Who wants to clean an enormous house anyway?
I live with 2 boys, I shudder to think of McMansion living where no-one has a backyard any more & it's all house. The best thing about moving out into a more suburban area was the acquisition of a backyard, specially since we don't encourage kids to roam these days.
I agree about smaller houses needing less cleaning and they are kinder to the environment for heating and cooling purposes too.
An award awaits you at my place.
Stick to your guns! You are the one living in the house, so have it your way or the contractor can walk. You are paying him to do what you want, not what he wants...
Thank you for all your thoughtful comments. We have recently chosen architects based on their appreciation of old homes and the fact that they didn't look at me weirdly when I suggested I like lino as my kitchen floorcovering of choice!
It is so tempting to renovate with the elusive notion of "resale" value in mind rather than what it is you, the owner, actually wants to live in.
My parents house was built with a room in the basement for a servant. The laundry was also put in the basement - next to the servant's room (which funnily enough, became my bedroom).
All the main rooms upstairs have a call button, and there is a board in the kitchen with tabs that flip over when a call button is pressed. If you are entertaining guests in the lounge room, you can press the call button and have the servant come out and pour drinks.
When my parents renovated the place, they installed a call button on the floor at the head of the table, so the "master" of the household could press it with their foot to summon the servants to serve the next course.
Growing up, I was the servant for a lot of dinner parties. I also had to crawl round under the house at age 10 to run the wiring to the right spot under the floorboards.
I love it - when I am visiting my parents and put on a dinner for my friends, I now get to press the button under the table and my parents bring out the grub.
As for size, we have 3 kids and we're living in a shoebox. All we need is one more bedroom, and that would do us. Size is not everything!
I don't live in your house, so it is hard to say.
My own home is 1930's art deco. It has 2.5 bedrooms, 1 ( original )bathroom, no robes and my boys share a room.
We plan to go up in time, adding another 2bds and a bathroom. We also plan to make better use of the space we have. Ongoing fun.
I dislike open plan and TOO MUCH space, because I am always thinking of heating/cooling/cleaning..
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