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Our family has lived in homes that range in size from 1100 sq. ft. to 3,000 sq. ft. We just moved from our 3,000 sq. ft. home in Alabama to a 1,600 square foot house due to my husband’s new assignment with the Army. It’s been an adjustment to say the least, but we are no strangers to downsizing. I’ve written before how to make a small house work for a large family, and today I want to share the benefits of living in a small house.

5 big benefits of living in a small house- how to love living in a small home.

When I found out we were moving again, I was admittedly upset. The housing market in 2022 is rough, and because we were moving on a military assignment, we were looking to rent with a military lease which complicated things in an already difficult rental market. We tried for months to get a home, but ultimately could only get into a 1,600 square foot home about 30 minutes from my husband’s office.

Did you know the average size of an American home size is about 2,400 square feet? That’s up from 1,500 square feet in 1974. Add in the fact that most American families max at out 2 or maybe 3 children, and we’re definitely maxing out our space here with our family size of 9.

While I was upset to be leaving our dream home that we own, I did look at the benefits of living in a smaller space and actually kind of looked forward to them.

What are the benefits of living in a smaller house?

There are actually a lot of benefits to living and even owning a smaller house. Today I’m going to share the five biggest benefits I’ve noticed about moving from a bigger house to one with considerably less space.

Less Cleaning Time

I think the biggest thing I looked forward to when moving from a big house to a small house was the reduced cleaning time. The entire bottom floor of our bigger house was pretty open. It would take me forever just to clean the floors.

I have to admit I’ve been excited that it only takes me a few minutes to sweep and mop the kitchen floor! Dusting time is reduced, and we went from three bathrooms to two, so yay for one less bathroom to clean! Spending a lot less time cleaning is actually a big relief to me!

More Family Time

With less space to spread out from each other, the kids and I find ourselves definitely together a lot more. While we are a homeschool family and generally together a lot, the smaller space means that we have easy access to games and books on a whim. It’s no longer a chore to traipse upstairs to find the items. I have them placed in our main living area, so we can use them more often.

Helps You Minimize Possessions

Are you drowning in clutter? There’s nothing like moving to a smaller house to get your butt in gear to declutter the whole house. With such little space I find myself constantly getting rid of things.

There are some things that don’t necessarily fit in our small house well (our table and piano), but I decided to keep them even though we are in close quarters and I know we aren’t living here forever, but everything else is up on the chopping block. I definitely hold on to a lot less stuff simply because I have less storage space.

Smaller Utility Bills

It should be no secret that a smaller house means smaller utility bills and less money spent in general.

The biggest shock we received when we moved into our larger house was the electric bill. Obviously we are typically home all day using electricity, running the washing machine and dishwasher plus electronics, and in the summer we ran our pool filter. Those electric bills are killer!

A smaller house means less to heat or cool and less to light. You may also possibly have a smaller yard, which means less maintenance and expense there. I find that there’s a lot more freedom and extra money to go and do things with a smaller house and less to care for at home.

No Need to Downsize in the Future

I was actually just discussing this with my mom today. If you live in a smaller house, you may have no reason to downsize after your children are grown. I often think about how we won’t need the 3,000 square feet of the home we own, and how difficult it will be to maintain the acreage. A smaller house with a small yard will be easier to care for in old age.

How Do You Live Comfortably in Small House?

The biggest key to living comfortably in a small house is to organize it properly and make use of every object you have in your home.

Small House Organization

Our main living space is odd. We have a very small kitchen attached to a combined living and dining area. It has been a challenge to set it up with the furniture we brought from our bigger home. I have no separate homeschool room, so my homeschool set up is in the dining room. I’m used to coming up with creative storage solutions for our large family, though, so I’ve been up for the challenge!

I have created pockets of storage space throughout our home. I use cabinets and shelves to store needed items, lazy susans in the kitchen, over the door hangers in the laundry room and bathrooms, and over the cabinet hangers in the bathrooms.

We needed a simple place in our tiny laundry room for our iron and ironing board, so I purchased this really nifty over the door ironing board hanger. It gets those items off the floor and out of my limited counter space.

I have over the door hooks in my kids’ bathroom. It holds several towels. Each child gets one towel a week, so they hang their towel back on the hook after using it.

My biggest concern when we first moved in was making our kitchen functional. I got to work organizing it immediately. We have no separate pantry, so I carved precious cabinet space into a place to store our food. I utilized the top of the refrigerator for my electric griddle, and bought an organization rack to store ziplock baggies, foils, etc. I got rid of a lot of extra coffee mugs and dishes just so everything would fit, but you know what, we don’t miss the stuff I got rid of!

I’m still working out our small homeschool space. It’s definitely not perfected yet. I’m also working on how best to arrange our children’s rooms. While this house is small, it does have four bedrooms. I’m able to spread the kids out over the rooms a bit better than I was in previous homes we lived in.

Another option for living comfortably in a small space is to buy furniture that has more than one purpose. For example, our coffee table has space underneath to store our blankets because we like cozying up on the couch with blankets.

My husband built our farmhouse style bed and it has drawers underneath. Those drawers are great for storing out of season clothes and bed linens. If you have space under your bed, you can purchase some under the bed totes and use them in the same way.

Storage ottomans and benches are great for putting away toys or games, but can also double as seating.

Shelves are your friends! You can put shelves almost anywhere you have available wall space. We added shelves to our dining room for our school books, shelves in our bedroom for some of my business things, and floating shelves in the bathroom for products in there such as make-up brushes, cotton balls, and more.

Don’t forget about the corners of your house! Use corner cabinets or corner shelves in your corners to make use of that space.

Tiered trays are another way you can maximize your space. If you have a small bathroom counter, you can store twice as much with a tiered tray.

In a culture where big houses and over the top living seems so popular, it’s important to understand that you can love your smaller home. You can thrive with less stuff and a simpler life. You may even find yourself happier!

More Small House Living Inspiration

Need more ideas for living in a small house? I've got you covered!

How To Love Living in a Small House – 5 Big Benefits from a Family of 9

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure and privacy policy for more information. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.