The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live Book

This is a terrible book. The houses in this book are more than twice the size of my house! I already mentioned like 150 times that we bought a house and it's fairly small and we're trying to adjust our lifestyles to use our space better. And actually, our house is 1100 square feet, which is not *really* small. Basically, this book is for people who are rich beyond my lived experience and have some novel desire for a smaller house, and a desire to spend as much on it as middle America spends on their giant 'burbian houses.

Anyway, I keep reading these "little house" books, many of which are really fantastic and full of ideas from people who created personalized homes with creative materials for a frugal, thoughtful, clever design. This book is none of those things. This book does rail against McMansions and the whole philosophy of "bigger is better" and the American Dream of a big house in the 'burbs with the boring fenced yard and blah blah blah but really, don't most people already know how wasteful and miserable a giant generic house in the 'burbs is? Yes, I think they do.

None of the architecture or design is especially clever. There is no "WOW!" moment when you see how a corner or hallway or overhead space gets converted to some crazy useful space. The houses are almost entirely devoid of creativity or personality. In this book, a small house is about high design and expensive materials. Frugal, eco-consciousness has nothing to do with it. This book is mind-numbingly idiotic and made me want to grate my face on a 3,000 square foot brick wall.