I used to live in Japan so I know how to live in a very small space. When I graduated from college, it irked me that all these studio apartments in NYC were so big! I just wanted to sleep, eat and live in one little room and save on rent.
Nowadays my house shares most of its space with my business (80% according to the tax forms) so I live in a small space even though the house is a total of 2200 sq ft.
Clutter is something I cannot stand. I have it. Lots of it. But it makes me nuts. So the ability to go into a room without clutter is important to me.
But the other thing that's important to me is conservation of energy. I don't want to heat a two story cathedral ceiling. Why? My house was built in the 1880s and many of the windows are on the south side, so it gets good passive solar. And that's important to me.
Recently, we had a power outage for nearly a week, and we lived in one room (the room with the fireplace) to conserve our resources. It was okay, but I was really happy when the electricity came back on and I could go upstairs!
