As my best friend pointed out, I had an unfair advantage in calculating my carbon foot print (see this post). Yet, I still need more than 4 earths to support my life?!?! Un-freaking-believable. This unfair advantage is a product of living in a big city where square footage is very, very expensive. My husband and I save gobs of energy living in a small condo, in a building with 100+ units. Our condo, when it’s empty and I’m feeling positive, is about 600 square feet. I can hear the collective gasp from all the non-City folks. Yeah, it’s small. And, yeah, that’s an understatement. But it’s actually not that unusually small for a city home.
Of course, we hope to move into a bigger place someday. I’ve been carefully overtaking small bits of my husband’s space since the day I moved in so, at a minimum, he’ll have to move out some day. Or sell all his stuff. Anyway, the moral of the story here is….it turns out--despite that 3000 square foot “mansion” I may or may not have imagined prior to moving to Chicago--I don’t need a huge home and I don’t even think I want a huge home. Smaller space living isn’t for everyone, but it might just be for me.
Do I want a place for guests to stay? Yes. Would I like a bigger closet? Certainly. But do I need six bedrooms, an office, a family room, and a den? No, I don’t. Let’s be real--it’s just more to clean and I don’t love to clean. And I won’t end up with more space, I’ll end up with more stuff—and we all know world savers don’t need more stuff (remember “Goods and Services” is one of the 4 main carbon footprint categories). So, I’ll think I will be happy somewhere in the middle. To be clear, I’m not knocking those who do have larger homes and I am definitely not saying I don’t envy often my friend’s bedroom suite, which just so happens to be about the size of my entire apartment, but maybe a large home simply isn’t a priority in my life right now. And, lucky for me, that happens to jive really well with my world saving plan.
4 comments:
I thought I'd take the time to tell you that if you use cloth diapers when you get pregnant and have kids, we're not going to be friends anymore.
Ok. We'll be friends. But I won't be able to relate to you nearly as well.
Just thought you should know.
Finally! A comment. I thought no one was reading. :-( But, what does cloth diapers have to do with my post? Are you saying you won't babysit if I use cloth diapers?!?!?!
It has to do with your post b/c you're getting uber environmental and worried about how many planets you're taking up. I would imagine that disposable diapers are a no-no... Babysitting would happen... you'd just have to accept that the diaper may not be on properly... or that I'd bring my own disposable ones for my visits... (Of course I'm reading...)
This made me think about our first apartment and how small it was (we have a landscaped portion of our yard that's larger...). But it is great because you have to be objective about what you love enough to take up that space and you do tend to fill up whatever space you have.
I think it's also easy to assume you need more space even in a house. We originally thought we'd "need" to move if we have more kids, but now (because of the housing market) thinking about what spaces we actually get use out of and what could change.
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