Story and Photo by Dave Martinez
Published in Flux Magazine
Walt Quade was always a man for small spaces. Living in places ranging from cottages to boats, the former home contractor grew tired of building duplexes for a quick profit and turned his home-building skills to something smaller.
In 1992, Quade built his last five thousand-square-foot duplex and downsized his business model to build 325-square-foot homes.
“A lot of people have become acclimated to large spaces,” Quade says. “The challenge became, ‘how small can we make it?’”
Quade, the owner of Small Home Oregon, has thrown out the traditional large-home image and specializes in building tiny homes. The Portland-based home builder is creating houses with no excess and very little waste. The average size of a home has increased almost seven hundred square feet since 1978, according to 2007 statistics from the National Association of Home Builders.
As homes have become larger, so has the price per square foot, and the recent subprime mortgage crisis has forced many families to downsize. Individuals and some families are turning to smaller houses as a relief from the massive amount of debt a large home can bring. A $40,000 tiny home can drastically reduce a utility bill.
“We’ve gone to supersizing everything,” Quade says. “Pretty soon you think bigger is better. People have trouble getting away from that and it’s the primary problem.”
3D blueprintBuilding tiny homes has also become a political statement, Quade says. Through his work, he is able to exemplify just how little a person needs to live.
Less room means less energy consumption and a smaller environmental footprint.
“Everybody should be asking themselves what they need to fit their lifestyle,” Quade says.
Home-designer Jim Russell founded Ideabox, a prefabricated small-home production company. The philosophy of Ideabox is to eliminate unneeded space by allowing customers to add or remove fifteen-foot-by-fifteen-foot cubes from an eleven-foot-by-thirty-foot center cube. The result: a customized home that is built to the owner’s needs. Without extraneous rooms or hallways, Russell can build eight-hundred-square-foot homes for approximately $90,000.
“There is a change in the way people are living,” Russell says. “Our parents had living rooms, dining rooms, front rooms, and bedrooms — rooms that really weren’t necessary.”
The smallest home Russell builds, only four hundred square feet, is nearly half the size and cost of the average American home. Utility bills tend to range from $40 to $60 per month.
Despite their size, neither Russell’s nor Quade’s homes feel small from the inside. With minimized clutter and high ceilings, “small” homes are better described as “quaint.” Recognizing what an individual needs, Quade summed up the small-home philosophy: “It’s how you use the space.”