Well changes happen and in the next 90 days I'll be living in 1/4 the space I currently have unexpectedly. Wife and I have to move and apartment land we are headed. I legally have to have a 2 bedroom for my daughter, but we are going gangbusters in reducing what we own... so we will be downsizing faster than we were planning to. My hardest part is where to put all my vehicle hobbies. Motorcycel can go with me, and can store in the winter, but my sportscar and it's higher power replacement engine project does not fit with an apartment. so I need to figure that one out. I am designing an "apartment" networking rack that will fit in with the furniture to house the Crestron gear and networking stuff.
More to come....
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
A great site/blog for un-cluttering.
Unclutterer is a new blog/rss feed that I discovered that has some very useful tips for cutting down on "stuff" and clutter. nothing specific for smaller living but the tips are very useful.
Just wanted to share....
Just wanted to share....
Friday, August 1, 2008
Smaller Vehicles...
Smaller living means giving up your escalade XLT that has been stretched. If you really need a SUV I found that the Subaru and Suzuki has offering that fit in a tiny garage or are smaller and overall very comfortable. But there are other options. If you live where it's warmer, a motorcycle is a better option. A bike takes very little space, you can fit 3 of them in a 1 car garage and they cost less to run, own and maintain.
I can carry all our family groceries home on my Motorcycle, go to work with my laptop and other gear and tools and easily go off on a weekend trip with the wife. We save money and space.
I can carry all our family groceries home on my Motorcycle, go to work with my laptop and other gear and tools and easily go off on a weekend trip with the wife. We save money and space.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Smaller living = smaller bills.
A friend recently pointed out that if you built a 850-890 sq foot home right and sited it right on the lot, you would have nearly a $50.00 annual heating bill with the current high heating costs. He also calculated that that same home of it had the right windows and design would have an equally low electric cost (covering lighting and cooling) I also pointed out that by using more space saving tech you really would have less electronics that would use that electricity as well.
With costs sky-rocketing, being able to have incredibly low utility costs would go a long way to making this smaller living idea have more appeal to others...
With costs sky-rocketing, being able to have incredibly low utility costs would go a long way to making this smaller living idea have more appeal to others...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Music and stereos.
If you are building a smaller home you are in luck, you can use audio gear that is hidden, distributed, and installed in the walls. you can either buy or build thin 4" deep subwooofers that can be built into your wall with only the speaker and port visible with a grill over it. you can also get some nice quality speakers installed for the rest of the music or even surround sound.
Also you can use a whole house music system to a better advantage than the 3000 sq foot home can. Newer high end systems come with 2 fm/am tuners and a XM or sirius tuner built in. Add a mp3 server and all your audio gear can fit in a shelf up in a closet.
already built home? then get under couch subwoofers (or better yet build them) or at the least get and install some "shakers" to add to your couch or chairs for that deep bass effect that does not bother the neighbors. The great part is, smaller spaced need far less sound to be full and enjoyable. buy quality over quantity. a set of small but good 6" shelf speakers in a small room will sound better than a set of huge coffee table sized monsters. Bose 601's and 301's are very good sounding speakers for a midrange quality speaker.... I personally go shopping for speakers at a musicians store and look for "studio monitors" they always sound better than anything at a best buy or stereo shop.
Also you can use a whole house music system to a better advantage than the 3000 sq foot home can. Newer high end systems come with 2 fm/am tuners and a XM or sirius tuner built in. Add a mp3 server and all your audio gear can fit in a shelf up in a closet.
already built home? then get under couch subwoofers (or better yet build them) or at the least get and install some "shakers" to add to your couch or chairs for that deep bass effect that does not bother the neighbors. The great part is, smaller spaced need far less sound to be full and enjoyable. buy quality over quantity. a set of small but good 6" shelf speakers in a small room will sound better than a set of huge coffee table sized monsters. Bose 601's and 301's are very good sounding speakers for a midrange quality speaker.... I personally go shopping for speakers at a musicians store and look for "studio monitors" they always sound better than anything at a best buy or stereo shop.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Small home technology.
In a small home you need to remove things that take up space. One thing I have discovered that is if you like movies and dont want to have the huge rack of gear to watch them. Look into the AppleTV product. you can rent movies from iTunes for cheap and it looks darn good on a 42" LCD HDTV. it takes up almost no space as well. A friend of mine hid his behind the TV on the wall.
If you are more of a technophile and want more control and cant stand not having your collection of personal DVD's around then you have two other choices. first upgrade to a DVD changer that holds 300 or more DVD's. Store all your boxes elsewhere and have all the DVD's ready at a moment's notice. OR take the path that I have, I built a HTPC a computer that looks like a piece of stereo gear but records tv, plays music movies and stores the movies inside it's self as AVI files I rip using a program called "handbrake" I have taken all our 300 movies and ripped them to the hard drives in the HTPC. Now we can watch all our movies when we want without having the DVD's in the house.
Home theater is another issue. Right now we have a giant 52" HDTV in our massive 12X18 living room. In a smaller room you can get away with a far smaller set because you will be sitting closer. a 42" or even a 37" set is huge in a 10X12 living/dining/entrance room when you are sitting less than 6 feet from it. Also you can get away with far smaller speakers and get fantastic sound. In a small room even the $299.00 cheap JVC home "theater in a box" sounds fantastic. you dont have to buy the $2200.00 Denon or Marantz high end setups with huge speakers to get the great theater feel in a small room.
Home networking... Gone are the days you need a server and lots of network gear in a home. you can get a good N wireless network in your home with a NAS and have a nice high speed network that can do everything you want. Cheaper solutions are buying regular gear such as the Linksys NAS200 and the WRT54GL router you can stuff under one of the cabinets in the living room or even one of the dressers in the bedroom to cover the whole house. Adding a 500gig storage drive like the NAS200 gives you a place to easily back up your files.
home Computer... If you are into gaming then you are going to have less choices. IF you leave your games to the Wii or PS3 or xbox360 then you can get away with getting rid of your big desktop computer for a laptop. Dell sells decent power laptops for $499.00 now and they take much less space in the home. No more desk and 10 square feet or more given up to the computer. Kids can use used laptops from ebay (My daughters cost $100.00 and does all she wants)
there are tons of options for smaller living. One of the biggest benefits is to have you main living space walls covered with bookshelves. giving up that 11" depth on the wall but getting the ones that go to the ceiling will give you a ton more space for books and other items.
If you are more of a technophile and want more control and cant stand not having your collection of personal DVD's around then you have two other choices. first upgrade to a DVD changer that holds 300 or more DVD's. Store all your boxes elsewhere and have all the DVD's ready at a moment's notice. OR take the path that I have, I built a HTPC a computer that looks like a piece of stereo gear but records tv, plays music movies and stores the movies inside it's self as AVI files I rip using a program called "handbrake" I have taken all our 300 movies and ripped them to the hard drives in the HTPC. Now we can watch all our movies when we want without having the DVD's in the house.
Home theater is another issue. Right now we have a giant 52" HDTV in our massive 12X18 living room. In a smaller room you can get away with a far smaller set because you will be sitting closer. a 42" or even a 37" set is huge in a 10X12 living/dining/entrance room when you are sitting less than 6 feet from it. Also you can get away with far smaller speakers and get fantastic sound. In a small room even the $299.00 cheap JVC home "theater in a box" sounds fantastic. you dont have to buy the $2200.00 Denon or Marantz high end setups with huge speakers to get the great theater feel in a small room.
Home networking... Gone are the days you need a server and lots of network gear in a home. you can get a good N wireless network in your home with a NAS and have a nice high speed network that can do everything you want. Cheaper solutions are buying regular gear such as the Linksys NAS200 and the WRT54GL router you can stuff under one of the cabinets in the living room or even one of the dressers in the bedroom to cover the whole house. Adding a 500gig storage drive like the NAS200 gives you a place to easily back up your files.
home Computer... If you are into gaming then you are going to have less choices. IF you leave your games to the Wii or PS3 or xbox360 then you can get away with getting rid of your big desktop computer for a laptop. Dell sells decent power laptops for $499.00 now and they take much less space in the home. No more desk and 10 square feet or more given up to the computer. Kids can use used laptops from ebay (My daughters cost $100.00 and does all she wants)
there are tons of options for smaller living. One of the biggest benefits is to have you main living space walls covered with bookshelves. giving up that 11" depth on the wall but getting the ones that go to the ceiling will give you a ton more space for books and other items.
Some store links for furniture and other items.
it seems that the quest I am on is replicated by the "apartment dwellers" out there. Thankfully they have paved the way and I found some stores that cater to the smaller home.
HomeReserve is one that has lots of couches and chairs and even sectionals that will fit in a small home. The completely designable sectional actually would work well in a small living room as it eliminates the need for chairs if designed right.
Crate Designs has some beds that are perfect for small homes as they have storage.
Apartment Decor is a cool site that sells apartment specific furniture and other items.
HomeReserve is one that has lots of couches and chairs and even sectionals that will fit in a small home. The completely designable sectional actually would work well in a small living room as it eliminates the need for chairs if designed right.
Crate Designs has some beds that are perfect for small homes as they have storage.
Apartment Decor is a cool site that sells apartment specific furniture and other items.
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