There were losses and gains when Harold and Deborah Beaver moved from a single-family home in Chicago to one in northwest suburban Round Lake.
The Beavers, along with Deborah’s father, Walter Clark, 82, moved at midsummer into a ranch-style, single family home with about 1,074 square feet at Madrona Village, developed by Palatine-based Concord Homes.
Now with their boxes unpacked and their furniture in place, Harold Beaver, 57, acknowledged that getting used to their smaller home “has taken a little adjustment. We don’t have a basement or attic so there’s not as much storage.”
Many of the other features of their compact home fit their needs quite well, however.
“Our master bedroom is a good size and the smaller bedroom is big enough for my father-in-law,” he said.
Settling into smaller digs has had another benefit.
“There’s less to clean,” said Harold Beaver with a grin.
The Beavers were not planning to be renegades when they opted to purchase their two-bedroom home. If you look at national trends, however, the Beavers’ desire for a smaller house runs counter to the majority.
The market for smaller single family homes, defined by the Washington D.C.-based National Home Builders Association, as those with less than 1,200 square feet, has steadily declined over the decades since 1970.
Despite the bigger-must-be-better trend, Chicago area developers of subdivisions that contain smaller homes find that compact floor plans will always hold appeal for certain segments of buyers: those who seek affordability, who are scaling down from a larger home or who want the convenience of one-story living, for instance.
To support the assertion that smaller homes are a decreasing commodity nationwide in new construction, Gopal Ahluwalia, vice president of Research for the NHBC, cited some statistics.
In 1970, the percentage of new homes constructed with less than 1,200 square feet was 36 percent. After a steady downtrend, by last year that number had fallen to 6 percent. Ahluwalia attributed the decreasing number of new small houses to a switch in buyers’ attitudes.
“People used to buy homes for functional needs,” he said. “Today they’re buying houses for functionality and for image.
“They say, `My friends and family have 3,000 square feet, I can afford it so I should too.'”
As single-family home floor plans have expanded, the size of condominiums has followed.
Condos also are growing
In 1970, the average size of a condominium was 850 square feet. In 2001, it was 1,195 square feet, according to Ahluwalia.
Size, of course, is relative. What seems a perfectly good size in one housing type is considered tiny in another.
By today’s standards, “a condo at 1,000 square feet is not considered small,” Ahluwalia said. “But a single-family house with 1,000 square feet is considered very small.”
The good news for people seeking homes in the 1,000 to 1,200 square foot range is that they can be found in various styles: single-family detached or attached houses, or condominiums.
For instance, The Townes of Ogden Falls in Oswego developed by Lord & Essex Homes, offers townhouses in four designs ranging from 1,100 square feet to 1,600 square feet.
Describing their smallest floor plan, Dennis Kotaska, director of sales, said: “It’s a one-level ranch with a two-car garage. The rooms flow into each other and the floor plan doesn’t waste any space.”
Making the most of a small space means using a number of design techniques, said Brad Lewis, vice president of design for the Oakbrook Terrace-based architectural firm of Balsamo, Olson & Lewis.
He agreed with Kotaska that creating rooms that open into each other or flow together makes a small floor plan seem more spacious.
To create a look of openness “we often combine rooms, separating them only by a three-sided fireplace,” he said.
Other ways to make a small house seem bigger include placing windows near the corners of rooms and eliminating hallways. Lewis said he makes a point of designing rooms that open into foyers rather than into hallways.
“Hallways is where square footage used to be wasted in older home designs,” he explained.
Lewis’ company designed the floor plans for Lakewood Falls Classic Homes near Romeoville.
A ranch plan, dubbed the Oxford or the Ascot, “still gets you a three-bedroom home. A lot of times that third bedroom can be used as a den or television room,” said Robin Johnson, vice president of sales for Lakewood Homes in Hoffman Estates.
Although construction of small homes is on the wane nationwide, Johnson said compact floor plans are still popular, especially in areas that are soaring in population, like Chicago’s far west, southwest and northwest suburbs.
Johnson said the demand for small homes is not that different from the past, when small single homes were a staple in suburbs like Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg in the years after World War II.
Such small houses met a need for affordable housing presented by a flood of homecoming soldiers.
Today, Johnson said small single family attached or detached houses tend to be built in communities like Romeoville, where growth is booming and where people are drawn to be closer to jobs or in a search for affordability. “Anytime you go where growth is, you’re going to find 1,000 square foot homes,” Johnson said.
She described the smaller homes that her company offers “as no frills but with a strong, basic floor plan.”
The Oxford has 900 square feet and is priced beginning at $139,999. The Ascot has 1,042 square feet and starts at $149,999. The Ascot has a basement that, if finished, would double the home’s size.
Johnson said these floor plans appeal to people who yearn for the American dream: A single-family detached home that feature a yard and front porch.
“These people really value that unattached home,” she said. “They could have more square feet in a duplex or a townhouse. But they want their own lot.”
The floor plans tend to be popular, she said, among “young families or couples who are starting out and among people age 50 and up. They (50 and over) want to go into something that’s smaller or more manageable.”
The homes come with two-car garages and with lots that measure about 65 by 110 feet.
“It really gets you a decent size lot,” she said. “There’s room for a swingset and you can fence it in.”
Although it costs between $1,500 and $1,800 more, Johnson said that 80 percent of the buyers of the Oxford and Ascot plans choose the option of having volume ceilings.
Again, the idea is to make the home seem larger.
“If you’ve got some drama going on, it really opens the space up,” Johnson said.
“It also updates the look of the home. Cathedral ceilings instead of eight-foot ceilings makes a huge difference.”
Alex Karvunis, 29, said having windows that are nearly floor-to-ceiling makes a big difference in the look of the two-bedroom condominium he is purchasing in Chicago’s West Loop.
“A lot of large windows brings light in and makes it seem larger,” he said.
Karvunis is buying his 1,074 square foot unit at 111 S. Morgan, a 9-story building under construction between Adams and Monroe Streets. The building will feature 166 condos ranging in size from 700 to 2,400 square feet.
“Our average size (unit) is about 1,000 square feet. About two-thirds of the building is in the 900 to 1,100 square foot range,” said Bob Horner, managing partner of 111 S. Morgan LLC, which is developing the property.
A unit with about 1,000 square feet “will get you two bedrooms and somewhere between 1.5 and two baths,” he said.
Two bedroom units are in demand “because even when it’s a single person they want an extra room they can use as their home office or for whatever they want,” Horner said.
Karvunis said his unit will have curved walls that will add interest to the interior. It also will have two balconies measuring 50 square feet.
Counting the balconies “gives me a total of about 1,125 square feet,” he said.
Michael Buckman, a Realtor for Superior Marketing in Chicago, said purchasing a condominium with ample square footage –say double the size of Karvunis’ unit — comes with a hefty price tag that many people cannot afford.
“Five years ago, we were selling 2,000 square foot units for about $220,000,” he said.
“Today, a unit with 2,300 square feet would be about $770,000.”
Buckman, who is selling units at 111 Morgan, said the mid-range, between about $250,000 and $350,000, is the building’s strongest market.
“That’s where we see a lot of buyers,” he said.
Karvunis said he paid $269,000 for his condo, $25,000 of which is for parking.
Bruce Adreani, president of Norwood Builders, said his company offers a range of upgrades that can be incorporated into any size unit.
“We have many one-bedroom buyers who create very elegant spaces through the use of granite, upgraded cabinets, hardwood flooing, Berber carpet or some really creative use of tile in kitchens and baths,” he said.
Norwood builds primarily condominiums in suburban downtowns and in Chicago neighborhoods.
The key to making a small home work for a buyer, according to Johnson, is flexibility.
Having rooms that do double duty as a formal living room and as a family room, for instance, converting a third bedroom to a home office or television room, or using an outdoor balcony as entertaining space, are ways to stretch the home’s allotted space. Many buyers today seem to want to live a less formal lifestyle.
Small houses are a good match for them, Johnson said.
Rather than a formal living room and a separate family room, for instance, the Oxford and Ascot come with a great room that can serve both purposes. Or, if buyers want to use the great room as a formal living room, they use a third bedroom as a family room, she said.
A great room can be found in the 1,074 square foot ranch home that the Beavers purchased in Round Lake.
Although it comes with just two bedrooms, the Beavers said their small home has a variety of features including a dine-in kitchen with breakfast bar and pantry, front porch, attached two-car tandem garage, and utility room with side-by-side washer and dryer hook-ups.
Roger Mankedick, president of Palatine-based Concord Homes, which built the Beavers’ home said their plan has been a popular choice with empty-nesters.
“That’s because of its single-level lifestyle and the fact that the home lives much larger than its square footage,” he said.
The home is base-priced from $131,490 at Montgomery Crossings in Montgomery and $146,990 at Madrona Village in Round Lake.
The Beavers have gotten used to living without the attic and basement their old home provided. And they don’t miss spending as much time vacuuming, washing windows or clearing cobwebs, and otherwise cleaning and maintaining a larger house.
Instead, Harold Beaver said they spend time outdoors on their patio.
“We sit outside when it’s nice,” he said. “It’s a small patio, but it’s big enough for the three of us.”
