A friend (lower case F) sent this video to me because she knew it was right up my alley.  http://unclutterer.com/2011/06/09/a-family-of-3-in-320-square-feet/

When I built my house I ran into a lot of resistance to building small and simple.

1. There were covenants and deed restrictions that dictated the minimum square footage required. Where I ultimately built there had been a 1200 square foot minimum, but I was able to get away with 1008.  I wanted to build a small modular cottage that was being offered at the time by Nesting Bird yurts (it was not a yurt), but felt intimidated by the choice and passed on it. It was 600 sqft and I thought it was plenty.

2. The banks don't see the appeal of a small house. My construction was appraised lower because it has no central heat or central cooling.  It was irrelevant that such things were unnecessary in a 1008 sq ft home with an open floor plan, centrally located wood stove and zoned baseboard. As far as they were concerned, this made the house cheap (and not in a good way).   The low appraisal made it financially impossible for many of my green/environmental ideas such as active solar, and a rain water catchment.  I was able to design the house to be passive solar however.

Maybe this simplicity will catch on? This recession has come with so many blessings.

How interesting that I was plain even before I was a Friend!

Please do enjoy the video.