11/20/16 Is Smaller Better?

    We went down to Ikea last night, to walk around and check out any new and interesting stuff.  Wife started pondering the idea of living in one of their theoretical apartments.  They have whole living units from 400sq. ft. down to about 270 sq. ft.  At first, I chuckled at the idea, we have a house that is around 4000sq. ft. and I hadn't been thinking of moving, especially to a smaller space.  Her thinking is that too much of our money is going to the house, I agree, but I love the space we have.  I don't even hear the boys in their rooms and Boy has his friends over every Friday night.  They either play board games on top of the pool table in the front of the house or watch movies and play video games in his room.  Chubs has started having sleepovers too and he can have as many as five boys in his room and still they rarely bother me.
    We know that we can either watch TV in the family room or come upstairs to our bedroom and close the doors and we will be isolated from all their hoopla.  Just thinking back to our old house where the three bedrooms had all three doors in the same small hallway and then one of Boy's old friends told us that he could always hear us doing it every time he came over to spend the night, and we weren't exactly doing it to show off. 
    We have been able to repeatedly have people who needed a place to stay to stay with us for awhile without worrying about them being in our space.  We have two empty bedrooms at any time for company.
    The sad thing is that prices have been climbing so aggressively that it is almost cheaper for us to keep our current house than attempt to move to something cheaper.  We went and looked at Easton Park which is close to our old house, but it is being proclaimed as the Circle C of the east.  The few homes that are not sold as of yet are priced above the $350,000 to almost $430,000.  I am afraid that Austin is simply too expensive to try and sneak into something smaller nowadays.  There are smaller price tags, but we would have to go back to a starter neighborhood and I am not interested in that. 
    Once we have our solar panels installed, which they contacted us that all the paperwork was in order and it was time to schedule an installment date, we will not have much of an electrical bill.  In that case, what is the benefit of a smaller home? 
    If we are going to talk a vacation home, I am fully interested.  I wouldn't mind a tiny apartment if it had a grand view of a lake or bay or even ocean.  I could see us gutting a condo and making it cozy for just the two of us later down the line.  I don't know, though, I feel responsible for having a room for both boys to always join us.