We haven't wandered too much, at least none that is interesting. Ours is more a tale of what not to do.

When I was born, my dad was an oil field accountant and was assigned to new production so they moved about once a year. I was born in New Mexico, had my first birthday in New Orleans, and dad had been sent to Wyoming when my mother had had enough. So my dad took a permanent job in a small Texas town and I lived there until I married. Our first house in that little town was a really small 2 bedroom house with about 800 sq ft. All I remember about it was having a great backyard, but from pictures it was a cute house. But it was too small so dad bought a bigger house so my brother & I could have our own bedrooms. It was not an attractive house, and still isn't, but mom is still there.

After marriage, dh & I moved around a lot too, until we bought our first house in 1978 when I got my first teaching job. It seemed huge to me. It was a lot bigger than either of our parents' houses, 3 bedroom, 1 bath, and 2 small living areas. I think it was 950 sq ft. lol I loved that house.

We shouldn't have bought that house right then. When I got my job, dh went back to school, and finished a couple of years later. Then he wanted to go to grad school so we had to sell the house and took a beating.

That's when we moved to Dallas. We bought our 2nd house about 6 months after he got his first job, and we lived there about 3 years when he changed jobs and they transferred him to Oklahoma. Luckily, we made some money on that house even though we didn't live there long. It was a tract house, and fairly small, but it was laid out so well that it lived big. It was 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with a big, open living room, and it was about 1500 square feet. We really liked that house too.

We had been in Oklahoma about 9 months when we bought our 3rd house. Dh checked with his bosses and made sure we were going to be there awhile, and we bought a really nice house, probably the best one we've ever had as far as well built and amenities. It was also 3 bedroom, 2 bath, but it had 2 living areas and a huge kitchen, and walk in closets. Boy do I miss those closets. It was also pretty, the only really pretty house we've had too. Three months after we moved in, dh was transferred back to Texas. ;( And I had to stay there alone with a 2 year old for four long months. We finally did a lease purchase on that house so I could leave, and lost money big time when it finally sold. And this was the house where I lost faith in realtors. When we bought the house in April, our realtor said everything in the house was like new - even though a couple of the windows (one a bay picture window) was fogged between the glass. When we listed it for sale with the same realtor three months later, she said the carpet was worn and may need to be replaced, and more.

So anyway, we got back to Texas, rented a while, and then bought our 4th house in Arlington. It was a fixer upper in really sad shape, but it's all we could afford. We spent the next four years remodeling and getting the yard in shape. We planted 15 oak trees in the treeless front yard (corner lot on cul-de-sac). The trees are huge shade trees now. I wish we had them here.

We sold that house and had the yen to live in the country and build our dream house. So we bought 5 acres (in June) from a developer and waited for the streets and utilities to go in. Our contract stated it would be done by December 31. Two years later we finally had a street and utilities. But it hadn't been platted and had a couple of hang-ups that made it hard to get insurance and loan, so we built the oversized garage with loft, and thought we'd live there for a few months while they got everything sorted out and we could get the loan. Two years later, we finally had to get a lawyer and settled by having the developer buy us out. We didn't make any money on that deal, but at least we were out. Because we thought we were only going to be there for a few months, we didn't build any walls in the garage, just put a wood burning stove in and a window a/c and grouped our furniture into "rooms" kind of like a furniture store. Ok for us, but odd when having company. Our girls used the loft as their bedroom and we built a stair ladder for them. We loved the location, overlooking a small lake, but living in a garage is just not a lot of fun. I think our square footage there was just under 1400 sq ft.

Then we bought our 6th and current house. It was 1400 feet when we bought it and we have converted the garage into den, which added another 400 sq ft, and we have plans to build a 12x10 dining room which will make our total right at 2000 sq ft. We also built another garage with workshop, which, as of yesterday, is where dh & I are living, or camping out, because we have a window a/c unit in it. Our a/c in the house went out yesterday & it looks like we are going to have to replace it.

So that's our story. Use it as a cautionary tale.

I've lived in various locations in southern and central Ohio all my life except for a couple of years in Grand Junction, CO. I grew up mostly in a five bedroom raised ranch, (four siblings, all younger), new build, in a rural area, although my parents weren't farmers, but small-business owners.

In my adult life, our current home is the largest I've lived in, just under 2000 sf, and also the oldest (1920's). I'd rather have an older home, despite wavy floors, out-of-plumb walls, and outdated wiring.

We have three grown children (one away at college, one in the military, and one who just separated from her husband, and moved home with her two-year-old.) Our home is arranged so that we can stay in it even when we are elderly, or if we need to have an elderly relative live with us, but I don't know if I can keep up with the yard, without hiring a lawn care service. I guess I'll adjust.

I was going to say that I defected to the Kitchens forum, but have not abandoned my friends here at Small Homes!

Geographically speaking, though, born on a mountaintop in Tennessee..

No, born in Detroit, moved at age 7 to the boonies of Michigan. Caro might have been "The Shopping Center of the Thumb", but it was Smallsville and WE lived 6 miles outside of town. We had an old farmhouse, so were surrounded by crops on three sides -beans, corn, winter wheat, sugar beets. People in town thought we were weird because we came from Detroit. People in the country thought we were weird because my dad bought two old 1936 John Deere tractors and tooled around on them wearing nothing but bathing trunks. No, I never did fit in there. I left at 17, moved to join my mother who had hightailed it back to Detroit three years earlier to avoid suicide over a bad marriage and no friends. I graduated high school in Detroit Public Schools.

Started college in 1977 at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. That is about a day's drive due north of Chicago, in Lake Superior. Married there and moved to New Jersey in 1980, lived in North Brunswick and Mansville. Exxon transferred us to Baton Rouge, LA, where I was divorced four years later.

Back to Michigan and a rental farmhouse 6 miles outside a smaller town, but not far from Metro Detroit, where Mom and Sis lived. I was halfway between both parents for that year, as I mourned and healed and figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Decided on psychology/social work and entered Michigan State University after a year of re-establishing myself as an in-State resident (for lower tuition rates). Stayed on after that year of earning my Psych BS and got a two-year Masters in Social Work. Got a job in Metro Detroit (Mount Clemens General if any know of it) and worked 6 months, bought a house, got a dog 3 months later, got a boyfriend two months after that and was married 10 months later. Have stayed in Metro Detroit through two job changes.

In travels, I have seen: Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio, aged 12, Milwaukee WI aged 14, Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin age 19, New Jersey, New York City, Binghamton NY, several trips with no stops across I80 in Pennsylvania and Ohio. One early spring we drove to Boston (passed through on the way to see Walden Pond), New Hampshire and the White Mountains, some of the quarry area of Vermont, and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY. Then we drove to Baton Rouge, stopping to see a bit of Tennessee, but otherwise saw nothing but what you see on interstates. Went to Fort Worth a couple times to see one brother-in-law and on to Loveland CO to see the other. He got married in a chapel at 12,000 feet that we had to take a snow cat to get to. Flew once to San Francisco, where we both got to have the flu on different days, so we saw a lot of the insides of one B and B, and of one crummy and one posh hotel bathroom. Our last trip was a drive from Baton Rouge to his home in Northern Minnesota, then through the UP in November cold to Detroit. I bought a sexy little nighty at a naughty little store and we had a nice time in a motel in Kentucky on the way home. I figured out divorce was imminent as we passed east of the state of Arkansas and I suggested he set aside a week in March, before it got to be too hot, to go to the hills of AK (mountains? never got there so I don't know) and go canoeing. When he would not answer I got it out of him. His honey babe was from AK and she wouldn't leave her cocaine-using drummer boyfriend for his Chemical Engineering Master-Degreed skinny Norwegian/Finnish blond self AND my mentioning AK, as I did, was just breaking his heart.

Sorry, I know that was TMI, but it is too good a story to pass up.

After divorce, I remarried (eventually) and have seen rural Northwestern Virginia, Toronto, Ontario, CA several times, Bayfield, ON, CA, Stratford, ON, CA, Dayton OH and the Hocking Hills, Green Bay WI and drove through both Milwaukee and Madison, several places in Norther Michigan, including Mackinac Island. Saugatuck and Holland MI (but never during the Tulip Festival).

I did not get to read all of your posts, but I do intend to, once I have lost my fascination with the Kitchens forum. Tomorrow I will probably be able to post pictures of my gutted kitchen and new skylight! Here, for you Small Housers, on my thread about the kitchen.

GADS I lived so many places I do not think I can remember them all. Adoptive father was a 30 year man in the Navy. We moved a lot.

I was born in Kansas City Missouri then adopted and whisked off to Puerto Rico. Then San Diego at about 3.then New Mexico for a short time. Then West Hempstead on the East Coast and then on to New Haven Conn and then to the Navel Yard.And some of this is pretty fuzzy in my brain. I remember bits and pieces of each place but I might have the order out of wack. My adoptive mother got a brain tumor and was ill for a couple of years and I remember the house where she first was ill and then the Navel Yard where she finally got better.We lived on the third floor of an old converted hospital in the Navel Yard.There was a solarium huge bathroom and then the rooms lined up down the hall and I kind of thought it was weird as a child but I did not know it was an old converted hospital until I was much older and we were long gone from there.

We also had a cabin on the coast in Conn and went to the Beach in the summer time. I know it was the same cabin each year but I think it was rented.I totally remember this tiny cabin and it was so cute.

Then we moved to Berkeley Ca and you can google these addresses and see the houses I lived in. 445 Boynton Avenue.We lived there about three years.I Loved this house. Was a Spanish style but in the google pictures it has been changed. Was three levels with three bedrooms. There was a balcony off the master bedroom. We could look out the living room window at Golden Gate Fields and even see the horses running with binoculars. The sun shining on the house windows on San Francisco. Beautiful sunsets.

Then Los Altos at 420 Harrington Court. Was a pretty house but it was really large. HUGE family room and large living room. Eat in kitchen and dinning room that was in the lower part of an L off the family room. Then the bedrooms were in a row across one end. Picture a T with bedrooms on the top of the T. There were two baths and three bedrooms.

Then we moved to Sacramento and it was a darling house and now I realize is really was not all that large. It was two official bedrooms and a den. Two bathrooms. I had the master bedroom suite with small bath because what had been two bedrooms was made into one and it was what my parents wanted and made a sitting room where they watched the TV in one end of the room.

Then I left home at 17 and lived way too many places. In thinking back almost all were really small houses but it never really registered with me until now.It was not only a choice it was more what I could afford.

Then I bought my first house and it was 1200 SQ FT and I thought it was a mansion. Was two large bedrooms and a bath and a half on a couple of acres in Loomis California. Then next three houses were about the same size.

Then we moved to Clayton Idaho and built the log cabin of 864 SQ FT. then off to the 840 SQ FT second log cabin then into a 1400 SQ FT house and then to the 1800 SQ FT hot Spring house in Cambridge Idaho. Then into an 1140 SQ FT house in Cambridge then to the monster in Weiser of 1850 SQ FT then the 1200 and now we are here. PHEW I am so sick of moving. Two of the houses we had we moved in and out of twice. We flipped houses for several years and did all the work on them ourselves while living in them. We would usually turn one over in 2 - 3 years. The longest I have ever lived in the same house was just at 8 years. Usually it has been one to 4 years. I think we have moved 11 times in the last 25 years.

We own our house we are in. In fact we have not had a mortgage for 25 years. This is the first house we have had I am not considering resale. I am doing whatever I want to do with it. My insane mosaics in the bathrooms. and some day other places in the house. This is my house and I am going to live in it until I use it and us up.

Chris

What an interesting question and reading of other's answers.

I was born in Canton OH, lived in a log farmhouse that is now over 200 years old. It still stands and is lived in. I loved that home and the farm.

CA at 12 and all my children born there. Fullerton, Brea.
We moved to CO in the 70s. Golden, Parker.

I remarried and we moved to Alpine Ut due to job changes. My career had taken me all over the US for 20 years, large and small cities, plus internationally.

We moved to CA after that to be with my mom in Oceanside and lived in Fallbrook. Then back to CO (husband was a native) Grand Junction, then I moved to NM alone and can say it is my favorite place. I miss living there. Finally moved back to CO when the kids said they wanted us together and not have me living so far away alone. Parker for 5 years and now Colorado Springs even nearer the kids.

Always had gentleman ranches with tons of animals, that is the biggest change in living in my little home. Plus retirement.

This telling of the stories reminds me of Thornton Wilder's acclaimed book, THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY. Where 5 people of diverse backgrounds come together on the bridge the day that it plunges into the chasm below. A monk viewing the disaster says it is not by chance but by DIVINE INTERVENTION. This is a fantastic story, and I think about it at times like this, when I feel that perhaps God is taking a hand in our lives.
You cannot say yea or nay but must ponder the matter.

I was born on a kitchen table in the Free State of Winston, Alabama--it seceded from the Confederacy way back when, and is still known as the Free State. My mother, who was always an enigma to me, named me after Miss America of that year, and invested in me the dreams of fame and grandeur that she apparently held. I was the first grandchild, and beloved of my grandparents who lived down the road in a farm house I well remember. In our small wood house of one bedroom and a kitchen, there were no windows, only shutters, and my earliest memory was of snow on the covers and me being cold lying between my parents--the quilts were high above me, and I snuggled against the back of my daddy for warmth. My mother was pregnant with my brother at the time. When my brother was still a toddler, we moved to a 3 decker in Memphis in 1942 where 2 of my aunts lived, their husbands owned the A & C Table Co, and my daddy went to work as a carpenter for them. We lived on the 3rd floor. My toy was a wet washcloth that I would throw up to touch the high ceilings and catch, and across the back fence of the cinder yard I played with a little black girl I never saw, but who would toss her ball across the high wooden fence so we could play together. Then with jobs opening up in Mobile AL for the war effort, we moved to the town where I've spent the balance of my life. Daddy was 4F since he only had one lung, so he and mother got jobs at Brookley Field building bombers. We lived in a 24 foot government trailer, the four of us and my grandmother. She and I slept on a fold out couch at one end of the trailer, Mother and Dad slept on another one at the other end, and my brother slept on a pallet on top of the built in dinette. The bath and toilet were communal, accessible by raised wooden walkways about 200 feet walk away. Then we moved into a real government house on Yellowhammer Dr., in a project they called BIRDVILLE, as all streets were named for birds. The day we moved in, I remember was the day Roosevelt died, and my grandmother sat on a trunk and cried for the loss of that great man who did so much for poor folks. After the war was over, the savings stamps we purchased each week with our coins was what my parents used to buy their first house. It was an asbestos shingled tract house beside a drainage ditch we called the creek. We lived there longer than any other place in my childhood, so I think of it as home. Every summer, my grandmother collected all us grandkids and took us back to the country in north Alabama, Memphis, Paducah KY, and it was wonderful having this closeness with my extended family.

When I married at 21, we rented a 4 room apt from his aunt until we bought a repossessed house on Halloween 1964. After we signed the papers and were headed to the house, he chose to tell me about his love for another woman, and how he was only with me out of pity. I felt sick, and even more so when we find a swarm of termites eating the woodwork of the sliding doors on our arrival. I always hated that house. I finally left him in 1974, ten years later. Then for 32 years I was single. I bought a houseboat and lived on it for ten of those years, and finally bought my little MoccasinLanding cottage on the bayou. I was intent on fixing it to become an inheritance for my son. When he died, I was totally rudderless, and lost all motivation to continue improvements on the house. Finally, the man I was engaged to when I was in college 50 years before calls me out of the blue, and life seems to begin again. We rekindle our relationship, and I sell my little house. He is from Massachusetts, with a house up there, but he wants to return to Alabama which he loved during his Army days back in the late 50s when he was a rocket scientist at Redstone up in Huntsville. So I persuade a dear friend to let me rehabilitate a cottage on her river property which sat vacant for 7 years. LOVELY little house! We wanted to buy it from her and live there, but she would not sell. So a year later we bought OUR river house, which I worked on redoing but soon after I moved in (DH was not DH then, and he was still in MA) Hurricane Katrina destroyed it. I again lived in a 24 foot camper trailer on the property looking at that derelict house, and became very depressed. But another friend began to buy houses to rent out, and I promised her I'd help by moving into her first property.
That is the house I live in now. I was so tired of moving, of adjusting to new places, and of losing everything, and we made her an offer she could not refuse. So on Valentine Day of 2008, my DH gave me this house in my name only, and it is mine to do with as I please....as long as his bank account holds out, that is!!! But I like the feel of cottage, and don't stray far from that concept. It is a strong little stucco structure which can take everything I throw at it. I think we will spend the rest of our lives here in Mobile, provided the oil spill does not poison the air we breathe too badly.

When I was born and came home from the hospital, I was introduced to my first SMALL HOUSE. 900 and something sf 3 bedroom 1 bath in a tract neighborhood. This was home to my mother, father and 3 siblings. I lived there until I moved out and into a SMALL rental HOUSE.

From there, a banker friend I worked with and I decided to build a new SMALL HOUSE. 3/2, 1,400 sf, nice, new, loved it. He started dating, then married one of my former girlfriends so he bought me out and I moved on.

I bought an older SMALL HOUSE, 2/1, large lot, haunted. Yes, haunted. Sounds unbelieveable and I am not prone to things that go bump in the night but if you spent any time in this house you would be a believer. Sold that.

Bought a lot and designed then built a 2/2 about 1,100 sf. This was a perfect SMALL HOUSE for me. The local economy took a turn for the worse (1988/1989) I was working on commission and had to sell the house and move back in with my parents temporarily.

Unable to find a job in Florida, I packed my car and moved to South Carolina. I rented a SMALL apartment, met my wife and she moved in. From there to a slightly larger SMALL apartment, then we bought our marital home, 3/2 1,500 sf. Although it was just a run of the mill, older 3/2 with a one car carport, it was great neighborhood and I loved living there. My two sons were raised there. It had a den and a formal living room. We rarely used the living room, in fact, most of the time, it never even had furniture in it so in reality, we actually lived in about 1,300 sf of that SMALL space.

Divorce took me to another SMALL apartment and from there to my current SMALL home. 3/1, 1024 sf.

Oh, I too had a lover in AR. "Had" means she made other choices too and that still hurts. Sorry if I strayed off topic, but it was a SMALL indescretion. :)

Scott

Darn Scott I am sorry I missed your post. I had computer glitches and had to dump all cookies and do a clean up. This takes away all highlighted/already posts. So I was guessing which ones I had answered and missed this one.

LOL at the haunted part. I had a darling little two bedroom cottage when I first moved away from home. PO had passed away in the bathroom. I always felt a bit creepy in there. but tried not to let it bother me too much.

Some times ghosts can be rather fun they say?????

Chris

Hey, y'all....
Do you want to start a separate topic on the DISCUSSION SIDE...

about HAUNTED HOUSES?

Way cool. Somebody kick start it?

Something ML said sparked a memory in me and I am taking a second turn at posting it because I am sure it was an unusual small house to live in. I was a small child and do not remember exactly where, somewhere in the east coast because I remember the snow. We lived in one half of a Quonset hut on base. I remember my mom complaining bitterly about not being very happy there. Seems it was only a few months. I remember it had windows but they were covered with grates.

Thats all next??

Chris

I was born, raised and hope to die here in South Carolina. I am the 4th of 5 children and when we were small, my mother used to dress me and my sisters like triplets. Hated it!
We moved around several times when I was a kid, all of them were small houses. We never had an inside toilet until I was in 4th grade. I remember working in the tobacco fields and the cotton fields also. It wasn't unusual at the time and it was the only way to get new school clothes.
My mother died unexpectedly when I was 22. I promptly married the guy she had warned me against. Boy was that a big mistake. But I was too stubborn to admit it. We stayed together 28 years before I figured out his "ISSUES" were never going to get better. Freedom is a wonderful thing!

I have never lived farther than 8 blocks from where I live now. I have lived in my house 39 years. It started as a 3/1, but is now a 2/1. At one point the neighborhood was beginning to go downhill (as lots of inter-city neighborhoods do). But about 5 years ago our police department started something called 'community policing'. They moved sattelite depts into each section of the city. They moved into a city owned building about 100 feet from me! So its quiet and peaceful once again.

I love to travel and after my kids frew up I was able to concentrate on me. I've been to California, Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, New York, Missouri,Kentucky, Florida, Maryland, Louisana, Puerto Rico, St Thomas, St Marteen, St John and Ontario, Canada. Next is Las Vegas.
If I could afford to live on the beach it would be in St Thomas, in a SMALL house on the beach.

I was born Navy blue :^) in Washington DC, and a few months later moved to a small house in Connecticut that was built in 1711. It still had the Indian shutters at the windows. My Dad and I spent an entire summer leave pulling old nails to get the shutters all working again!
Then we moved to a "Cracker Cottage" in Central Florida. I finished college there then married and moved to Virginia. Uncle Sam called and we wound up in the Army and moving all over the place; Florida, Texas, Germany, Texas again, etc.. At one point a wife and three kiddos was too much trouble, and the Army man moved on, leaving me broke in Texas...BUT I got to keep the kids and he never bothered any of us again! I feel badly for the kids, but it made my life a bunch simpler. I stayed single for 16 years, got the kids grown and happily employed. In 1996 an old business acquaintance came calling, and the rest is history....we married in 1997 and happily live in his family's small home (a 50's rancher) in central Texas. I hope that my next move will be in a box, and the job of trashing all of my treasured collections will become a problem for my kids :^)
It has really been fun reading about all of you!
Next......

Welcome jaybird. Glad things smoothed out for you. Dang that military moving can wear a person out. Even as a kid I remember it being tiresome to have to keep starting all over in a new town and never anywhere near to where we had been.After awhile I just quit trying to make friends cause I knew we would be on the road again soon. Got to see lots of the country though.

Please tell us about your house. Pop in and sit a spell.

chris

"Freedom is a wonderful thing! "

exactly how I felt after my divorce!

"Freedom is a wonderful thing! "

Couldn't have said it better myself. Your story is similar to mine, with a couple of different twists.

I was engaged to an Army guy when I was in college, but since he was Catholic my mother apparently disliked him enough to break us up clandestinely, manipulatively, without either of us knowing what she was doing. I had to quit college, come home and get a job, give them the money to pay bills, so I could not return to school---based on some lies my mother told about my dad planning to run off with his secretary. Well, I learned what she'd done when I was getting a divorce about 17 years later. So I pushed her away from me for the rest of her life, and I also remained single for the next 32 years. Then the man I was engaged to back in college called me out of the blue, when I had just about decided I was dying and was getting rid of all I owned. That was in late 2003, and I realized that God was not through with me yet, and we got married in the Catholic church as a sacramental marriage on July 15, 2006, or four years ago tomorrow. Yes, our anniversary is tomorrow.

It was a long time coming. I only regret that I lost my only son, and all the babies that DH and I would have had were never born. Having his granddaughters is a blessing and lets me feel part of a family.

Oh, moccasin, thank you for sharing your story. That's incredible.

My life is short, and thus still rather...well...boring.

I was born and raised in WV (small house, of course!). I spent my first two years of college in OH and second two in PA where I rented an apartment in a charming old home and learned how to whether the winter weather that beats through old windows. There I planted my first garden, despite the fact that I'd neglected to ask the landlord's permission. He was pleased that it added such life to the exterior, and I've been gardening ever since. (Though my tomato plants don't do as well here.)

Upon graduation, I moved to Miami (of all places), into an apartment I had never seen. In fact, I'd never even BEEN to Florida. A year after arriving in FL, I married my husband, who I met at church there.

Together, we moved away from the crazy south FL life (as a WV girl, it was not my thing, though he'd lived there since the age of 7) to a slower paced GA town.

And here, we purchased our first home together. A 1940 cottage in the town's historic district. It's a bit of a shrinking violet amid the rambling pre-war mansions, but I love it anyway. We plan to build a little cottage of our own design soon, where we'll begin the next chapter of our lives.