The size of the average American home is shrinking (it dropped for both 2008 and 2009 after 15 straight years of growth) and while it makes a good headline, it hasn't come down anywhere near the national average for 1950 (983 square feet).
While the average American is still living relatively large, there is a growing group of Tiny House People who are choosing to live in trailers, RVs, yurts, boats and very small houses.
Felice Cohen lives in a Manhattan apartment that measures just 12 feet by 7 feet. Her choice to live small allows her to live on the Upper West Side, where rents average $3,600 per month. For her 90-square-foot microstudio she pays just over $700 per month.
Granted, she had a bit of a panic attack the first night when she woke up in the loft bed with the ceiling 23 inches from her face, but she's grown accustomed to the small space. Now when she goes back to her childhood home she misses its coziness.
I think a lot of people have a lot of space that they're not using. I grew up in a place where my bedroom was 17 feet by 17 feet with two walk-in closets that combined where almost the size of this apartment that when I go home now I go in the closet just to feel like I'm back in New York.
Felice shows us her tiny kitchen (toaster oven, hot pot and mini fridge), the toilet where she bumps her knee on the bathtub and her now-cozy lofted bed.
