THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF SPACE IN A HOUSE

Density is a thing not many people think about when it comes to their homes, but I came to realize that it was the most important measure of space.
Any time you have an optimization problem, you need to identify your limiting factors. In a house, it is density.
There are two very distinct types of space in a house: high density storage space and low density living space. In order to optimize a living space, every cubic foot should be pushed towards one of those boundaries.
Many people struggle with space because much more of their home volume occupies the awkward middle ground. Their living spaces are cluttered and their storage spaces are not packed. They try to solve their space constraints by getting a larger home, which is exactly like trying to solve a waistline problem by buying larger pants.
The space you can see in a house during your normal day is your living space. If it becomes more than 5-10% occupied by volume, it feels cluttered. Look around at the room you’re in and think about all of the air space—probably about 90%+ of the room. (If your house is cluttered, envision a picture of a room in a design magazine or on Pinterest)
This was a very important thing for me to realize in a small space. If we didn’t put things away, or if we acquired anything extra, the space felt

cramped and our desire to move to a bigger space increased. It was a constant battle to keep this space as unoccupied as possible—always trying to reduce to get that number lower.

At the opposite end of the density spectrum is storage space. The ideal storage density is 100%. Achieving that is impossible, as the more dense the space gets, the harder accessing the items becomes. Consider that a cleared walkway to access items in fact reduces your density. That is why, to optimize, certain libraries have movable shelves where only one is accessible at a time—it maximizes storage space by reducing redundant access space

Some storage space, like a closet, is obvious, but one trick I had was to make new storage space wherever possible. Our coffee table (seen two photos up), which sometimes doubled as a changing table, was made from an old trunk I put legs on. It perfectly fit all of our extra guest linens while serving its other roles—reducing the amount of non-used space. (Yes, we had overnight company—even post

babies.) You can barely see a few tubs under the couch in a picture below. I ordered different legs for the couch so that the tubs would fit, giving us a few extra cubic feet of highly organized and easily accessible storage space
When you think about those two types of space, you realize that your housing needs are dictated by the sum of your lower limit of living and storage space. You can dramatically reduce your housing size needs by forcing things towards those limits and then reducing either one

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