There was a time when American single family homes weren?t so absurdly large. In 1950, the average household had 3.83 people and the average new single family home was 983 sq ft, making for a pretty reasonable 291 sq ft per person. Compare that to 2014, when the average household had 2.54 people and the average new single family home was 2,690 sq ft, or 1059 sq ft per person. That’s a 360% increase in per capita housing size. Yikes! What?s worse is this continual embiggening of the American home has dwindled the options of modestly sized homes for those who want them. We frequently get notes from people who want to downsize, but say they are forced into homes larger than they want because there?s virtually nothing available in their area. A real estate startup out of San Antonio, TX called Rising Barn is trying to remedy this lack of options, offering prefabricated, stylish, affordable and reasonably sized single family homes.
Rising Barn offers five ?kits? with two categories of structures: cabins and domos. The cabins come in two sizes, large and medium. The large is a two bedroom unit with 720 sq ft of usable square feet (above), and the medium is a studio with half the area of the large; unlike the large, it doesn?t have a full bath or kitchen, so it?s designed for ?work/live? use. The three domos are multipurpose rooms ranging from 80-160 sq ft and can be used in conjunction with cabins or as additions to existing homes.

Rising Barn wants to make the whole pro...