Small isn't Always Beautiful

Saulter reviews some of the choices her family has had to make by opting to live car-free in a small two-bedroom condo rather than a house, and realizes that sometimes their eco-values get compromised in the process:

"When you live in a small space, you have to be very deliberate about the furniture you buy. You can't buy just any old hutch; you need one that will fit in the corner you have available for it. Though it might be possible to find what you need online or at a yard sale/resale shop, the search often requires multiple visits to far-flung, sometimes transit-unfriendly locations. Small spaces mean, not surprisingly, small storage. Saving disposable items (such as wrapping paper, gift bags, and boxes) for future reuse also becomes challenging in small homes. It's tempting to get rid of items that cause clutter in the here and now, rather than saving them for some future useful purpose. Multi-family living also often means there's no place to plant a garden or hang laundry. (In our case, there wasn't even a place to park a bike.)

[L]iving your values sometimes means deciding on the highest priorities and letting some of the other stuff go"