Never Too Small

Where did we go?

Well, in recent years our tenancy was starting to get a little dicey and we begin looking for new housing. Which wasn’t easy in Toronto in the year of our Lord 2025.

Climate Pledge’s motto has always been ‘too small to fail’ and we’re now putting it into practice in a tiny new condo near St. Lawrence Market.

From an environmental perspective smaller homes and denser neighbourhoods are clearly preferable.  We already don’t drive or fly, so heating our home was the biggest piece of our carbon footprint.  Heating a condo with shared walls (and an in unit heat pump) means that part of our footprint has plummeted.

The actual act of moving and getting set up in a new smaller space was time-consuming and miserable (hence the long gap between podcast seasons) but we are extraordinarily happy here.  Density, especially density that has had time to mature and figure itself out, means complexity and texture.  This part of the city is beautiful and the market is delicious. It’s like an old growth forest for humans.  We have interesting restaurant options and lots of transit at our fingertips.  We’re excited to spend time at Biidaasige Park and take the ferry to the island in the spring.

Almost nothing in life will make you happier than being able to walk to a variety of interesting destinations.  I often think of a study cited by Charles Montgomery in his book Happy City which found that people choosing a new home consistently overestimate how much benefit they would get from additional square feet of space and underestimate how much suffering each additional minute of commuting will cause.

Living in a small space takes a lot of thought and planning, but with a little ingenuity and design inspiration it can be more practical and more magical than a large space.

We have always been big fans of Never Too Small design videos and now we’re living in one.

Honestly, if you’re looking for a relaxing and aesthetic short videos, you can’t do better than Never Too Small. And maybe we’ll see you at the market.