At 77 m2 (829 sq. ft.) it is indeed tiny, but not overly so. I’ve lived in what felt like very spacious one bedroom apartments that topped out at about 700 square feet and a lot of that felt wasted.
The one thing I would do is get rid of the wall separating the front entrance hall from the living room as well as the walls and doors separating that expanded space from the rest of the house. That central hallway is still wasted space, but at least you’d get the illusion of the space being much larger and open.
And as to why Russian homes have such thick walls, it’s as I suspected…
That probably also explains why the public part of the house is divided from the private area. It can be closed off to save on heating!
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Mark, my condo comes in at 832 square feet. I love it. There is one area of the condo that could have been designed a little better. That is the meeting of the entry hallway, coming out of the bathroom, and entering into a galley kitchen. The intersection of these points is an open area that leads into the bedroom and the living room.
I have never been a big fan of large homes. I like to use every square inch. Yes, my condo could use a few tweaks, but I love it. It’s a former hotel that was built in the 1980s. The building was a precursor to the extended stay model. The place was called Many Mansions and had contracts with local hospitals down the street for families who had patients in the hospital for long periods of time for places to stay.
My condo was remodeled a few years before I moved in. What once was a more enclosed space, think walls, was opened up. I knew when I saw it, it was the one because my criteria was simple. I wanted a condo that looked like a condo and not an apartment, and it fit the bill. I toured several condos that were the same size, and they squeezed two bedrooms into the place.
I always stated that I could live in an above-average-sized hotel room, with storage and a kitchenette, if it was tricked out and planned well. Maybe starting above 400 square feet. I have seen older apartments in my time that were smaller than usual, but the layout and design were great.