All new houses now come standard with 3 car garages of about 700sqft or more.
That is super wasteful.
Our current custom-built, but not specifically for us, clown house came complete with a 3 car, 1050 SF garage. We don't park any of our [paid-for] cars in it. Instead, it holds fourteen a-frame signs for our library's book sales, signs, banners and related paraphernalia for another major annual Community event, signs for our neighborhood food drive, hospitality supplies for another large community group, including four coffee urns, and a shitload of tablecloths, a half dozen folding tables and about twenty wooden folding chairs. It also contains the old appliances from our current flip house plus an entire suite of new appliances and other building materials for the same project. All of the tools for said project are housed here, as are all the tools DH needs to maintain our vehicles and our home. And camping gear. It's all neatly arranged and accessible.
My garage benefits my community and helps us make money. Yes, it's big - huge, even - but I wouldn't call it wasteful.
To the OP's specific question:
After years of apartment living, my first place was an 880 sf, 2+1 condo, where I lived alone. I loved it.
Next was a 1700 sf 4+2.5 townhouse, where I had a roommate. I loved it.
Current house is a 2600 sf 4+3.5 crazy beautiful custom clown home, where four adults reside. We love it.
The first place cost $125k in 1996, but I wasn't earning a lot then. Typically, one bi-monthly paycheck barely covered the mortgage, but not always, as my job was 100% comission. It was a bland vanilla apartment conversion in a very desirable area.
Second place cost $330k in 2005 and I needed the roommate to comfortably make the payments. It was a nicer purpose-built townhome, with space for my home office and a bigger garage for samples, which were requirements for my better-paying job.
Third place came after marriage, which included a college student stepson, a MIL w/Alzheimer's, two dogs and a cat. It cost upwards of $925k just as the market was starting to recover in 2013, but we each sold our houses and paid cash for this one. OMG, it is by far the most beautiful and we love it. When we return home, we look at each other and ask, "I wonder who lives here?"
Hedonistic adaptation? Maybe. Mostly it was just that as our needs changed, our ongoing frugality allowed us to continue living comfortably in changed circumstances. We will definitely downsize when our family's needs change.
Oh, and our getaway place is 180 sf. We love it, too.
This post feels very braggy, but you asked, so I hope this info is helpful. I used to think I broke the 100k barrier once in my career, but the SS website says no. Therefore, I can say that neither one of us was a huge wage earner in our careers.