How much house is "enough"

[Momo]

v girl check out the link I just inserted...drool

[v-girl]

I wonder if they would let me live in the laundry room and out by the pool. I would homeschool in that laundry room (it's more space than we have now). ha ha ha!

[scrub-jay]

My thought process: why would you want the laundry in the kitchen? Oh.. OOOOOHHHH!!!! mmmmm... drool... *swoon*

[Momo]

My thought process: why would you want the laundry in the kitchen? Oh.. OOOOOHHHH!!!! mmmmm... drool... *swoon*

Seriously this is the size of laundry that a family w/3+ kids needs!

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

My thought process: why would you want the laundry in the kitchen? Oh.. OOOOOHHHH!!!! mmmmm... drool... *swoon*

That was verbatim my thought. How absurd to have such nice finishes in a laundry room that it's mistaken for a kitchen!

[rainbabies]

Our house is about 2400 not including the full basement. Four bedrooms. Two and a half baths. 5 acres. Barn with 1000sf apartment above. We're pretty far out of town. We're on a dirt road. Two neighbors...can barely see their houses from ours.

[MDPhDWife]

Suz, that laundry room is AMAZING! What on earth does one put in all those cabinets though? I think I'd rather have a rack to hang dry stuff and a rod to put clothes on hangers. I've seen houses with a washer/dryer inside the master closet in addition to a set that was in a separate laundry room. Now that to me is ideal. No having to separate the kids clothes from mine, no schlepping laundry all of the house, etc. That had to have been designed by a woman.

The house we lived in for twelve years before moving here was only 1300 sq ft, 3/2.5 bath. Way too cramped for our family of four. We currently live in a 4/2 bath in 1800 sq ft. I like having the spare room, but dislike the girls bathroom also being the one guests use. I love the open floor and split floor plan of this house and pool, but am having a hard time repurposing the formal living/dining room. I know for sure we can do without any formal living space in our next house. It just doesn't fit our casual lifestyle.

Our ideal house would have 3500-4500 sq ft with at least 5 bedrooms. I like having extra rooms for guests, exercise, office space, and game room. A laundry room is a must, all my homes have had a closet and it just sucks. I don't care much about land because I wouldn't want to deal with the maintenance.

[houseelf]

Lots of great info here! We have a chip in our brains that forbids us to hire out to much stuff.

Are you related to my parents?

I *thought* I saw you at the last family reunion. I was the one sipping bourbon in the corner.

Seriously, I lurve my mudroom. If money were no object. I'd have an enormous mudroom/laundry with stadium lockers for each family members, shoe cabinets, broom closet, slop sink, backpack/electronic drop zone, and maybe even a shower to clean off the dirt from outside. We need a big transition area. Even though we are a family of five, other kids come over and there is a crap explosion of shoes, backpacks, coats.

We'd have to be obscenely wealthy however, because this sort of investment would never pay off in the long run.

[Thirteen]

I *thought* I saw you at the last family reunion. I was the one sipping bourbon in the corner.

Seriously, I lurve my mudroom. If money were no object. I'd have an enormous mudroom/laundry with stadium lockers for each family members, shoe cabinets, broom closet, slop sink, backpack/electronic drop zone, and maybe even a shower to clean off the dirt from outside. We need a big transition area. Even though we are a family of five, other kids come over and there is a crap explosion of shoes, backpacks, coats.

We'd have to be obscenely wealthy however, because this sort of investment would never pay off in the long run.

This is exactly why I was so attracted to our house: I saw the mudroom and said, "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS."
We are "outdoorsy," and have very wooly dogs, so a place to throw nasty workout gear, muddy items, and dirty dogs in bad weather was a huge plus.

[Auspicious]

Yes to the transition area! In my fantasy/plan that's part of my "office near the front entrance." It would have our two desks and a mail/coat/shoe/bags/electronics area. And it would be "allowed" to just be ugly in there. Hence the closing door. (No sink though.) Houses here also don't seem to have front hall closets, I guess because of the warm weather and lack of heavy coats? I'm dealing with layouts in the vein of this or this.

Laundry room: to me if you're going to have a fantasy laundry room, it's got to have a big table in there, like the size of a ping pong table, for folding and stacking everything. I honestly am fine with the laundry closet, and folding the clothes while sitting on the beds.

[samssugarmomma]

I absolutely FLOVE our house. We have a little over 4800 sq feet, 5 bedrooms, 5 baths. The layout is:

- top - master, laundry, 4 kids bedrooms, 2 kid bathrooms. Two kids share a jack and jill bathroom (or jill and jill in our case) and two kids will share the last bathroom.
- main floor - entry, formal living room, formal dining room, kitchen with eat in area, office/craft room, full bathroom, family room, 2 car garage
- basement - media room/exercise room, playroom, guest room, guest bathroom, unfinished storage area about the size of a 1 car garage.

There is a formal staircase in the entry and then a "servant staircase" as DH has dubbed it in the family room.

Is it too much space? Maybe. It feels perfect for our three - so to be 4 kids. Our old house was about 1200 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and two baths, LR, DR, kitchen and basement with a playroom and laundry room. The rooms were tiny and closed in and I was overwhelmed all of the time - feeling like we were always on top of each other. Or maybe that people were always on top of me. I can't tell you how much better my anxiety is since we've moved and I don't feel as claustrophobic all of the time.

We didn't set out to have 5 full bathrooms - it just so happened that the house that we fell in love with had 5. I think we'd be fine with 4.5 bathrooms. I'm not sure if all 5 of us will ever have to take a shower at the same time! Though they might come in handy once I have 4 teenage girls!

We have a cleaning lady that comes every 2 weeks and cleans everything from top to bottom for $125. I don't know if this is the "normal" rate or not, but she is awesome and I love her!!! We provide the cleaning supplies and I make homemade cleaning products and the house smells awesome after she leaves.

We are going to make our own formal dining table with plans from ana-white.com. We aren't really "formal" people so it won't be overly stuffy.... more like a dressed up dining room. We plan to eat breakfast and lunch in the eat in kitchen and then dinner in the "formal" dining room every night. The formal living room will eventually be a reading room with comfy brown leather couches and end tables that we plan to make ourselves. DH already has in mind what he wants the couches to look like.

The playroom will eventually evolve into a game room and DH plans to get the kids a skee ball machine or air hockey table.

The house is BIG but none of the rooms are over sized. Three of the 4 kids bedrooms are just big enough for a bed, dresser, bookshelf, and nightstand and still have some floor space to play. That is exactly what we wanted. One of the bedrooms is big enough to where we could squeeze in one more kid if we decide to go for a 6th - but that one would either be adopted from Russia or foster care and we haven't even started saving so that is light years away!

We have no family nearby so a guest bedroom was a must.

Our yard is a decent size with a deck and room for a swing set, green space to run around, and a vegetable garden that is just weeds right now. We decided to hire someone to cut the grass this summer while we get settled and he comes for $30.

We have no plans to move until the kids are grown and settled with families of their own. Since my oldest is 7 I can't even imagine that!

[oceanchild]

Interesting thread!

I love the house my parents moved to when I was in high school. About 2300 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (for 5 people at the time). I like that you can hear each other from everywhere if doors are open. So I always sort of thought of that as my ideal house size. I don't love their neighborhood, though, and I'm partial to stately old homes, so I assume I won't get a perfect layout.

We have 1280 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms now. It's fine for us and probably up to two small kids, but we know it isn't our forever house.

Also, I hate basements! I think they're scary! I'm surprised how many of you love them. It's another thing I'll probably have to get over to have a cool old house with sufficient living space, but I would never seek one out.

[MissCrabette]

Our current apartment is 1150 square feet, and I think it's perfect for us right now. Could we do with less? Probably, but I love having a dedicated office (the second bedroom) and not sharing my bathroom. Yup, I took over the master bathroom and closet. I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to share. Yes, we're both only children.

I have no idea what size house would be ideal. My parents' house is about 2,000 sq. ft., and I think that's too small.

I'm not a huge fan of basements. I hate going up and down the stairs. I also want the laundry room to be near the bedrooms. Who ever came up with the idea of putting the laundry room by the kitchen? I don't want to drag my laundry all across the apartment/house only to have to do it all over again once it's clean and dry. I'd also want an open floor plan so that I don't feel isolated when in the kitchen. I don't need a formal living room, but I'd really like a nice office and a formal dining room. My biggest obsession, however, is with double ovens. I'll compromise on almost everything else, but I WILL have double ovens, dang it!

[Bittersweet]

My must haves: open kitchen and informal family room, a backyard with some privacy, and at least 2 baths (TMI alert: it took only one shared case of food poisoning for us to conclude that we’d never live anywhere with only one bathroom again).

Our current house is 3,300ish sq. feet (4 beds/2.5 baths). It is way too big and we only have furniture for half of the space (it’s ridiculous looking). However, we purchased the home knowing we’d grow into it and I’m glad we’ll have enough bedrooms for each kid to have his own room and still have space for a guest room/office. I still don’t know what we’ll do with the formal living room, though.

[PrincessFiona]

We are a family of 7 living in 3200 square feet. Though we do have some minor eexpansion plans, oue goal is to pay the house off sooner rather than later. We have a nice home, but it's not as large or fancy as many of ny med spiuse peeps. It will be paid iff in 8 tears though. DH and I want to be able to afford to visit/help the kiddos and travel.

Everyone does have enough space...