Large Family & small home

[Tanya in KS]

Does anyone have a large family & live in a really small home?? We are looking at a home that is very small compared to what we currently have. We have 7 children plus mom & dad. How have you made it work? Any advice, would be much appreciated.

 

 

Tanya

[Nakia]

We have 5 people in a house that about 1100 square feet, so I don't know if that meets your definition or not, but it feels really small sometimes. Is there any outdoor space? We really use our yard and porches a lot. My very best advice is to keep clutter to a minimum. I am ruthless with regards to throwing stuff away!

[Michelle My Bell]

It doesn't matter so much if the house is small in square feet, but I would want to make sure the rooms are larger.

[qfbrenda]

A friend of mine is having baby #9 in 1100 square feet, so I know it can be done. :D They have a lot of bunk beds. :lol:

 

We have 7 people in 1700 square feet and one bathroom... no idea if that fits your "small house" criteria or not. :)

[Quiver0f10]

What do you consider small? I think what really matters is layout. A big house that is laid out funky isn't much use but a nicely laid out smaller one could be perfect.

[Excelsior! Academy]

Were due with #9 in a few months and my house is 1665 square feet. Maybe less, depending on which person you ask. My only complaints are a tiny yard that slopes so no pool not even a kiddy pool, and not enough bathrooms. Other than that it's pretty doable. People have raised large families in small houses for years and years.

[Carrie12345]

We're about to have 7 people (and 2 cats, and 2 large dogs) in -1200sq'. We're trying to make plans to remedy that, but... we'll see. We were managing okay with the first 5 of us, but we were talking about an addition even then!

 

In the warmer months (so, May-Oct here) the kids are outside A LOT. We tend to get very cranky in the winter. Privacy and quiet are our main issues. Noise carries into every single room, and someone is always Right. There. :glare:

[Carrie12345]

What do you consider small? I think what really matters is layout. A big house that is laid out funky isn't much use but a nicely laid out smaller one could be perfect.

 

My dream is a 2 story box with six 8x10 bedrooms upstairs (5 kid rooms and a place for hs materials) and a full basement for them all to run around in. I wouldn't even care what the rest of the house was like. Heck, I'll even sleep in the basement if I have to!

[Renee in NC]

It doesn't matter so much if the house is small in square feet, but I would want to make sure the rooms are larger.

 

I would prefer the opposite. Our last house had 1300 square feet and large rooms. Our current home is 1300 square feet with smaller rooms (there is one room more than in the other house.)

[Renee in NC]

What do you consider small? I think what really matters is layout. A big house that is laid out funky isn't much use but a nicely laid out smaller one could be perfect.

 

Layout is very important. Storage is also important. This trailer has a large linen closet and a large walk-in closet.

[Just Another Jen]

We have 8 people in a 1200 sq ft home. We have had to ruthless about throwing thngs away. Each boy (4 of them) has a loft bed and space underneath it as their own personal space in their bedroom. My daughter has her own small (8x13 room) my FIL lives in the corner of our laundry room and we have the master bedroom. We are thinking of finishing the attic and making small bedrooms up there. They'd be cell size but they would all have a door. We have no basement. Our yard is a little over a half acre and we have 2 patios so we do a lot outside. Since the warm weather started we haven't had a meal indoors.

[Homeschooling6]

We lived a 700sqft house until a few months ago. We sold our 3500sqft house to move into our rental. It was tight. We had six children in one bedroom (some shared a bed as well). The kiddos did great. We donated lots of stuff. I finally parted with my grandmother's tea cart, and some antique dishes, I finally gave my mom's typewriter and other things that I would never have given away before (to my sisters of course).

Every bed had one set of sheets. Gone are the days of having tons of bedding. When you only have one main closet in the house you learn to let go;).

Rice cooker went out, who needs a rice cooker anyway :) just use a pan, oh and speaking of pans, I only have one set now.

 

A few months ago we moved into our front house and now have 1100sqft. Still small. I miss my big house at times I will admit. Especially our game-room that we used for school.

 

The hardest part is having one bathroom. We do the potty dance a lot:D.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Homeschooling6

[Leola]

A large family with a small house here - trying to decide if we should add or throw away things.

[milovany]

Our family of nine has just moved into a 1650 sf house, but before this we lived in about 1100 sf (the house was actually 1560 sf, but because of layout, a couple of rooms weren't used for much more than storage). It can be done! In this house the secrets will include:

 

1) Learning how to utilize the storage that's available well. For example, there's a large end-of-the-hall closet (3 drawers and then doors that open above those) that's designed for towels, bathroom stuff, linens, etc. But I plan to store towels and bathroom stuff in the large bathroom and we each have one set of sheets for our beds so don't need linen storage. What we don't have that we need at that end of the house (where the kids' bedrooms are) is toy storage and dresser drawers. So this area will be used to store these things instead of what they were designed for.

 

2) Kids will be in bunk beds or loft beds.

 

3) Re-purposing rooms. There's a converted garage that's supposed to be a rec. room; it also has a small (8x10) room added into it that's supposed to be a home office. We'll be using this area in three different ways -- one, the 8x10 room is our master bedroom :D -- I actually kind of like the teenyness of it. It's going to be TONS easier to keep uuncluttered! Two, where the office is built it makes an "L" shaped corner -- we have the two littlest boys set up in the "L" with a bunkbed and some Ikea toy storage. It's actually a cool little nook for them; we painted those walls red to set them apart. Three, there's still room off these two areas to have a couch, piano, TV, clothing closet for dh & I, etc.

 

4) Getting rid of a lot of STUFF. Thankfully we just moved and I did a lot of the de-cluttering and sorting before we came here. I took a new approach for this move: I went through the rooms at the old house and just asked myself, "What do I *know* I want?" and I packed those things. It worked really well. Then I sorted through what remained -- and it was easier to say "no" to things at this point because I'd already gathered everything I knew I wanted to keep.

 

HTH!

Edited July 2, 2010 by milovaný

[Mejane]

I took a new approach for this move: I went through the rooms at the old house and just asked myself, "What do I *know* I want?" and I packed those things. It worked really well. Then I sorted through what remained -- and it was easier to say "no" to things at this point because I'd already gathered everything I knew I wanted to keep.

 

 

 

 

We sort of did this with son's room. We stripped the room, leaving only the things he knew he wanted. The rest went into boxes to be determined later. Once it was all out, he realized he liked the space more than the stuff, so it never made it back in. :001_smile:

[milovany]

We sort of did this with son's room. We stripped the room, leaving only the things he knew he wanted. The rest went into boxes to be determined later. Once it was all out, he realized he liked the space more than the stuff, so it never made it back in. :001_smile:

 

:thumbup:

 

Yeah, I also had the kids do what I did -- they got ONE box and they had to pack the things they wanted to keep into it. Helped them sort with a more critical eye, and kept numerous boxes of their stuff out of our new place.

[MarinesWife]

We had six children in 1000 sq ft. We had 3 when we moved in and that was fine. As we grew it was alright, but bad weather was awful. We really felt cramped and cooped up. We're in about 1500 right now and it's WONDERFUL.... course I'd still like to go a little bigger, but we don't have bad weather here, so no cooped up feelings either. Mostly I feel like we have more FLOOR space where the kids can play.

 

I wouldn't go small again!!

[Renee in NC]

We had six children in 1000 sq ft. We had 3 when we moved in and that was fine. As we grew it was alright, but bad weather was awful. We really felt cramped and cooped up. We're in about 1500 right now and it's WONDERFUL.... course I'd still like to go a little bigger, but we don't have bad weather here, so no cooped up feelings either. Mostly I feel like we have more FLOOR space where the kids can play.

 

I wouldn't go small again!!

 

And when you had guests they brought their own guest room.;)

[JFSinIL]

My in-laws had 6 kids in a three-bedroom bungalow. Parents had the one downstairs room. The sloping walled 2nd story was two big rooms - they partitioned off part of one of the rooms to create one small room for the oldest boy. That left a large room for three girls (bunk beds and a single bed ) and another not-so-large room for two boys (two single beds fit.) The oldest boy got a room to himself since the other boys were kids 4 and 5.

 

They had another downstairs room that could have been another bedroom, but they chose to make it the tv room so as to not have a tv in the living room (!!!!!!!!)

[Momto5]

We too have 7 people living in a smaller home.

 

I agree with so many of the suggestions here. The most important thing for us about living in a small home is that we do not have a lot of material possessions. We like this. We shop very little and tend to have a few collections of toys that appeal to several age groups and both genders. For us, we've managed doing the following things:

 

1. The drawers in our hall linen closet are used instead of another chest of drawers in the girls room. Because the drawers are deep and hold a lot, I made dividers out of card board boxes so more than one child can use a drawer.

 

2. Each child has a special nook that is theirs alone. None of the kids have their own room but we have made an effort for each of them to have their own space. For example, one child who reads a lot has a bean bag and a shelf for books in the corner of one of the bedrooms. For one child, I hung one of those mosquito net circles in the corner of a bedroom and it is where she plays dolls/tea party.

 

3. We use all the vertical space. Each of the top bunks has a shelf attached to the wall next to it where a child can keep special things and a reading light. We also have shelves above the radiators and above doorways.

 

4. We use under the bed space. We have one bunk bed that has built in drawers and one bunk bed that does not. For us, the bunk bed that does not have the drawers works better for us. We don't lose the space behind the drawers and the open space allows us to store different types of things over time.

 

5. I also made some panels of pockets on straps that tie onto the end of the beds. These have been great for the kids to store things like small treasures, stuffed animals, pj and slippers, books or whatever.

 

6. We converted all but one of the closets designed for hanging clothes into closets with shelves. The kids and I don't have a lot clothes that need to be hung so there was a lot of wasted space. Instead we put up shelves in those closets. To keep things contained, I wrapped cardboard boxes in decorative paper. The paper usually corresponds to what is in the box. For example, the box for legos is wrapped in paper I made by photocopying a bunch of legos onto paper. The box that holds socks is wrapped in some wrapping paper with socks on it. For general stuff, I just find some pretty paper and then put a label on it. My girls in particular like that they each got to pick out some cute wrapping paper that express their personality.

 

7. Every door has an over the door shoe organizer on the back of it. I buy the ones with clear pockets so the kids can see what is in each pocket. We use them for lots of things but they are great for lessening the need for chest of drawers which take up a lot of space. For example, by using the over the door pockets for socks, under garments, soccer shin guards, etc, I can use one chest of drawers for 2 or 3 children. For the bigger kids who have more toiletries, they use their pockets for these things. We have one bathroom, so everybody cannot store their toiletries in there.

 

Are you asleep yet? Hope some of this helps.

[farmwife]

I have a friend who has always lived in a small house with many children. She has to keep clothes to a minimum. Each child is allowed 5 everyday outfits and then 2 good outfits. This helps with laundry as well.

 

We have 4 girls in one room and one really neat space saving idea that we use is that we have a bunk bed (Paul Bunyun style) and we slide another twin bed underneath it during the day and then pull it out at night. I can easily fit 6 children in one room using this method. We have also used a toddler mattress as well and you could fit two of those mattresses underneath which would save you even more floor space during the day.

 

Another idea that I am slowly trying to get to is that each child has one dresser drawer to store their toys in, if the drawer is too full then they must donate something.

[LaissezFaire]

We are a family of 8 in 1700sq.ft. None are teenagers yet so it's been fine. We have a big kitchen and large school/multipurpose room that we pretty much live in. We have 2 boys in one room and 4 girls in the other.

[....]

Don't do it! You're gonna wanna move later and you'll be trapped in there! :001_smile:

 

There are 6 of us in an 1100 square foot house (with 3 dogs) and it's like living in a hotel room - I'm not kidding. My 8 yro is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because she can't get away from her siblings. No one has ANY personal space, whatsover - except his/her bed. It is really difficult to keep the place clean. Everybody has a roommate - Everybody. This means that my 8 yro daughter shares a really tiny room with our 7 yro son - not good. She fights with him about his stinky, dirty clothes and he cries and yells at her because she reads in bed at night. Oh, yeah, and he also has a pet snake. :glare:

 

Tiny house +3 Daughters +1 son +Preteen Stages= DISASTER of epic proportions. :D

 

We're renting, so this is only temporary. We should be outta here next spring. Oh yeah, and another thing...we have to rent a storage place, so the amount of money we spend on that, we could've just gotten a bigger house. :tongue_smilie: So, if you're going to rent temporarily to save money, I say Go For it! (I'm all about saving money!) But, if you're going to buy, I wouldn't do it. This economy's not gettin' any better and when you want to upgrade to something bigger, you're going to lose your equity in realtor's fees (not to mention the suffering of having your house on the market - we've done that before too - yuck!).

 

Good luck, though. I completely understand that situation. :D I was thinking of throwing up a tent in the backyard and just letting 8 yro daughter live out there!

[tonersl]

You are all amazing! What great suggestions for saving space and making a small home work with multiple children. We are considering downsizing so we can afford more land (currently living in 3000 sq ft with 1/2 acre) but are very conflicted about actually being able to tolerate living in a smaller space together. I know we could do it but would we drive each other nutty in the process? Thank you for posting this question and giving me food for thought.

Shannon in NC

[amyrjoy]

HI! These replies have been great to read! Well, we have 3 children and live in 950 square feet. Three bedrooms/one bath/one unfinished bedroom. Fairly good sized yard- enough for a campfire, outdoor get togethers, etc.

 

It feels snug at times, and we have had to put more toys lately in the basement- I think as they are growing, are posessions are growing and it is TIME to do some purging. I like the fact that I don't spend all day cleaning, kwim? I think that is the thing that helps us- we have time to spend together and do stuff we want to do.

[MarinesWife]

HI! These replies have been great to read! Well, we have 3 children and live in 950 square feet. Three bedrooms/one bath/one unfinished bedroom. Fairly good sized yard- enough for a campfire, outdoor get togethers, etc.

 

It feels snug at times, and we have had to put more toys lately in the basement- I think as they are growing, are posessions are growing and it is TIME to do some purging. I like the fact that I don't spend all day cleaning, kwim? I think that is the thing that helps us- we have time to spend together and do stuff we want to do.

 

 

I do agree with this...I didn't have much cleaning to do. We stored extra items in the garage. No basement. We didn't spend much time cleaning at all and had all kinds of time to drive each other bonkers on rainy days. LOL

[MarinesWife]

And when you had guests they brought their own guest room.;)

 

 

LOL The first time I let you stay inside the house. ;) I think we both inherited a kid or two before the next time.

[missmoe]

7 people in 1200 square feet. Someone else mentioned noise. That is the hardest thing for me. My older children come in from an activty after the littles have gone to bed and everyone is woken up. Also, only do it, if you are willing to get rid of lots of stuff. Small spaces look cluttery very quickly. A backpack, a pile of books, two pairs of shoes, a dollbaby---in our past house these things could be scattered about my downstairs and I wouldn't think a thing about it. Now those same things make my downstairs look like a junkyard!

[tricia]

Oh yes for sure. We lived in a 950 square foot house when our twins were born and they were number's 8 and 9. We lived there another year and a half before we moved. When we finally put it on the market to sell the realtor told us how amazed she, and everyone she brought into our home couldn't believe there were 11 people in that home. Especially when the children were so young and would "assumably" have many toys. Which we didn't. We made it work just fine.

[Renee in NC]

LOL The first time I let you stay inside the house. ;) I think we both inherited a kid or two before the next time.

 

Yes, we did. B still talks about air conditioning the tent!:lol:

[jazzyfizzle]

We too have 7 people living in a smaller home.

 

I agree with so many of the suggestions here. The most important thing for us about living in a small home is that we do not have a lot of material possessions. We like this. We shop very little and tend to have a few collections of toys that appeal to several age groups and both genders. For us, we've managed doing the following things:

 

...

 

3. We use all the vertical space. Each of the top bunks has a shelf attached to the wall next to it where a child can keep special things and a reading light. We also have shelves above the radiators and above doorways.

 

4. We use under the bed space. We have one bunk bed that has built in drawers and one bunk bed that does not. For us, the bunk bed that does not have the drawers works better for us. We don't lose the space behind the drawers and the open space allows us to store different types of things over time.

 

5. I also made some panels of pockets on straps that tie onto the end of the beds. These have been great for the kids to store things like small treasures, stuffed animals, pj and slippers, books or whatever.

 

 

 

7. Every door has an over the door shoe organizer on the back of it. I buy the ones with clear pockets so the kids can see what is in each pocket. We use them for lots of things but they are great for lessening the need for chest of drawers which take up a lot of space. For example, by using the over the door pockets for socks, under garments, soccer shin guards, etc, I can use one chest of drawers for 2 or 3 children.

 

 

These are some of the same methods we use. I have never tried the pocket panels though- we will have to try that one too!

 

 

 

Another method I use- I purchased a few large, very strong magnet hooks, maybe 5 inches across? I stick these on the side of the freezer, metal utility room door, ect., to hold dog leashes, sweatshirts, small garden tools with loops, anything I can. It is nice to be able to adjust the height so each kid can hang their in and out jacket or snowpants on them.

 

Pot rack-functional and decorative. I only hang pots and baskets on there that I do not use regularly and I wash them before using. Everyday pots and pans are in the cabinet.