Just Wondering...

[Tammyla]

Family of four in a two story, four bedroom 2 1/2 bath with 2300 sq-ft that's not including the full basement and 2 car garage. We've lived here 5+ years and this is our biggest home to date.

[Trivium Academy]

I think our house is between 1200-1400 square feet, maybe less but it has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, living room, kitchen with a little eat-in area and less than 1/2 acre yard. Our 2 kids are in 1 bedroom on bunk beds (just stacked them today) and the other bedroom is our learning room.

 

We lived in a 2000-2200 sqft house before with 3 acres, our formal living room was our learning room and the kids had their own bedrooms. We have purged more than half our belongings but we're okay. We're in a rental and may not be here past next summer, I do want to move...not because of space (though that would be nice) but because I don't feel right about planting in a yard that we're renting. :(

[Brigitte]

Layout is key. We have just under 2000 sqft finished and it is extremely spacious and all the space works really well for us. We have 2 bedrooms, a loft (dh's office), 2.5 baths, galley kitchen, dining room, living room, and a partially finished basement (walkout) that accomodates our home school area, TV area and my office. We also have a ton of storage space.

 

We looked at a townhouse that had the same finished sqft, but did not have the space we needed. The bedrooms (3 of them) were smaller, but had big closets. The bathrooms were very big (a space waster, I think). The main floor consisted of basically one big room with the open kitchen in one corner. Dh would have had to put his office in our bedroom and we would have had to use the extra bedroom for home schooling and my office. The TV would have had to go in the living room. Basically, there was no place to be alone in that house.

 

We saw smaller places that had the space laid out in a way that would have worked for us, too (they had other problems, though). So, how the sqft are used really makes a difference. Big bathrooms eat up a lot of space, overly large closets do too.

 

Good luck in your search and don't rule out places because of the number of sqft.

[Cornerstone Classical]

That's amazing! How do you keep all the housework done?

 

I take the first week of every 3rd month to deep clean, other than that, my ds14 is responsible for the top floor. That includes his room, den area and guest room. The basement gets done on Saturday morning which includes exericise room, schoolroom, playroom and bathroom and billiards room. But really, the only thing that needs weekly cleaning are the schoolroom, bathroom and playroom. Then I clean a little everyday thru the week on the main floor. The two younger ones are only allowed in the schoolroom, one bathroom, playroom and kitchen. They only go into their own rooms to sleep at night.

 

Wednesdays is our yard day, and we all help with that.:tongue_smilie:

[Philothea]

We live in a 1300 sq/f apartment with 2 bedrooms and 2 full baths.

 

We meet the income guidelines for moderate income housing, normally this apartment goes for $1900/month, we pay less than that. However, we may be asked to leave because we have 3 kids, when our lease is up.

 

Hopefully, we can get into a rental home or buy at some point. The Boston housing market is so crazy.

[chickenpatty]

6 kids + 2200 sq ft = plenty of room for us. I think it depends a lot on the layout. We have fewer rooms, but they are fairly large.

 

Having 3 boys & 3 girls also helps - they fit nicely into two bedrooms.

[AuntieM]

We are currently in a 3000 sq foot plus 1000 sq ft fully-functional basement, and I am losing my mind trying to keep everything clean and in it's place. Three-car garage contains a lot of things we don't really need to keep. We do need to get rid of a lot of "stuff," but I also long for that cozy feeling many of you have mentioned. DH and I were just talking about the coziest home we ever had, it was our 2nd home and was about 1500 sq ft, 3br/2ba, no basement. We would love to have about 1700-1800 sq feet WELL LAID OUT, plus a basement is common where we now live (though part of that, finished, could be included in the aforementioned square footage). Can do with a two car garage. We have 4 kids, 2 boys & 2 girls. They are getting older so there aren't so many toys laying around as there used to be (or there won't after I get rid of most of the last of 'em!).

 

We have caught on to Jennifer's brilliant phrase, "Halving it all." So, over the next few months we will be working on seriously decluttering, looking for a good buy and getting our current home sold. We want to do life, not just dust it.

 

We also look forward to taking all of our equity and perhaps buying a house outright (can you hear the Dave Ramsay "freedom!" scream?).

[SquirrellyMama]

We have 3 kids in a two bedroom house. All the kids share a room. There is one bunk bed and one twin bed in their room. We have the other room.

 

I think between the basement and our upstairs we have 1300 sq feet that is finished.

 

Kelly

[NancyNellen]

2900 sq. feet, 3 BR, we've got 3 boys in one and 2 girls in the other

[Tracey in TX]

We have 5 kids (sometimes an exchange student for year), DH who works from home when not traveling. Home is 4000 sq ft. Would LOVE to have a 6000 sq ft home, but don't see that in this lifetime :)

[runamuk]

Right now, we're in a 2400 sqft home with 2 children. We recently moved from a 1900 sqft house and we had 3 children living at home.

 

I have mixed feelings about the extra space in this house. I like that there is enough room to be able to have some extra room or privacy when we start getting on each other's nerves. But I don't like it that everyone is so spread out in the house. It used to be that one would be on the computer, one would be watching a movie and the other would be coloring at the table - all in the same large room. But now the computer is in one room, the tv is in another room, the art supplies are in the kitchen and the playroom is on a different floor. Depending on who is doing what, we can go most of the afternoon without seeing one another.

 

When my husband retires in a few years, we will most likely be looking for something smaller.

[Rosy]

4 kids, 1080 sq. ft.

 

It's too small for us. We don't have a lot of storage, and we can't get away from each other when we need space. It's better in the summer when the kids are outside more. We're in the process of selling and getting a better place, we're looking mostly at 2000-2500 sq ft with a garage (we don't currently have one).

[suzf242]

We have 1 kid right now and 2000 sq. ft., but the family who lived here before us had 9 kids!! I don't know how they did it...

 

Suzanne

[Tap]

2200sqft, 3 kids, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bath.

 

 

I would prefer 3200sqft. Our current house is ok, but we never loved the layout. We got it for a good price and we have a low fixed interest rate so we will stick it out. We don't have any intention of leaving anytime soon.

 

We could live in a smaller house but our kids really like to spread out so it would be really hard on them. Dd9 always has an art project piled up somewhere and ds has a civilization game. Dd2 has her pile of toys and 'things'.

[Another Lynn]

We have 5 children in 3 bedrooms, but it's actually a pretty large house. The bedrooms are large and there's lots of living space (huge kitchen, formal dining room is our school room, large living room and a good size "den," and a basement). I currently have 4 children in one bedroom and our baby in the other bedroom alone. Eventually I'll move our other daughter in with our baby girl, but for now I don't like to take chances with a good night's sleep, LOL!

 

I would say you could make 3 bedrooms work if the house is not too much smaller. (Another option on the bedroom is to give the 3 same gender children the master bedroom and you and dh use a different bedroom?)

[Cindy in C-ville]

We have 6 kiddoes in a 3600 sq. foot house with five bedrooms (2 kids per room and one guest room) We really don't have extra space, no unused formal areas, etc. Every room used. The guest room is for guests, obviously, but also is used by college girls who need a break from school, a quiet place to study, etc. Right now it is the holding tank for winter clothes that I need to sort.

 

We would like to add a garage and a home office eventually as dh often works from home (a chair in our bedroom) and our screen porch functions as our garage - rather unsightly. My kitchen and laundry room are a bit small, but they're okay.

 

We've been here for six years, but in the rental we had before this one, the four girls shared a large bedroom and the boys were in a room. If I had a room large enough for all the girls, I would do this again in a heartbeat. I LOVED having them all together. We are considering adopting a Ukrainian orphan next summer. If we move ahead, three of the girls will probably be in a room together.

[sweetbaby]

We only have 3 bedrooms and we have 5 children, only 4 still live at home. We do have 2 bathrooms. Our home is only 1600 sq. ft. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my house.

 

We have the same but our oldest is still home (12th grade). We have a huge backyard that my children love. We could add on and have plenty of yard left over, if we wanted. I love my yard.:D

[teachermom_7]

It's funny you should post this. A friend of mine and I were having this exact conversation earlier this week!

 

We don't have a HUGE house by any means (3 br / 2 bath, about 1600 sq ft), but it's more than comfortable for a family of 4. My friend has five kiddos with one on the way in a 4 br / 2 bath home. She was "stressing" b/c the older girls were going to have to share a room when the baby comes.

 

I told her a little about my upbringing ~ we had a family of 6 in a SMALL 3 br / 1 bath home (couldn't have been more than 1,000 sq ft). But, we NEVER saw it as small!! The memories I have of that home are of the incredibly sweet family times we spent together, the slumber parties my sisters and I had EVERY NIGHT because we all three shared a room and a queen sized bed, the fun we had "ice skating" on the hardword floors in our socks, and too many more times to mention!

 

We were talking about the economy and how so many people are looking into smaller houses to save on house notes, utilities, etc. Like I mentioned to her, because my parents didn't fuss about the size of our home, but rather made it a "home," the size of my houses has never been an issue for me as an adult.

 

I think the biggest thing is how we as parents present it to our kids. We're in economic times that are going to force changes in our daily routines, especially for those of us still living on one income. It's all in how we present it! If our kids see the guilt and frustration in our faces and actions because we think we're not giving them all we can, then they'll feel the same. But if they see us taking what we have and making the best of it, they'll learn to do the same and be better adults for it down the road.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Tammie in LA :blush: