To ask if you are happy in your 'small' home?

I've lived in my small terraced 3 bed house for 20 years.
We've added a downstairs toilet, redone the bathroom and kitchen and spent money on a nice garden adding a garden office for wfh
Bedrooms are two doubles and a reasonable size single.

Over the years it was

1. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H
2. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H plus baby in the small room
3. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H toddler in bed 2, baby in small room
4. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H, kids sharing bedroom 2 for about 5 years
5. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H then kids wanted their own rooms so youngest went in small room and oldest stayed in bed 2
6. Now it is Me and 2 teenagers in same rooms, firstborn is off to uni (hopefully) Sep 26 so we will swap rooms round so second born gets the bigger bedroom as he will be here the most.

It did feel small when kids were small as so many toys everywhere, but now they are teens they spend a lot of time in their rooms.

Investing in good storage and not keeping unnecessary stuff I think has been the key.

The plus side is as we didn't size up and take on a bigger mortgage, instead I was able to buy out Ex-H and then overpay the mortgage to reduce the term.

I'll either move when the kids leave home or stay here forever 😁

We're at a different life-stage and have downsized to a flat from a house.
At first it felt too small to be manageable, but we've gone for bespoke furniture (kitchen plus a lot of extra storage elsewhere) and have changed the room layouts to make the best use of the space, with very large wardrobes in the master bedroom which can also hold all our spare bedding and more. Maybe make the smallest bedroom larger by stealing space from elsewhere? We've taken a chunk of the upstairs landing into one of the bedrooms for example, and made organised space under the stairs for extra long-terms storage to ease pressure on the garage.
If you look at how much more you could afford to spend and at how much of this would be absorbed by moving costs of various kinds you might consider the money better spent on improvements.

Is there space for you to add an extension? This could give you the room you need with a lot less cost to move house.

We did a loft extension and kitchen extension, and our house is still small! We are thinking of investing in one of those garden rooms that has electricity etc. I love being clutter free though, I’m fairly ruthless about it, I also have the same colour scheme throughout, so it’s perhaps feeling a little bigger than it is. Fitted storage is brilliant.

I’m really pleased I came across this thread. You all may have saved me thousands of pounds getting an extension that I absolutely do not need

Yes, absolutely - I love my tiny house. Obviously I wish I had bigger bedrooms, and a third bedroom to use as an office, but it is NOT worth the money, time, and effort to move just for the above.

Top tip - have an insulated roof put on your conservatory, so you can use it all year round - total game-changer for us.

Mines 850 sq feet and we have 2 kids and work from home. Doesn't feel small. It's all about perspective.

My DCs had ‘small single’ beds til teens because we were pushed for space. They’re 2’6’’ Instead of the regular single width of 3’. That’s a full 6’’ narrower, but the same length. Most bed shops sell these.

That's if they don't have a solid roof though. If building from scratch, OP would make sure to get a proper roof.

Yours wasn't sound enough as it hadn't been built with a proper roof in mind.

They are great when done properly.

Have a look at Bayley Made This on YouTube. Her and her husband and two boys ages 11 and 8 live in a small townhouse. She has wonderful ideas.

As soon as the big plastic toys stage is over then you really don't need that much space. The older the kids vet the less time they arw in the house and the smaller their stuff is. And you can pair down often, put winter wardrobes stored away etc.

I realise I am very lucky to have a roof over my head (and I do love my house) but the childcare years were brutal and we got stuck in a small house. A kitchen extension helped but now we are four adults living in a small terraced house. I’d like to move but our locale is expensive and the “next size up” where we live is probably still out of reach.

I've lived in several different homes over the years and they were all small but cozy. It's easier to keep a small home clean and less expensive to furnish.I know people who have homes larger than they need and they're never home because they need to work 2 jobs to afford to "live" there.

Stay in your house - it's affordable.
Declutter really hard and create storage for absolutely everything
Do the kitchen/ renovations and enjoy your lovely home

We bought our first home in 2003 with the intention of up grading after 5 to 7 years as well. After 2 years it was worth so much more do we remortgaged and got about £20,000 equity. Worst thing we ever did. We ended up stuck in our 2 bedroom house with 2 kids (boy and girl) and couldn’t sell it for enough to be able to buy a bigger house.

We were finally able to move only because wr part exchanged for a new build. They gave us £68K but sold it on for £54k. We would not have been able to move if we got that little.

We are so much happier in our bigger house.

Yes. Super happy.

My job is full on. So I needed to know I could step away for my mental health.

That made me choose to under-commit mortgage-wise and settle for a small house with the tiny lounge, tiny third bedroom, only on street parking etc got bullied out of my job and have struggled to get a similar position since then.

Thank god I had made those decisions.

I could not be happier to have a modest house and a great life

Same! We have just become a family of 4, (DD is 4 yo, DS is 4 mo) and we're outgrowing the house! Everyone still has their own room, but our lounge is basically 'multifunction' room, lounge, play room, office, dining and gym! We've put our house on the market and looking at bigger houses.

Hope you find your balance and happy space!

🤦🏼‍♀️😖🙄😬🏠

We have a small house - its a 3 bed bungalow but quite small bedrooms. Bonus is though that its on a big plot. It's got a lovely established garden with a view. We're very close to nice walks and a good school.

In the winter, the house feels smaller but when its summer and we have the doors open we are pretty much in and out of the garden all the time and it feels like a nice quality of life. Feels more spacious when we can get out in the garden.

Its very affordable and I very much enjoy the quality of life I have. DP and I can both work part time so we're around for DD a lot. We both have reasonably expensive hobbies and go on lots of little trips at the weekends and things. I would always prefer to have more disposable income than stretch myself massively on a mortgage.

I love my small cottage. It feels cosy in the winter. Yes I have less stuff but the stuff I do have is important and not filler. Mine and DHs art on the walls and clever storage. We embraced it and made it our own. Less housework too 😁

I'd much rather have a smaller house and large kitchen, and general privacy/good location.

Our house is detached but actually only about 1,000sqft. We've got a huge garden and the road it's on is great.

We'll be extending into the garage in the near future, as now we're working from home are needs are different.

I loved my first 1 bed flat, it was small but perfect.

The cost of heating a larger house is extortionate now. And the clutter just grows to fill a larger space.

I wasn’t after I had the second one. We upsized from a small 3 bed, to a bigger 3 bed. There was nothing I could do to my 2 room GF if the old house that would have made me happy raising teens in it.

A 90+ sq metre house is not small.

I think well designed conservatories can be great. We briefly had one which was sunny and warm in winter, and the best place to be. It was either SE or SW, I can't remember which.

@ladygindiva interesting, thanks. Hopefully my kids don’t mind their small house, it is warm.

Not addressed to me but I also hated growing up in a huge house so I'll answer. Firstly I HATED being alone in the house, I found it scary. Secondly, the toilet was down a corridor and getting up in the night to go loo was quite traumatic. It was also often cold, although I appreciate that's not always the case. But smaller houses are usually far cheaper to keep warm!