How long could a small three-bed flat work for our family?

It will work just fine with young children. The living room and main bedroom are fine. The only problem is that the other two bedrooms are not really big enough, but they will be fine for a number of years. We have a bedroom 9ft by 7.5ft and it is really tiny when they are older, but was perfectly fine for us for a long time. I do not think the rooms are big enough to share a bedroom.

The biggest issue is your work space.

When you move in you can have a spare room each, use for office and storage.

Baby in with you for 6 months anyway which gives you time to turn one room into a nursery. Assuming you get pregnant immediately, that's May 2028 for birth, own room by Dec 2028. You lbe on mat leave for a bit then will need to share the office space or someone work elsewhere.

You ttc no2 in mid 2030, giving birth Feb 2031, so own room and office gone by Aug 2031. New baby into nursery, toddler into new room saves on decor.

They'll then be perfectly fine in there own rooms until you can move.

BE sensible about clothes and toys, get them into a low riser bed so there's storage and then into high risers as they get older. Swapping u pthe beds is cheaper than a house. Those will give them some storage space, desk space etc.

Or they share in bunks and use the second room for dressing room etc., depending on sex.

Gardens are useful for chucking the kids outside for 5 ehiskt you do stuff, but they wouldn't be out there unsupervised when they're tiny anyway, so that doesn't really work for the first 5 years!! As long as you have access to green space.

So in 5 years you'll need to think about office space but who knows what will happen in that time. You could change job, win the lottery, pregnancy 2 could be multiples.

We have this. It’s absolutely fine and worth the smaller mortgage!

OP you are jumping ahead of yourself. Congratulations on buying your flat. If you like the location then that’s half the battle. Just relax and enjoy your lovely new home and don’t be thinking too far down the line. You will get all sorts of advice on here, there will be someone who will no doubt say unless you have a huge bedroom and bathroom each, a playroom and room for a pony type of thing then you are irresponsible having DC. Where I am there is a housing crisis and many of the younger parents at the school live in smaller homes than those of us who are older and bought several years back. The most important thing now is that you own your own home. Best of luck

12’ x10’ isn’t a tiny single room tbh.

my brother has a similar setup - 2 bed flat in London, 2 kids under 5, parents who freelance / wfh / travel. it is a bit chaotic but the location is great and they are doing fine.

schools in London may well change in the next 5 years - the population of little kids in many central London areas is dropping, meaning there will be more school places available and less pressure on catchments. Get the house now and wait and see what your needs are by the time the kids get to school age.

I’m in a 3bed semi 92 square metres. We’ve got one room as a home office, my adult DC in the spare room, rescue pets and us two everywhere else. Small garden.

so your flat sounds quite spacious!

On paper, yes, in reality your living room will become the playroom… to be fair, even with more space it will likely be the case to some extend.
I would at least try to store the toys in the 3rd bedroom, even if the actual playing takes place in the living room. But then you can just try preserving the 3rd bedroom and see how it goes :)

@parietalmy brother also has similar in London - 3 bed flat, 2 kids. They make it work with one parent working full time from an office/co-working space and the other only needs a laptop so can work from a desk in the parents bedroom.

my cousins grew up with 3 girls in a 2 bed flat in New York City - my aunt and uncle slept on a sofa bed in the living room for 22 years!!

OP if you love it there you can live there as long as you want. I think there are different attitudes about space and where a family should live In different cultures. I loved our 3 bed in central London even with 2 kids and 2 grown step kids often staying , it never seemed big enough but always full of people, visitors, energy . Parks on the doorstep . I never wanted to live anywhere else. Having lots of space and endless rooms to manage genuinely makes me feel anxious . I just imagine them filling up with clutter and films of dust. I still live in a 3 bed in the city in a different part of the world, where it’s normal to have even multi generations living in the same size 3 bed. Lots of people don’t get it. That’s fine they don’t have to live my life. Their choice is ok too. Area and location has always been most important to us over space . The only right decision is the one you make!!!

A lot will depend on whether the layout is practical. I just looked it up on Right Move and my Mum's house which did have a practical layout was only 51.8sqm downstairs and 50sqm upstairs. Upstairs was 4 bedrooms and a small bathroom and a tiny landing. Donwstairs was an L-shaped lounge diner, rectangular kitchen, hallway and downstairs loo. She moved in with my Dad when they had 3 kids, one a baby. They never sold it.

Agree 9-10 years is a long time.
Regardless, it should only be a problem after the second DC is born.
Do you both have jobs that should be WFH forever, or is it dependent on employer's policies?
Even if so, there are options:

• Already mentioned one desk in each child's room, work while in childcare/school.
• Children share while in primary school, one dedicated room for offices. Works better with a slightly larger age gap for a bunk bed due to room size.
• Any desk rentals near you? Could be a short term option.

I had two DD’s in a two bed flat and then managed to get a three bed when they were 10 and 8. 25 years later I’m still here and just about to pay the mortgage off! It’s totally doable. For us the location was far more important than the size. We also happen to live in an area where flats are the norm, even for families so it’s never really been that much of an issue.

Is the attic space big enough for a playroom/home office?

We lived in a 450ft^2 2 bed house with 2 DCs for the first 3 years. It was cramped. I used to wfh but I worked on the sofa on my laptop, I’m not one of these people who needs an entire bedroom. If I was, I’d use one of those rentable desk spaces somewhere. If I needed to get out I’d work somewhere else like the library, a park, or an hour in a coffee shop. It was fine but I think a small 3 bed with 2 kids is the bare minimum really, our 2 bed had a commensurately-sized living space and it was too small for big toys.

I would 100% prioritise school catchment, it’s so important. When we moved out of area to get a 3 bed, the new school was awful (there were no good options) and I really wish we had just made the 2 bed work and kept the schools as DS got bullied in the new area and the school weren’t bothered. We also need access to London and stupidly believed those people on here who claim they live in outlandish parts of the North or Midlands and commute. With the rail service the way it is, that’s not workable nowadays. We are now working abroad and saving to move back to the SE. We hope to be in a position to move in a couple of years. Another consideration is if you’ve got a good GP service/local hospital, that’s absolutely worth staying in-area for, too. Especially when you have babies.

Also kids don’t need heaps of toys. You use the height of your rooms for storage and rotate toys.

The secret is being minimalist, they don’t need heaps of clothes or toys or equipment. Buy 2nd hand then move on stuff not being used.

Personally... I'd look at working space outside the home - thats the unlock

My strategy/ plan would be....

Get out for work.... use a garden shed / library / big cafe nero / workspace of some sort near home (5min walk) something like that

Go for 2 under 2 and just get it done.

Stay in small house while you have 2 x childcare.
Get oldest into the good school...( check it has sibling policy) then you can do what you like / can afford.

House prices are going no where fast so time is on your side. Id argue moving up will be easier as house prices will fall / you can build deposit.

We went from engaged to 2 kids oldest in primary in 6 years... it goes fast

You need a good layout though...

We just didnt want to waste stamp duty so went straight for a family home before kids which we dont regret.

Its fine, and a couple of things will help:

1. make the most of the space by being fairly minimalist and choosing furniture that folds away or doubles up

2. be in the habit of spending plenty of time outdoors. It's much healthier. You don't need a garden - parks and playgrounds are free; nature reserves are lovely, and consider membership of the National Trust, or RHS, or English Heritage, depending on what's nearby.

Sorry, I had to giggle at 80sqm being called very small flat because that's the size of 3 bed detached newbuilds here and iirc most 30s-40s 3 bed terraced houses....

Why do you think it will be too small? This was very much an average sized house with bigger families till recently.

Do you own the loft space - could you convert it to proper height living space with a balcony - or even sitting down work space with a velux.

We're in a 2 bed duplex 1400 square ft so nearly twice the size.
If you could board the loft and make it usable storage space that would be materially helpful. Even better if you could convert it.

The things that limit us/we would like most are:
Private, or at a pinch shared secure (fenced) outside space.
An eat-in kitchen, or maybe one big open plan kitchen diner living space. We have a tiny kitchen next to a living/dining room.

We do have a bathroom plus downstairs WC which is a major plus.
We miss a spare bedroom for visitors and as a separate WFH space.

I have seen some lovely 3 bed flats that would meet all of the above criteria. Further out from the city but similarly priced to ours.

If you haven't actually got pregnant yet you have time to work on a property, but I wouldnt choose this one.

We've brought up two DCs in an approx 80sqm Victorian terrace, but it does have a garden and that makes a big difference in summer, we are also very close to a park. But neither of us works from home more than the occasional few hours, I agree with others that that is the issue. But there are all sorts of ways of incorporating desks into tiny spaces, you can get compact but still very usable furniture in Ikea etc. Do you each need private workspace for calls or could you be in the same room, the latter gives more options.