How did your house needs change as DCs got older?

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Am currently planning our self build ‘forever home’ in the very early stages. Currently have 1 baby and hoping for another before the 3 +years or so before we move in. I know there’s loads of info about designing a house around young children, playroom / sight lines etc, but what about when they are 10years +?

Friends currently selling their house as ‘too open plan’ for their older kids who need space. When I grew up we just went to our bedrooms for space so have no idea how to futureproof in today’s world. She talks of 2nd ‘kids’ living rooms/teenage dens and homework spaces. Wise MNers, what would you do if you were planning your dream home?

It very much depends on your children.

My teen son - now 17 - hasn't wanted to be with us since he was about 12. We see him for meals and holidays . DH sees him when there's footy on telly and he's not out watching it with his mates.

My teen DD, almost 15, however - likes our company more!

We are open plan downstairs plus a playroom but since Covid this is now DHs office. It has a telly in it tho so DS and DH sometimes use it as the footy watching room. DD never ever goes in there - for her it's her bedroom or with us. She watches telly with me most evenings.

What we do have that they have both really come to appreciate this year is a big area at the bottom of the garden that is completely hidden and overlooks a field- with a den and chairs. Both DC have used this extensively with their friends - was especially good for DS and his 6 mates after they got back from a party at midnight, they were down there chatting, playing music and drinking for 3 hours before crashing in the living room which is directly below our bedroom. We didn't hear a thing!

...the other thing to say is that both DC have space in their bedrooms for desks, which is v important when they get to secondary.

Yes I'd say open plan is great when they're young. Mine are 10/13 now and actually having separate rooms over three floors has been a godsend particularly in lockdown when everyone needed their own space and you don't want to listen to the Xbox endlessly!

We had open plan and it was a bugger as DS got older. What would have been good would have been open plan with a separate lounge.

Spare tele room that doesn’t feel like a bedroom. Whether that be in a kitchen diner or in a totally separate room so they can have their friends over

We're lucky in that we have a cellar. Ours is an older house but we recently extended and moved walls. I'm not in older teen/ almost adult territory yet as my oldest is 14 but we've gone for big open kitchen dining room with space for armchairs which provides good communal space with a huge dining table for being able to have extras around the table, play board games etc. Then separate living room. The dc all have their own rooms and we have an en suite plus a family bathroom. Separate utility a must as small child clobber gets replaced by different sports and 10 million pairs of rugby boots, running shoes etc. Our cellar is kids space plus spare room for grandparents. It has all the lego but also for growing children it has a monitor/ old TV for attaching games console to, a sofa for lounging around with friends and so on. Plus it has another loo and shower. I know 3 showers is a total luxury but no shower queues in the morning is bliss!

Definitely somewhere quiet where they can do homework not disturbed by noisy siblings but also accessible so you can keep an eye / help if needed.

If I were designing a house now I'd have even more sockets than we already have and a designed-in charging area that somehow kept cables tidy.

When ours were young they wanted to share a bedroom and have a shared playroom. Moved to own bedrooms when eldest was 8.

Currently 8&10, have just moved into our 'while they are at Secondary school house'. The priorities were good schools, good public transport, a reasonable bedroom each, and at least two rooms downstairs (this is a normal 3 bed Semi, nothing fancy!) Reasonable size garden for entertaining

Downstairs we have kitchen, living room- dining room, conservatory. The conservatory is where people go for quiet... its a mixture of office, playroom and also an armchair.

Upstairs is two double bedrooms, one single. Elder DD has a loft bed and underneath she has her display shelves, desk and book case for all her stuff. Younger DDs room has more floor space, but she has more toys.

If we had a bigger house, the extra priorities would have been...
Spare bedroom
Extra bathroom
Downstairs toilet
Garage
Study
2 separate reception rooms plus kitchen (maybe a small table in kitchen, but I don't like eating dinner in the kitchen)

Storage. Big wardrobes. Big cupboards.

A separate room to be a living space/den. Or in a big open plan lower floor it would be good to have big doubles doors/ sliding doors that can be closed to separate rooms. Not even just for your kids having friends over, but for you having friends over. Once they are mid teens they might not be in bed at 8pm but you don't want them hanging around your party... send them to the den.

A quiet space for homework (I think this can be their bedroom if space allows for a desk etc but some people prefer to keep bedrooms for sleeping/dressing etc only).

One bedroom for each child (ideally with a guest bedroom too or office with fold out/fold down bed).

Multiple bathrooms and toilets.

Obviously these aren't all must haves, but if I was designing a forever home with a good budget, these are all things I would choose.

Storage - I only live in a flat but the best thing about it is a big wide corridor to store all the bikes/scooters/skateboards.

We bought this house when open plan was all the rage - I had planned to do that here but as time has gone on I've realised that what we have works perfectly for the kids as they get older;

Big bedroom each - plenty of floor space and space for a desk.

Den/garden room

Movie room in the basement (converted existing cellar)

Separate kitchen - dining table in through lounge can be used for homework if they want to be near us for help.

The only thing we don't have in this tardis house is a downstairs toilet which I'm working on!

Definitely storage big enough for bikes / skateboards / paddleboards (etc if that’s your hobby).

Teens prefer an en-suite if you can make anything happen!

I would even be inclined for a loft room for you both - a big one with your own bathroom - so you can relax up there.

When the dc grew up the playroom turned into an office and the second living room became their space with pool table, TV, xbox sofa bed and a mini area with kettle, toaster and a small fridge for drinks and milk. There was a toilet next door. Wasn't going to provide a shower though as could imagine half a dozen towels all over the place and me cleaning the shower after them.
It was never a forever home I ended up on my own there and sold up bought a home with my DP and invested the rest of the equity in rental properties and a holiday cottage.

Ethernet ports so you’re not all fighting for WiFi signal.

These are all amazing ideas thanks. The house will be a conversion and extension so altho can be flexible, don’t have totally unlimited space. Sounds like 2 downstairs tv rooms is important tho….I’m not sure how I feel about a tv in the kitchen- family room but might need to consider that. Good point about ports/ tv aerials etc.

All these lucky kids with so much space! We’d never heard of playrooms or dens when I was a kid- I was told to be quiet or chucked outside.

I often watch house programs Grand Designs, Building the Dream, renovation ones.

I'm always amazed that they do pokey bedrooms, fine when the children are small, so are their beds wardrobes etc. but put a teenager in there and suddenly there is no space. Most teens would like a small double or double bed, they need a lot more storage space, they need a desk. En-suite are useful for them.

Open plan can work but you have to have a separate room that is quiet and you can close the door.

A building in the garden is a great idea for them to hang out in.

En-suites.
We have one bathroom between three of us and it's a real headache.

Have a big enough kitchen dining room that you could imagine 4 adults walking around and not bumping into each other.
I live in a new build house with my DH and two DC who are early 20’s and it’s perfect. Upstairs we have 4 large bedroom, 2 are en-suite and there’s another bathroom. The fourth bedroom is a good sized study. Downstairs we have a massive kitchen, diner and utility room. We also have a big living room and a small living room and a downstairs loo. The kitchen leads onto the garden and we have a huge patio and we have quite a few cupboards and a double garage.

An allocated space somewhere convenient (or the kids won’t use it) downstairs for coats and shoes. Also a large cupboard or shelves for school bags/sports bags/sports kit. At 10+ they all seem to have a lot of kit for different things. Saves a lot of searching to have a set place it all stays.

I've talked a lot about this with friends as their kids are all hitting teen years.

I think they need a bedroom (or other space) where they can chill and do homework etc. in peace but also a place where they can entertain friends semi-privately. Semi-so that as parents you can keep half an ear on the chat!

The house I grew up in had a lounge (my Mum's domain), study (my dad's domain) and big dining kitchen (where the kids entertained). It worked well for us as a family.

You also need to think about bathrooms. I have two siblings and there were never too many issues in our house with a downstairs loo, family bathroom and parental ensuite. I'm not sure I ever in the 30 years we owned the house ever had a shower or pee in my parents bathroom!

Our previous house only had one shower (in the ensuite) so we all used to use that and a shower in both bathrooms was on the essential list when we purchased the new house.

I noticed last year that the next door neighbours to my family home use the house in exactly the same way we did- they have a 13yo/ 10 yo. The mother was joking with me about how often she finds she needs to access the utility room off the kitchen or make a coffee when her son has friends round as she likes to keep an eye on what the teens are up to! So it looks like some things don't change!

We have a 15 and 17 year old.

They definitely need their own space. What works for us is downstairs we have a huge kitchen diner which is also a bit of a family hang out place.

We then have a separate room where DS has his playstation and friends over

There's a separate living room with TV which DH and I mostly use.

DH has a separate office upstairs. And I've converted part of our utility room into an art studio!

It all works really well as everyone has their own space and we all meet in the kitchen for meals and chats.

Oh yes bathrooms, we have 3 which are essential!

We've never allowed laptops/ tablets/ phones in their bedrooms so we added a decent sized study that they can use instead (3 workstations). We also have an open plan space and a separate lounge, so effectively three spaces downstairs. As DH works from home and we have three children there are times when one more space would have been ideal (e.g. during lockdown learning) but most of the time it's perfect.

We have an office for Dh upstairs away from the noise of children. I am a SAHM so I don't need an office or work space. We have lived here over a decade.

DCs have their own rooms with a desk in but no tech or toys as we wanted a place for them to sleep or chill. They do have books up there. They share a bathroom, Dh and I share the en-suite and there is a downstairs toilet too.

We converted a double garage, retained the back for storage of all garden stuff, tools, wellies, a place to hang wet coats etc. The newly created playroom has a full wall of storage that houses everything from coats, school bags, shoes, craft stuff, paper, toys, board games, a 32 inch tv which was for the wii then the xbox. We also used a chromecast so we could control what was played in there. This is just Ikea Pax wardrobes as storage but it has been fantastic.

We used to have a sofa in there and the floor was washable so they could paint and play with playdoh and it would all clean up. Now at the ages of 18 and 15 it houses 2 massive desks with desktops computers that they use for gaming. They use those desks for homework too. It is a space away from us that they can have friends in. The desk in their room means they can escape their noisy brother if needed.

We established a family dinner every night at the dining table where everyone talks, no phones/tech at the table. We also watch tv shows or films together as a family and play board games too. I love this house and it has been amazing.

I think definite second living spaces and also outdoor space. I know someone who had a 'kid's lounge' (which has a kid was great - only the kids ever hung out in there and it's where they had friends over, and parents claimed main lounge for themselves unless they were doing something all together).

If you have more than one especially, as they get older, unless you get really lucky, they will fight and want space from each other. We have a spare 'bedroom' on the ground floor that we never used as a bedroom, so we've turned that into a second lounge, so we can split ours up. Then they don't fight over toys or what to watch on tv.

I also think versatile outdoor space is key. My younger one likes just exploring and pottering, but older one needs activities (like trampoline, pool, a little hiding spot to sit and talk with friends).

And ideally more than one bathroom with bath/shower because as they get older, they'll likely get ready for bed at similar times and it's best not to have a queue.