Normalising small homes

[lorieats99]

I feel like you just see those big 4-5 bedroom homes on Instagram, and it’s often young-ish people in their 20s or 30s in them. I think that will be a thing of the past soon with rising costs. We rent a small-ish 2 bed new build and it’s easy to begin to feel inadequate about it! When guests come over there isn’t really anywhere for them to sit, as we just have one sofa. Two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs, downstairs WC and upstairs bathroom. Lovely spacious garden.

It feels like our home, I’d like a 3 bed in an ideal world but I don’t think that’s happening for us for realistically quite a while. Despite both being on average incomes we will probably be in our 40s before we achieve our forever home status. We are TTC soon, we have a small bedroom for the baby but we would have no room for a playroom or anything like that & I’m wondering how much this matters. I know in some parts of Europe people raise families in flats and apartments, and it’s very normal over there!

Does anyone else have a small home?

Take note of this

These tossers on Instagram etc are as FAKE as a Rolex watch off the local market stall , all made out to perfect to get mugs believing that by buying into all this shite you will have a perfect life just like them , well guess what that's all BOLLOCKS

It’s a lot about layout. We live in 2500sqft detached 3 double bed. Sounds like plenty of space and it is. I can’t say it’s not fabulous for toddlers to roam around. But storage wise we were much better off in the standard 1500sqft 2.5 bed semi. We had a large out garage and lots of wall and cupboard space. Here the rooms are more Georgian with less nooks and lots and lots of windows on multiple aspects. So everything is freestanding storage which is less efficient. Even the kitchen has the same storage / worktop space despite being in a room 6x the size as it’s all on one wall as opposed returning around the whole kitchen. Basically we gained floor space and a feeling of space as opposed actual storing space.

I think as children become teenagers and older, a convenient location becomes more important.

I have friends that have remained living in small terraces because they were thinking of schools and easy access to good universities.

A couple have built outside rooms in their small back gardens which has brought them welcome extra space for teens to hang out and a work space for them.

Being morgage free is a great gift.

I’m in a terrace, and that is considered a very high-end type of property where I live, more or less top end.

I also grew up in a 3 bed semi as a family of 5 and shared a room until I was 16 so don’t feel bad for being in a 3 bed semi with 2 dses.

This used to be very normal, sharing rooms, but now it's akin to child cruelty if you listen to some people, not only do the have to have a room each but they also need a double bed. The housing situation is difficult but I also think that too many people think they should have an instagram ready life style that they can't afford from the outset instead of gradually getting stuff, making do with 2nd hand for a few years. When an adult child got their own place it used to be the case that the parents used this as an oppourtunity to get rid of their older stuff and buy new,

Long ago in the distant past, children, all young people lived in tiny homes after their parents pushed them off the nest. That's what parents did back then.
To aspire to a tiny home-alone you had to pay rent, which meant you had to have a job.

The ousted fledgeling might live in digs, shared bathroom with strangers, no cooking facilities, rules, no guests, horrible landlady, doors locked at 10 pm. Or if they were one of the top 5% of cleverness and went to university, they'd share a small bedroom with a stranger they never met before. All young people slept in single beds and that's where they lost their virginity.

When they got a job and paired up romantically with another employed person, they'd rent a very tiny one bed flat with no CH. Saving like fury till they could afford to buy a rather run down two bed flat (no lift) or tiny terraced house (no CH).

The rooms are not small by British standards, no. My childhood bedroom was 3mx3m which was the smallest room in the flat and we always referred to it as a “tiny bedroom”. When I came to Britain 20 years ago it was a real shock to see rooms which were half the size advertised as a single (and sometimes double!) bedroom. But we also have tiny kitchens compared to most I’ve seen here. Nowadays, looking at the new builds, I’d be lucky to get a living room which is the size of my old bedroom.
On another note, my affluent friends live in a two bed flat with two teenagers. They can ford to move but love the flat and aren’t tempted. Kids share the room and spend a lot of time hanging out in the living room with the rest of the family. They would rather wait for them to go off to uni and enjoy living in the flat that they loved for the last 20 years than swap it for a bigger property in a less than ideal location.

A lot of people have also bought bigger houses as an investment, knowing very well that once the dcs had left home, it would be too big. But by downsizing, they would release money that would go for their retirement fund.

Are people rethinking now because of the CoL? Maybe.
I think it’s more likely that people who are new to the housing market are not buying a 3 bed house as a starter point (unless they have children already) and will struggle to ‘upsize’ unlike their predecessors.

Thats assuming electricity etc… prices stay the same - seeing the backlash with British Gas and their profits - interest rates are staying high (looking at you the Bank of England) etc….

It's true. I always remember watching Saturday night sitcoms growing up and feeling so shit that they always showed a big semi-detached house on a leafy street and all my world was tiny northern terraces with cars bumped up on the pavement.

It's true that probably about 70% of the population live in a 2/3 bed terrace so yeah, they should be represented!

When we had our first child when we had a 2 up 2 down new build as well. I have such special memories of that house ☺️ we had one of the ikea box storage things in the lounge, with wicker cubes in it, so kept lots of the toys in there. It’s just about being clever with your storage, there are so many great ideas out there. We used our loft and garage well for storage - so things like
put winter clothes away in the loft in the summer etc, and tumble dryer in the garage.

The house was lovely and warm in the winter and so much cheaper to run. Much better being comfortable financially than overextending yourself for something bigger. If you go on to have a second child, you could always swap the bedrooms around so the kids share a bigger on and have a bedroom/playroom.

Also worth remembering your child is u likely to be bothered that your house is small, they’ll be more bothered about the memories you make.

There have always been a range of house sizes and standards available. And those with more money have more choice.

Smaller houses are cheaper to heat.

My home is small, with two bedrooms and the one reception room is a lounge/diner. The kitchen is tiny. One advantage is that I have a 'visitor loo' downstairs and a proper bathroom upstairs.

I'm fairly happy here although I often berate the lack of space. When I downsized I gave up a garage, a utility room and a conservatory and that makes quite a difference to storage. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head, of course, let's face it - space is a luxury, isn't it?

We’re one of those families living in an apartment in a European city. Having both grown up in 3/4 bed houses in the UK, it was not something we ever imagined for ourselves. However the rooms are much bigger than in the UK so it’s not entirely comparable. DS1 has the larger bedroom with all his toys and DS2 will join him in there at the end of the year (currently in our room). This leaves our kitchen, dining and living area clutter free and comfortable for entertaining. We are pretty minimalist and hate clutter too.

Our families are surprised we haven’t moved to something larger but if we want to live in the city then it is only apartments. We’re really happy here. If you have the smart storage sorted then it is so easy to tidy and clean an apartment, no going up and downstairs to put toys and laundry away. Big houses are overrated!

This thread has given me a boost. I despise our big house (complete money pit) and we cannot wait to downsize and have actual savings.

So many people around us compliment our house but only talk about the space and amount of rooms, our house isn't nice or loved (it shows) and we can't wait to leave.

I think "normalising" anything is just nonsense. Small homes exist so therefore they are normal.

Newer homes definitely have.

When I was visiting my DM once, we went to have a nosey at the show home on a new-build development. The house was a 3-bed, the standard 2 doubles, one single arrangement, according to the sales brochure.

Something didn't "feel" right about the double bedrooms and it was ages before I sussed out why: they had small double beds, only 4' wide, not the 4'6" of a standard double. DM didn't believe me, as the beds were wide enough for 2 pillows, but I had a tape measure in my bag so we took measurements. The pillows were smaller than a standard pillow, too.

The whole house was like an optical illusion, mirrors in alcoves to create the illusion of space, and all the furniture was smaller than standard, even the dining chairs which gave the impression that a small dining table in a small dining room would seat 6 people. The living room had a sofa that had 3 back cushions and 3 seat cushions, but would only have been big enough for 3 people to sit on if they were incredibly skinny.

It was quite surreal, tbh.

@LakieLady new homes are no different to old homes in that you get what you pay for, you can get bigger new homes but you have to pay more.

If you think houses and flats in U.K. are getting smaller, you should take a look at some of the communist era flats in Eastern Europe. The optimisation of space is amazing. I used to live in what would be called a 2 bed flat in U.K. it was tiny, but we compromised - the table in the tiny sitting room had legs you could lengthen, as did the chairs, so you could turn it into a good sized dining table very easily. Storage space was in the small hallway, with mirror fronted cupboards giving more light and an illusion of space.

Two up two down end terrace in a rough area, It was all I could afford as a single mum and while I would love more space I console myself with the thought of having less cleaning to do. In the city where I live, we have a significant homelessness problem, people are pitching tents in the doorways of closed down shops, when I see this it makes me appreciate having a secure roof over my head even if it is not what I dreamed my life would be.

Re new vs older flats, when a dd was looking to buy in SW London, we saw new build one bed flats of barely 54 sq m, for the same price as purpose built Edwardian maisonettes of around 72 sq m, with their own front doors, their own small gardens, and on road parking.

Besides having no parking, and being on a much less nice road, the new flats also had hefty ground rent/maintenance charges, whereas the older m’ettes typically had a very low ground rent, if not a peppercorn, and no maintenance charges.

I still wonder why TF anyone bought those flats, but I dare say it was down to the show flats, filled with fashionable shiny new things, and cleverly concealing the fact that there was hardly anywhere to put anything.

This. My DH is from a poor family in a poor eastern European country, and he was shocked by how small our homes are.

I still wonder why TF anyone bought those flats, but I dare say it was down to the show flats, filled with fashionable shiny new things, and cleverly concealing the fact that there was hardly anywhere to put anything.

More likely the buying incentives and schemes available on new homes that made them more achievable for FTBs.

I was reading a recent post where someone was disagreeing about how the 'spare' bedroom should be used. She felt that her adult daughter should have access to a separate bedroom should she want to visit and stay over. In my world that's a luxury. I have a bedroom, a bathroom and small kitchen and a small living room containing a sofa. The only way I could have a dining table is if I lost the large sofa and had 2 arm chairs. I do have a bureau style drop down desk for work in my living room. I don't have a TV but if I did, I'd be limited further by where I could put it.
I occasionally have 1 or 2 adult visitors but I'm not able to host or have overnight guests unless they sleep on the sofa. I don't have a garden. My living situation is unlikely to change. My 'dream' is for a 2nd bedroom and any type of garden/outdoor space. This hit most during covid. I was pretty miserable cooped up.

Yes I live in a 2 bedroom flat. I don’t compare myself to others but I would love a garden especially as my little boy gets older!

Maybe, but then maybe not. I know certainly felt the same as that at the time, buying a house wasn’t ever easy regardless of what people might think today.

Who knows where we’ll all be in another 10 years.

There is a lot in this. We moved a lot due to work and have lived in massive houses and tiny apartments.

At one point, in a very expensive city, we had 4 kids in one room. Everyone they knew also shared unless they were an only child. We/they managed.

There needs to be more regulation re sq footage in new builds though - developers are really taking the piss.

Having said all of that if you live in a small space the crutial aspect is to choose very carefully what goes into it. That seems to be a huge issue for us - our style of decoration does not lend itself small space living.

I follow some amazing French and Japanese architects who specialize in organising small space. It is very interesting what they can achieve with a little postage stamp! Example below of my excape fantasy in Paris 😁.