Do lots of MNers live in big houses?

[Wishimaywishimight]

Just curious as there are quite a few posters having people staying over Christmas.

Here it's just me and DH in a 3 bed semi so plenty of room for just us but only suitable for 1/2 guests in the spare room (box room is my office).

I live in Dublin (suburbs) and I always envisage Londoners living in the fabulous spacious houses from Outnumbered and Motherland (I know of course this is not the case)!

@MaMargaritaThyme In that case mine is identical to the McAllisters in Home Alone 😁

Normal 3 bed semi that has been extended to 4 beds although 2 bedrooms on the small size. We have to find 2 bedrooms to host people this year but only for one night thankfully.

We’ve got a 6 bedroom house in the NW (affordable as we sold our London semi and moved away). One b/r is study and 1 is a (ahem) library. FIL is in actual spare room. BIL and SiL in DS1 b/r, and 4 teens in DS2 b/r. There is a tv and PS4 in the library for the kids to use as a chill out room. We’ve got 2 rooms downstairs and a kitchen diner and will have to move furniture around for tomorrow for 2 more for Xmas dinner (that’s 11 then if you’re trying to count lol) which involves use of a decorating table.
it’s chaos. One working shower only and 2 bathrooms so there’s been good-natured queues this morning. We can’t all watch a film together in the same room but we did manage to squeeze the 9 of us round the table last night for bowls of Chilli. And it’s also bloody brilliant. I love it. The kids get on so well and I really enjoy my SILs company and my DH pulls at an equal share of the planning and doing.

An estate agent would say I have three bedrooms, but what I actually have is one bedroom, one home office where I work and one room I use as a dressing room, because it is too small for any other purpose. If anyone stays overnight, they have my bed and I sleep on the sofa.

I live in Cork, Ireland not London, but we're currently in a very normal 4 bed 1940's terraced city house (as in on a street not in an estate). We're upsizing at the moment so hopefully by the end of January/start of February we'll be in our new much bigger 6 bedroom house with lovely big gardens. Our current house felt plenty big enough until we had children (it's 112sqm) but toddlers really manage to take over the space and I'm yearning for a playroom!

I never envision Londoners living in big houses, probably because I grew up there and my family and all my friends families had small cramped little houses and friends I know living there now are all living in apartments. I'm sure there's plenty of gorgeous big homes but surely costs make them unaffordable for the majority? Which house are you thinking of in Motherland? Amanda's?

I don’t live in London, which is why I can afford to live in a big-ish 6-bed detached house (in Derbyshire).

I don’t have any guests staying over Christmas though thank God.

Nope. Small 2-bed flat. I live alone so it’s plenty of space.

Never have people over, either to stay or for a coffee. (It’s London, everyone meets in a public place!)

We have 4 bedrooms and multiple reception rooms, so a big house probably. But there’s 5 of us so we need that space. And we’ve no room for anyone to stay! Not in London either.

We live in a one bedroom flat so couldn't possibly ever have anyone to stay, other than maybe one person on the couch for a night or two in a pinch.

It's almost like I planned it that way....

I nearly posted about this the other day. When I picture the big Christmas dinners we read/hear about in the media I just think where are people putting everyone?! Even just for lunch, not even in terms of having people to stay.

We are moving to a 4 bed soon and although there’s a bit more living space than what we have (no extra rooms though) we still could only host maybe 6 people maximum!

We used to have 5 bedrooms and a large Georgian house loads of room for entertaining and I enjoyed it, we sold up and moved to a new project that's a 2 bed tiny cottage and we are all squashed in here.

I love it! No way can I entertain and I feel a bit free, because I don't even have to make an excuse, I just physically can't fit people in.

It's bliss and I hadn't really realised how exhausting having the bigger house is where you are almost expected to host.

@ShShinyBandana That's exactly the sort of thing I mean, it sounds fabulous! I am also VERY envious of the library!

I'm in a 2 bed flat, couldn't have guests if I wanted 🤣🤣🤣

If your impression of London is from watching EastEnders then yes, they live in four storey Edwardian houses even though the head of the house only works 10 hours a week dahn caff.

Houses on Eastenders are very flexi... no matter how many people move in they always have enough room!

I'm sure quite a few do.
Not me though. Mine is a bog standard 3 bed.

@shishivawn Yes, Amanda's but also Julia's, I just love that style of house! Is it the high ceilings that make the rooms seem big perhaps?

Greater Manchester, 1930s ex council terrace , 2 bedrooms, a girl and boy under 12 , my husband and I. It's way small but luckily we have an inheritance so we can get a 3 bed soon. But definitely will never have spare room for guests until children leave home.

No space for anyone to stay over unless they sleep on an airbed in the living room. Don’t think the cat would be too impressed though.

already have 4 adults living in a 2 bedroomed house, (with one bedroom converted into two rooms, we all have small bedrooms.)

It seems so. Always suggestions of sleeping in the spare room if someone snores etc. we have a tiny 2 bed terrace.

We have a 4 bed house with two reception rooms which is a good size, but we also have it set up so we can host a lot of people as we know that's something we do. So whilst three of the bedrooms are in use and one is used as an office, the office has a pull out bed, one of the reception rooms has a decent sofabed in, and the other has floor space for an airbed (this is being remedied when we replace the sofa in there). The kids' rooms also all have foam sofas which will open up for visiting offspring to stay. So although we're in a good sized house for five - we can create space for at least another three couples plus children.

This year we're only hosting DSis and her husband though, and she lives 15 minutes down the road!

3 double bedrooms, 2 adults, 3 kids, in an old victorian miners house, the master bedroom is massive, and we have a living room, play room, dining room downstairs. When we have overnight guests over, we bunch everyone up depending on how many families/ couples are staying. Our friends are happy to bunker down in whatever space we have with sleeping bags, same as when we go visit them. So we might put all our kids in our room with us, and have one couple in the each kids bedroom but they will have single beds, then a sofa bed downstairs. We could fit more if we had to but noone would have any privacy as the rest of the downstairs is pretty open plan, as it is the living room only has a curtain seperating it from the knocked-through playroom. But like I said, noone who stays minds as we all have the mindset of at least we have somewhere to stay!

5 bed detached, but to me doesn't feel that big because it is on a new build estate, crammed in with others and not much of a garden, and the rooms are big enough but not impressively big. I grew up in a sprawling extended detached bungalow in close to an acre of garden surrounding it all the way round. Pretty much all of my friends in the small Midlands town where I live have similar houses to us.

We bought quite a few years ago so was relatively cheap compared to now. And nowhere near what it would cost in motherland/outnumbered zones!

We live in a tiny 2 bed bungalow. The 2nd "bedroom" measures 6x9ft. We do have a sofa bed though but it can get very cramped. No way could I have overnight guests for more than 1 night (the exception being DD and her DP, they can stay as long as they like as they have our room and we have the sofa bed).

Our house isn't that big , a 1960s 3 bed semi with a small extension and a tiny 3rd bedroom
I do envy those with more space tbh purely from a logistics point of view , but I'm grateful I have a home at all and somewhere safe to sleep each night.
I know people with bigger homes and they are lucky , but I like mine despite all its faults

Our house is very weird. 2000sqft+

4 reception rooms - one library, one evening lounge, a large study and a 800ft day room kitchen/dining/living

But we only have 3 bedrooms. So whilst I could easily host a dinner for 20+ (13ft table). There’s no where for anyone to sleep 🤣

And we only have one full bathroom.

When we come to sell it’s going to confuse the hell out of an estate agent.