Are you happy in your small house?

[EveningSpread]

When I bought my 2 bed terrace it was just for me and the cat. Now DP and our baby live here too. I’m 36, he’s 41, baby is 11mo.

We could afford a bigger house, and I fear when DD is older we’ll want more space. But right now there are so many positives:

• we can pay the mortgage off in 10 years and the bills are cheap
• the location is fab: close to town, parks, the train station, nursery and schools
• house maintenance is relatively cheap
• we can’t accumulate loads of crap cos we don’t have the space
• we love travelling, and we still have enough spare cash to put £500 a month in the holiday fund, which goes a long way cos we travel cheaply
• family gatherings can happen at my mum’s, so we don’t strictly need more space

The cons of our current house are:

• I fear we will outgrow it when DD is 10 or so at the latest
• I worry about not giving DD the best environment we could provide - we could give her a bigger house with more space
• We can’t host Christmas (too small) or have friends/family to stay (no spare room)

DP is up for staying here and moving in future, if we ever have the means to do so and keep our current lifestyle. (He’ll likely inherit some of his family estate at some point, though it’s a complicated family so no guarantees, and obviously there’s no telling when.)

We have a great lifestyle at the moment and zero financial worries, which is no mean feat in this economic climate. I’d hate to feel imprisoned in a bigger house.

But I know people tend to stretch themselves when they are younger, and house prices will only increase. Also, I sometimes feel it’s the wrong choice to live in a small house for 90% of the year so that you can enjoy holidays and travelling for a small percentage of the year.

So, with all that in mind, give me your happy small house stories! I hear loads of people stretching for the bigger house, but not so many who live well within their means.

Are we sensible, or stingy?!

I'm going against the grain. I miss my big house, with it's big kitchen that I could dance in, with it's garden with two patios so I could have my sun loungers on one and my table and chairs on the other, with its dining room, and big sitting room, I could eat either in the kitchen or in the dining room. I miss all the storage, the utility room,the cupboard under the stairs so the vacuum cleaner was never left out, I miss going upstairs to bed.

I like my 2 bed flat but miss my old house. Sadly after separating I couldn't keep the house (not that my ex would have let me he was an absolute twat and insisted we sell and refused to even consider letting me buy him out).

I think that your opening sentence nails it!

The right size house is the optimum balance of what you can afford to do v’s peace of mind, life style, location, and a dozen other more individual things that are beyond the day to day control of many of us currently.
O P you seem to be where you should be for today, and enjoying the peace of mind and contentment that it gives you. If that changes tomorrow, I wish you all the best for that as well.

Your life sounds perfect
It's working well for you for ,so why change it

DH and I live in a small Victorian terrace - a small galley kitchen (only 5ft 10in wide) 2 bedrooms, tiny bathroom and an attic and an open plan front room / dining room. A v lovely little garden full of flowers and I love it.

It cost us £150,000 in 2018 as it was all that we could get a mortgage for (due to both of us being divorced, me having lost everything when I left my marriage (escaped a DV situation) DH’s (not DH then but boyfriend) business went under and having both then rented for years whilst we lived very frugally and scraped together every penny we had. We literally went to work and then had free days out.

Our mortgage was £550 a month and this year we paid off the mortgage so we are mortgage free. I’m 46.

The conversions with friends who are worried about paying their enormous mortgages which they really can’t afford makes me feel relieved we have done things how we have.

Some of those people think we should spend more on a bigger house as they’re bothered about status symbols are wrong. I don’t care what people think and more to the point I hate cleaning and this hardly takes any time at all to clean. We have stuff but not loads of things we don’t want because there’s nowhere to put it.
We won’t be moving from our little house for the foreseeable future.

We've lived in our 2 bed now for 24 years, it was never going to be our forever home but being able to reduce our work hours a little to care for our son (now 18) & still have an affordable mortgage & nice holidays/days out etc became more important to us than a big home. We've been mortgage/ debt free for a few year's now & have had some fantastic fancier holidays & been able to invest some money to help our son buy his own home in the next few years. I will say though we have some really lovely neighbours so that has helped our situation (we are quite close together).

I think any house is big. Most people I know live in flats. My Dd is in a one-bedroom flat.

One of the reasons I bought my 1 bed house was to avoid having inlaws who constantly moved house and needed "somewhere to stay for a while".

If I no longer had any room, they couldn't ask.

We have a house which was originally a two bed, but we have a loft extension so now it's a three bed. I'm really happy here tbh. I do not want a big house. I grew up in a massive one (not a boast - I grew up in Ireland where property was very cheap) and know I couldn't keep on top of a house like that. I hate not knowing where people are in my house and I don't enjoy cleaning or decorating.

My husband wants to move, but don't think either of us wants a large house.

It's for you to weigh up. If you're happy with it then continue until you're not. What's a "small" house is relative and what you're used to. Personally I'd rather have a nicer / larger home than keep the money for yourself a holiday or two.

"Nicer" doesn't mean bigger though. If op means nice verses horrible house / area etc, I'd be team nice house too.

Ours is a small house in a nice area near London. I don't want a big house, but that doesn't mean I don't want a nice house, for clarity

We are!
3 kids, 3 cats, 1 large ish dog, 1 small dog…
We have moved the spaces around every couple of years depending on ages & stages. Finally had a small extension last year that gave us a bigger back room (DD is into gymnastics!) and an extra small double bedroom.

We stick to entertaining in good weather when we can use the patio, otherwise meet for walks/ pub lunches and it’s much much nicer IMO to get home afterwards without all the mess to clear up! The smallest bedroom continues to work fine for DS who has a high rise bed and uses elsewhere in the house for gaming/hanging out with mates.

We love the fact we’ve grown as a family and utilised the space but like you we have afforded to travel, got a great location and can get everywhere cleaned within an hour.

I don't actually consider a 2-bedroom house small for a couple and one child. Our house is bigger but then we have more children, so still no spare room!

If you want to have overnight guests couldn't they stay in your DD's room (while she shares with you) or in the living room?

Like you say, you have the future option of a loft conversion too.

Your house sounds ideal for you now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying it for now and moving only at the point when it stops working for you. We live in a 2 bed terrace with 3 kids and I have to admit the kids wish they had their own bedrooms, and I would love to give them that but we have divided the big Victorian master bedroom into 3 separate zones. My kids have taken up less space as they've got older. I love this house and actually sometimes look at the high ceilings and feel it's too big. We have relatives with kids who live on a house boat and somehow it still doesn't feel too small. I'd love to have one of those 'tiny homes' one day. We take a lot of tips from house boats and tiny home set ups to fit in clever storage and ways to multi-purpose areas.

It’s great to hear all these experiences. More and more I think not having space to host might be a blessing! And perhaps by the time my mum is no longer up for hosting family gatherings we will in fact have moved. She’s only 60 so that’s a long way off, too.

Loads of people say our house sounds like it’s working - and it is! I wonder why I constantly think about changing things when there’s nothing wrong.

A poster is right that a 2 bed house is technically the right size for a family of 3, not small.

A 3 bedroom house round here seems to cost upwards of £80k more than a 2 bed. It seems a lot! A house down the road was converted from a 2 bed to a 3 bed - so the same size as a 2 bed, just arranged differently - and sold for £75k more as a result.

We were looking at a 3 bed, 2 bath house that’s marginally more expensive than ours - but it has no garden, just a shared yard. That’s a compromise I don’t think I’m willing to make.

My favourite house was a 2 up, 2 down terrace close to the city centre and we had 15 happy years there. It felt bigger because it was open plan.

My home now is still only 2 bedrooms but we have more living space.

I wouldn't want anything bigger as it's more expensive and more to look after. I also don't want to rattle around a big house when I'm old.

It doesn't sound like the cons of a smaller home outweigh the pros for you OP.

Worth pointing out you can always hire a room for hosting family occasions if you want. The function room at the local pub for life cycle events will work out cheaper than a larger house. Only thing that might get a bit difficult is Christmas Day.

I live in a 2 bed flat - just ds and I.

I remember as he grew and toys got bigger thinking I’d have to live at some point.

But you just make the most of it and by the time he came through that age (he’s now 21) our flat is much bigger for us as we have less stuff iyswim?

i wouldn’t move and stretch finances based on having room for others or to host unless that’s more important to you then family time and holidays.

We are 5 adults in a 3 bed, no dining room and one loo/ bathroom house.
It's fine! If you need space then go outside!
I don't get the obsession with huge houses with multiple bathrooms and loos.

I definitely agree don't give up your garden for a shared yard at this point either OP. You're right at the start of the time when a private outdoor space is most useful with kids.

I was you, a long time ago now. Partner, baby and cat in 2 bedroomed terrace.I loved the house and if I am honest, I was happier in it than the bigger one I'm in now.
We lived in it until child was 11. We actually moved because we had another baby, but with a large age gap, so for most of the time it was just the 3 of us. I don't think we would have moved if not for the baby and lack of 3rd bedroom.
It's perfectly doable if you don't want to move, as long as your child has a decent bedroom for friends to come over. We actually did host people every year - not for actual Christmas dinner, but usually for Boxing Day. It was squishy but we managed. You can get an extendable table, extra chairs etc.
Is it Victorian? If so, there is probably the option of a loft conversion in the future. I wish I still lived in my tiny house, as I would be mortgage free now with more disposable income.

You're sensible not stingy. I loved my first house, same as yours a two bed terrace. I wanted manageable mortgage repayments and small bills. Some of my friends jumped straight to the detached house and really over stretched themselves as a result. When I came to selling I had a decent bit of equity in it.

If you are happy there the only reason you would need to sell up is if you have another child. If you do have plans for an upscale bear in mind the advantages of doing it sooner rather than later, longer term - smaller repayments.

We're in a 2 bed flat (with a bathroom, good sized living room, good sized dining room and a smaller kitchen). Me, DH and 2 DC. For now, it works. Of course we could use more space but while the kids are young, it has everything we need. Plus we live in a block of 5 flats and all the neighbours are lovely, and there are 6 kids under 7 in total and very often play together in the joint garden.
It's clean, tidy, homely. With nice neighbours in a nice area. So we're very happy.
Might need to upgrade when the DC enter their teenage years and need privacy but for now, it works.

I downsized from a 3-bed, 2-bath detached to a tiny studio flat during the lockdowns because I wanted to retire early and live by the sea. As I was funding my own retirement (apart from a small pension), I thought that I could just live in the flat until I officially retired and then would probably look for something bigger. However, I fell in love with both the flat and its location. It has a sliding wall that makes a separate bedroom and I've recently had some work done to it and it's now completely my own taste as far as decor and carpets etc are concerned.

All that, combined with the fact that the sea is just across the road means I ain't going anywhere until I'm forced to (one way or the other). I'm reminded of a Bob Dylan (I think) quote: "It don't matter how many chairs you got, you still only got one ass". I think the same thing applies to rooms - you can only be in one at once! My previous house had 8 rooms and a garage - just for me. Ridiculous!

Stay where you are for now as it suits your current needs. If you have more money coming to you in the future you can reconsider.

Guests can stay in Airbnb or Travelodge.

I live in a very small two bedroom mid terrace cottage. I have a love hate relationship with it as it’s a beautiful house with lovely features and a huge garden but I do also get frustrated with the lack of space. It’s me, partner, daughter and two dogs.