Why do people want monstrously big houses?

[pumpkinscake]

Well, some people. I'm watching the beast in me on Netflix, and wondering why anyone would want such large houses? I don't see the point. No matter how much money I had. Now, I don't want a studio apartment either, but surely, one spare room for guests, a utility room, a home office. After that what's the point? I see large houses on the market, most people have small families, just seems such a pointless waste of space.

We have 7 bedrooms. One for each of 3 DC, one for DH to WFH, and 2 for guests. Downstairs we have kitchen living room dining room and 2nd front room where i can work from home. We use all the rooms! We can host 35 people for dinner sitting down. Dining room table seats 22, and then can use trestle tables. I love hosting.

I like big houses. We are currently in 2500sqft. That’s too small tbh as only 3 bedrooms, one bath. Ideally we need two extra bedrooms, a few extra bathrooms. I would like a few extra metres width on most of the rooms.

Plus outhouses. Garage, shed, potentially another random room.

So really that’s not much extra. I think 5000 main house would be more than enough. Double the extra we need really.

The 15000 sqft American homes are obscene I agree. Soul-less.

After 20 years in a 2 up 3 down terrace I e moved to a 3 bed semi that feels absolutely vast. The 3 bed 1 bath and a toilet is one thing, but it’s the downstairs space that has revolutionised life - we have a decent kitchen, three big reception rooms, a study, a garden office and a utility corridor. I grew up in a bigger house than this and getting back to a house with circulation space where not everything is crammed full is simply fantastic. So right now I can easily see why people go for huge houses. But having said that - only because we have a cleaner. When I see adverts for houses with 5 beds and 5 bathrooms or whatever I can only think about having to own 5 toilet brushes.

@FullLondonEye i wonder if you write - there’s a novel in what you have put there.

I grew up in a house with 10 (v large) bedrooms
Room for me and my four siblings, an au pair, and spare bedrooms that were used for things like a band practice room etc .

We had guests a lot and plenty of big house parties too (both for my parents and then for us in our teens and twenties).

I loved being able to escape and get peace away from everyone. And I loved that we had so many rooms filled with books and places to sit and read them

But if you were ill it was a bit of a pig as you had to walk so much just to get from one place to another.

Most people I knew lived in big houses too so as a little girl I was genuinely curious how people fitted into small houses

As an adult my house is only 6 bedrooms (and one of those is really only usable as a study) and I like it as it feels a lot closer but I do sometimes find it annoying if family are visiting that we don't have endless bedrooms to put them in

DH and I live in a much larger house than we need. Far more bedrooms and bathrooms than the 2 of us could ever use at once. Yes, I have been asked by randoms WHY we have such a large house.

When we bought it, I was still going through IVF after years of losses and struggles TTC, despite no cause ever found. I'd always assumed I'd be able to have at least 1 child make it till term, but sadly that never happened. I'm late 40's now and it will never happen.

OP- What do you suggest I do with my monstrously large house? Move back to the flat we lived in beforehand, sell it to someone with multiple children so they can fill every room or something else? I'd love to know?

My DM lived latterly in a huge house. When she and my DF moved there, my DB still lived at home, and they also built an annexe for my grandmother and her partner. The rooms were huge - one of the bedrooms was colloquially known as “the barn” because it was so big. One Christmas when there were lots of people staying, my entire family - me, then DH and five DC all slept quite comfortably in there - and a friend who visited said they’d never seen such big rooms except in a hotel. We had great family Christmases there - one year, there were 26 for Christmas dinner. It was lovely in the summer, but it could be very cold in the winter - the hall was quite long, so to walk from the main sitting room to the kitchen you virtually needed to put on a coat. After my DF died, we tried to persuade my DM to downsize, but she wouldn’t - we felt that seven bedrooms and an annexe were a bit much for just her and the dog. My DM never had a cleaning lady, but she was a bit of a demon cleaner herself. We used to help with the garden - mowing the lawn was a not inconsiderable job. I couldn’t manage such a large house myself.

I like having space. We don't actually live all the time in all the house, but in my favourite ever house we've had (we've moved a lot) we had lots of separate areas where things would happen. There was a gym and playroom in a separate building, a separate apartment which could be used for guests, and enough bedrooms and bathrooms for everyone to have their own. We didn't use all the rooms all the time, in winter we would huddle up in a much smaller area of the house to keep warm (it was in a hot climate, so winters were short), but I loved the feeling of expandability and the freedom of my dc to roam about and play all over the place.

For our next long term home, I want to have a separate apartment for each of the dc to be able to come with their families once they have them, and have their own separate space while still being close. I know if I had been able to have this with my family I would have visited them more often, I need my separate space and don't like being in other peoples'.

You employ a housekeeper and a head gardener who do all that for you.

If money was no object I’d have a huge house. We definitely have a bigger than needed house as we have a 4 bed, 3 bathroom house for the two of us. We have a living room, dining room and an extension as separate rooms too.

But I LOVE being at home. I’m such a home body. Both me and DH WFH also. If I was rich I’d have a huge house and turn each room into its own separate theme and probably leave the house twice a year. We also love hosting so love having the space.

my friend has a large house for 3 of them - 6 bedrooms and a garden office. Also has several reception rooms, office, etc.

Why? They can afford it and they like having guests so have the bedrooms and bathrooms for them. It’s well designed so doesn’t feel too big, and they use a lot of the house. They also have a large garden, swimming pool, hot tub, sauna. It is gets used, they are generous hosts and really so comfortable and lovely. I’m sure the upkeep is a lot but they’re both quite handy. I’m very jealous - I couldn’t keep on top of all that, nor could I afford it!

I'd love a massive old house in the country. I'll never get one though, not unless I win the lottery.😂

So you define a monstrously big house as what is more than you need for comfortable day to day life, but you are struggling to articulate it in a way that would make sense to someone who is not familiar with what you mean by comfortable for everyday life ie everyone on mumsnet. When you provide a better definition i will answer your question.

I know only one person with a giant house - she's complained on social media about the difficulty of getting someone to clean all 52 windows!

For her it's status, and she wants to be envied, but as her horrible husband lives in the house too, I don't think anyone wants to swap lives.

I have a small 2 bed H/A flat on a housing estate and i love it.
I feel like im the only real one on hear.

I get what you mean, bil and SIL live in a five bedroom new build house with two sitting rooms and two bathrooms. Their mortgage is huge, so they never have any disposal income and constantly worry about losing their jobs. Given they only have two DCs I don't think that sacrifice is worth it, but that is just me. I like the odd dinner out and a holiday.

We have a 5 bed, 3 reception room, study house with a huge garden. We have 4 DC who have all left home. We did look into buying a 3 bed 1 reception room bungalow to future proof
but were shocked to find they cost the same amount as ours was valued at so we stayed put and I now have a craft room, DH has a hobby room (his is watching footy on a big telly and has a beer fridge!) and I have a dressing room too!

People live in big houses to show off, it's really that simple.

Ok, I can relate to this. But what about when you are 80/90? Will so much space be oppressive?

2 people, 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 3 lounges, laundry room, utility, home office, etc.
the space is great but cleaning and decorating is a pain in the bum!

This sums up l, from another poster, why I’d like a bigger house

“I loved being able to escape and get peace away from everyone. And I loved that we had so many rooms filled with books and places to sit and read them”

I have no peace in our house. I’d also love there to be plenty of room to host. Maybe bigger sized rooms rather than the quantity of them increased.

I wonder if it is to get garden space and thus space away from others?

I want a house with land but I only need and indeed want a small house but any house with about an acre of land has a massive house on it. Any small house with land has been extended!

I need to do the opposite.....buy a big house, knock it down and stick a small one on there!

I could afford to buy a house costing double what I currently live in but I refuse to have to clean more, to have wasted space, in essence to just be greedy of what I don't actually need. Outdoor space would be far more beneficial. On that note, why do people buy big houses on estates with next to no land. Baffling to me.
Maybe I'm spoilt as I grew up in a 2 bed cottage but with 160 acres 😆

Nah, it was so each of my kids can have their own room.

Maybe you can explain why and it makes sense, but it seems odd to me to have more bathrooms than bedrooms.

Lol we are literally opposites. It's only DH and I at home and we've just done away with things like a dining table (we have a breakfast bar/,island for us 2). We've decided to maximise space by making our home just a 2 person house and sod the estate agents and 'making it appeal to families' crap.
It's just us in our 3 bed house and that is now reflected throughout.

Nb I'm not a total curmudgeon and can seat visitors....only 2 mind

Every bedroom has an en-suite plus 2 family baths. I didn’t design it and I agree tbh. I’d lose a couple of bathrooms but keep everything else.