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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think nine bedrooms is a bit much?

179 replies

houseymcmousey · 02/09/2020 18:32

Someone I work with has just bought a nine bedroom house for two adults and one child to live in. They aren't having more children or having anyone else move in.

Just out of interest, how big would you go if money was no object? For me I think 5 or 6 just to have a couple of guest rooms but nine seems bonkers to me. It has enough space downstairs for a playroom and office so they aren't using them for that. Just thinking of all the bed linen makes me feel faint.

OP posts:
houseymcmousey · 02/09/2020 19:32

You're all mentioning offices but they have those downstairs 🤷🏼‍♀️

OP posts:
Butchyrestingface · 02/09/2020 19:32

Maybe they are planning an imminent expansion to their brood?

MamaGothel · 02/09/2020 19:33

I have 3 children and if we were rich I would like another. I'd like them all to have their own bedroom and at least one spare room so 6 bedrooms.

MsEllany · 02/09/2020 19:33

I’d only like 9 bedrooms if I could also afford a daily cleaning service tbh. I’m also realistic of my ability to fill every single corner with stuff so a bedroom each plus a spare plus a study and a games room would be fab.

rattusrattus20 · 02/09/2020 19:34

makes no sense to me, if my budget was comfortably stretching to nine bedrooms I'd prefer to use the money to money to move to a better area or whatever, the added value you'd get from eg an eighth bedroom if you already have seven must be microscopic for most people.

but then, hey, different people like different things, right?

BrieAndChilli · 02/09/2020 19:35

Well I have 3 kids so 3 bedrooms for them, one for us, one for a dressing room (assuming there’s isn’t one attached to the master suite, That only leaves 4 guest rooms which would quickly be filled at Christmas and other occasions etc and we would still need to get the kids to share rooms etc.

lioncitygirl · 02/09/2020 19:36

We have 6 rooms now - there’s 4 of us. Further down the line we will prob move out of London and get so where with more rooms - we have big families that we would love to have over more often.

Ragwort · 02/09/2020 19:37

We have five - only three of us but DS usually away at Uni - one each for DH & I (no way do we want to share Grin), one for DS, one used as a spare junk room and one used as a home office ... could quite easily fill a few more, I would love a separate tv room and a craft/laundry room.

uglyface · 02/09/2020 19:39

I reckon five would be the ideal. One for us, one for DD, one for any future second child, one as a guest bedroom and one as a second bedroom for us if DP snores!

Billben · 02/09/2020 19:39

We have more bedrooms than we use. Absolute waste of time for us as we hardly have people staying. They just need cleaning all the time and they put the house into a higher council tax bracket 😀

LakieLady · 02/09/2020 19:42

Five would be plenty. That would give us enough for DP's mum, nice SIL & her DH, nice niece and DGD to come and visit and not enough room for racist SIL and her even worse husband and badly behaved, obnoxious children.

DP would probably like 7, so his DB, SIL and DS could come too, but I think that's too many guests.

I'd be happy with 3, personally. That would give us 2 spare rooms. All the extra rooms need cleaning and heating and I frankly can't be arsed.

MyMorningHairHasItsOwnVlog · 02/09/2020 19:47

A sewing room, a gym, walk in dressing room/wardrobe, upgrade all family bedrooms to en suite, a playroom for the cats, a games room and a home cinema. There are never enough rooms!

theemmadilemma · 02/09/2020 19:48

I wouldn't want 9, but we're looking at 3/4 bed just for us two. At least 2 bedrooms will need to be offices as we both work from home. So it would be nice to have a spare at least.

Trisolaris · 02/09/2020 19:51

It depends how many reception rooms too.

I would have a library, a games room a gym etc

Most of these rooms would also have sofa beds in them though

funtimefrank · 02/09/2020 19:54

When we play fantasy lottery we always say we wouldn't want that big a house but in fact we'd want

Room for us (with dressing room as well as en suite)
Room each for 2kids
Spare room (with en-suite)

Plus
Man cave for dh
Study for me
Chill out space for kids

Alongside the usual kitchen diner, utility (and pantry), big living room plus a family bathroom.

And also room in the grounds for a granny annex for my mum plus a big garden with enough room to do some low level market gardening out the back with outbuildings.

So to get all of that we may end up with 9 bedrooms - some of the extra rooms may be upstairs for example.

Now, to win the lottery first

bluecoffeecups · 02/09/2020 19:55

Now look what you've done OP - I've just spent the last hour looking at Rightmove Grin

Xenia · 02/09/2020 19:55

I have 5 bed rooms and 4 bathrooms upstairs and downstairs cloakroom. At most we had 7 of us living here, now 3 and it feels about right.

However I could fill 9 fairly regularly 1 for me 1 for the 5 children and one each for grandchildren would mean 8 filled before you even get started. I think my son had 21 here for New Year although some did not stay the night.

sqirrelfriends · 02/09/2020 19:55

1 Bedroom for me and DH
1 Bedroom for DS
2 spare rooms
2 offices
1 playroom
1 man cave
1 hobby room

I think that makes 9

In reality, most 5 beds have an office and space for a playroom downstairs.

Ginfordinner · 02/09/2020 19:56

DD is at university, and we have a 4 bedroom house, which is now a 3 bedroom house as we turned one of them into an office for me to WFH. We need a spare bedroom as, under normal circumstances, we would have friends or family to stay. We are quite scattered these days.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 02/09/2020 20:01

@ekidmxcl

Are your friends Meghan and Harry?

Regardless I wouldn’t have more than 4 bedrooms. Houses take time, work and money to look after.

Yep - 4 would be my optimum number, too.

Apart from anything else, if I had more, I would just fill them with "stuff".

(I love "stuff", it is my favourite - along with "things")

I know my weaknesses . . .

ArabellaScott · 02/09/2020 20:01

YANBU, I hate the idea of empty rooms. Creepy.

I'd go for one spare bedroom and maybe a study with a daybed in it. Actually, if money was really no object, I'd have a separate guest cottage in the grounds of my enormous estate. Very far away from my house. Grin

ArabellaScott · 02/09/2020 20:03

@sqirrelfriends

1 Bedroom for me and DH 1 Bedroom for DS 2 spare rooms 2 offices 1 playroom 1 man cave 1 hobby room

I think that makes 9

In reality, most 5 beds have an office and space for a playroom downstairs.

That's 4 beds and lots of other rooms.

I mean, I could list

present wrapping room
massage room/spa
fingernail painting room
cheese cellar
room for interesting beach finds
cake room

I could go on.

BikeTyson · 02/09/2020 20:03

Couldn’t be arsed to clean it tbh. But we have a 4 bedroom house for 2 adults and one child and sometimes I think we could use another one so I can see how it could happen.

corythatwas · 02/09/2020 20:06

With that size house, it would be about actually falling in love with that particular house rather than the exact number of bedrooms.

There are thousands of more or less identical 3 bedroom semis in the country, but that size house comes with individuality: there won't be two of them exactly the same.

I could imagine wanting to buy one particular house above another if I had the money to maintain it.

Miljea · 02/09/2020 20:07

I recall a TV show from years ago, called 'Pioneer family' or similar. Set in the US, it was a reality show where applicants set off for The Frontier, possibly Montana, in wagon trains, rigged out lice C18 pioneer families; they arrived and had x months to 'set up house' (build a cabin) before winter arrived, and were judged on their efforts.

There were a few families taking part, who, in the cabin, lived what we would call 'on top of each other', all going to bed at the same time in one big, 'attic' bedroom, and otherwise all living together and interacting together.

FFWD to the 'reflections' episode, once they were back home.

One was the 2 or 3 child family of a successful business exec and his working wife. The eldest teenage girl, 'typical' 15 year old Californian girl- was interviewed, alongside the others, of course.

She said how weird it was living in such a huge house, how you never knew who was in and who was out, how quiet it was, how disconnected she felt from the family's life, having been thrust up close and personal for the few months of the show.

My other thoughts turn to big Queensland houses, where the EAs run out of words to describe the more or less identical rooms. Family room. Lounge. Retreat. Games room. Playroom. Cinema room. And so forth.

We had several friends who didn't venture into half their rooms! But at least didn't have to heat them. And others with, like, a playroom where the DC could leave it looking like a bomb had gone off in a Lego factory, as they just shut the door on it of an evening (and where, a bit sadly, a child had played alone, all day). But those DC never learned to tidy up because they didn't have to.

Which parent is really going to ensure the playroom is all put away at night. Then the lounge. Then the snug. etc, etc?

Right now I want one extra room to set up my sewing machine and painting stuff as DH is now WFH in that 4th bedroom.

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