To think nine bedrooms is a bit much?

[houseymcmousey]

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.

It would be a 5 bed for me - 3 for us, 1 spare, 1 study cum art studio. But I wouldnt want too big a house, I hate the feeling of lots of empty rooms around me, so ideally Id have a 4 bed and the study/studio as a garden room.

When I think about coming up big on the lottery (quite often...) I reckon I'd buy a great big "sod you" mansion of a house, and give up my job.
Then I think it would be too big for me to clean,so I'd have to get a cleaner or two.
Then I worry that since I won't be working, what will I do when the cleaners are in. I can't see myself sitting in an armchair in the drawing room reading Vogue lifting my feet so the cleaner can hoover underneath.
I'd feel compelled to get up and start going round with the Mr Sheen. Sort of like a job.
So then I think well I'm better off in this house which I can manage myself (if you like a little mess here and there).
This is why I don't do the lottery.

I was actually thinking about this myself, only the other day. There's me, DH and 2DCs. A bedroom for me and DH, one each for the DCs, one exclusively as a guest room, and another as a study/guest room... so... 5 would be fine!

No, what was I thinking! A 5 bed w drum studio at bottom of the garden. Unlimited wealth would mean I no longer need to listen to the bloody drums! At least the art is quiet.

I dont understand the current fashion with new houses having nearly as many bathroom as bedrooms, or having all the bedrooms as ensuite. I am looking to buy a 4 bed house soon and would much rather have 1 regular bathroom 1 small shower room and 4 big bedrooms. Unfortunately many newer properties tend to make the bedrooms smaller to make room for bathrooms. I just dont get it.

Oh I could get by with plenty of rooms.

I could easily accommodate the following:

3 for the humans
1 as a cat lounge
1 as a yoga/home exercise room
1 as a gaming room for the kids
1 or 2 as offices
2 or 3 spare rooms as we have overseas family.

This assumes there is already a living room and kitchen/diner in the house.

I'm sure I could come up with more uses. I wouldn't necessarily want a huge, huge house like those LA mansions, but lots of rooms and lots of bathrooms would be great.

Firstly congratulations to the nine bedroom (and all other super size) house owners as well done nice one!

Second, with a few extra rooms you naturally have much more space options to enjoy and flexibility only limited by budget and imagination. I do not necessarily think nine is too over the top but of course even when the number of rooms in a single household dwelling exceeds well into double digits we are essentially thinking along the lines of a small boutique hotel rather than family home. I think anything more than a country pile mansion, castle or chateau is possibly excessive. Unless of course it is a part of the family heritage etc. Usually I am assuming many a country estate and pile is (still) owned by asset rich cash poor heritage trust fund old monied types or new entrepreneurs and industrialists plus the so called celebs supported by the fans base from regular folk!

Third I rather possibly purchase two large properties in very different geographies for more marginal tangible benefits than one mega one!

That would be awesome for us. My husband wants 8 kids. Lol we are currently on number 5 hahaa

There’s two of us and we have four. But that’s purely about the downstairs space - I imagine it’s the same in their case.

Id love 9 bedrooms! One for me and DH, one each for the 5 kids, spare room for if DH is up early or snoring, couple of guest rooms, study for me, homework room for the older kids, an upstairs playroom as well as the downstairs one, dsd would love a gaming room as we won't let her have a console here... i think we need more than 9

We only have one child. A few weeks ago we chatted as a family about how big a house we would want to buy if money was no object and decided ideally we would like to have:

kitchen big enough for a dining table
separate 'posh' dining room big enough to seat 14 so that we can host family Christmas.
TV room (aka home cinema/den)
non-TV sitting room with several sofas around an open fire
boardgames room with special boardgames table and our games library
a large library room with 3 small study rooms leading off it, each equipped with desk, office chair and comfy reading chair.
Utility & laundry room
3 bedrooms for the 3 family members (I would prefer a bedroom away from DH's snoring)
kids guest room with multiple triple-deck bunk beds
2-3 adult guest rooms
play room (toys)
play room (wii, ps5 and other computer-based equipment)
Gym room
Arts/crafts/pottery room with kiln
at least 4 bathrooms

Yes we would definitely need staff to help manage a house that size but I wouldn't want them living in the house so no to staff quarters. if there wasn't affordable more modest housing nearby I might put up a row of 2-3 bed homes in the grounds for the staff to live so they didn't have a nightmare commute. One of the staff members would be a household manager to manage the rest of them as I would not enjoy administering all that lot!

our conversation then did move on to considering the question of whether it would be selfish for one family of 3 to have that much space when there are so many people who don't have a home, or have an inadequate home, and maybe if money weren't object we should put up with a more modest home than the above, and use the rest of the money to create larger numbers of affordable housing that we made available to those in need without charging sky-high rents.

@choli

Please describe to poor me that has spent most of my life in US the use and furnishings of all these studies?

The ideal study has a desk, with drawers for hiding packets of custard creams in, a cosy chair to curl up with the Racing Post in, and a lock on the door.

We make the finances work by having lodgers (we have 2 lodger rooms but don’t always have both filled). We charge slightly below the market rent which gives us more choice so we can find people who fit in well with our family. Insurance companies don’t like it when big houses are left empty so this saves us having to find someone to house sit when we go away.
It has worked really well and we have had some lovely and interesting people. Having lodgers in a big house is a lot easier than in a small one.

I’d be happy with 5. One for me and DH, one for each of the DCs, and a couple spare for guests. If I had any more than that, I’d feel obliged to start taking in refugees or fostering or something I think. I’d feel too guilty!

Sounds great. You can always turn the heating off in any spare rooms. Nice library. Study. Music room. Buddhist chanting room. I could soon fill them up!

*My mother lives alone in an enormous house on six acres - the property has wonderful old trees, lots of wildlife, absolute privacy, and that's why she bought it.

It's a bit soulless, I think, to just buy a house because it fits by headcount.*

I’d find it a bit oppressive I think, living alone in a huge house with lots of rooms I didn’t use.

Each to their own.

For other people no, we live in a 2 bed apartment and i still complain the housework takes too long

I'd fill 9 up easily. I'd like 3 kids so that's 4 gone for everyone to have their own. A playroom for younger kids toys, an office for a quiet place to work, a games den for teenagers to hang with friends, a small library, and a guest room.

The problem with having spare bedrooms is that you'd have guests, which I would not like. I would rather put a guest cottage elsewhere on my estate.

More important than amount of bedrooms is to have a fireman's pole straight from my bedroom to my swimming pool.

Plus 2 cinema rooms, one for the whole family. One for myself.

I’ve just bought a 7 bedroom house, it’s just for me and DH, we don’t have children. There are two reception rooms, an office, huge kitchen, and 4 bathrooms.

It’s in the middle of the countryside on a huge plot of land. There are also outbuildings.

We’ll be moving in to it from our current city-centre two bedroom flat with tiny shared garden.
I can’t wait

On our case, we were looking for 3 or 4 bedrooms but this one came up and we loved the location, site, and house so took a look. The EA said that other viewers were mainly young couples with bigger families but it was exceeding their payment capacity, or older couples who had the finances but didn’t want to take on something so large.

We’ll turn some of the rooms in to more usable space- proper cinema room, a library etc. Might turn one into a second office (we both WFH).

The cat will probably want the master bedroom.

An office, a craft room and a library would be amazing.
Just have to wait for my kids to move out.

We have a 3 bedroom house for me, DH and ds. 4 bedrooms would be useful, or just 3 large bedrooms. I cannot think of a scenario where I'd want 9 bedrooms (unless I wanted to run a guest house).

Well this is the thing isn’t it. Annoyingly houses are priced on bedrooms even when they’re really used as offices and cinema rooms.

It's easily filled if you're keen on entertaining.

Add in an office and a craft room and you're left with 7, minus the 2 for the family, that's 5.

Guest wise 5 beds is ideal for 2 families with kids and an extra couple without kids (or baby in their room)

In non corona times we'd easily host that number of people several times a year, and at least once a month in the summer.

To be fair, they probably didn't seek out 9 bedrooms but lots of larger country houses do have that many rooms and it's probably the house they fell in love with.

You cant just turn the heating off in the rooms you dont use either. They need regular hearing and ventilation or things must (at least in the uk).