Large house- you must have lots of children?

[MarmiteCoriander]

AIBU that people assume that if you have a 3 bed house and a small study- that you must have multiple children?

Currently renovating a derelict house for DH, myself and dog to live in. Yes, its much larger than than the 2 bed flat we lived in, but doesn't have acres of land! We have TTC 12 yrs, 3 losses and rounds of IVF, but people assume we must have lots of kids to have 'such a big' house!

Would you assume someone living in a 3 bed with small study had multiple children?

@MarmiteCoriander It sounds fantastic - I'm sure it will be absolutely lovely when you've finished it. Our house was the same in terms of lack of buyers - only us interested apparently. Enjoy your home - a massive achievement by the sounds of it. Don't ever worry about what other people think or assume.

I intend to live in a beautiful spacious 2 bedroom flat, preferably one of those converted warehouse jobs with lots of character and huge arch windows

Sounds lovely. Doesn't sound like you're doing it to be moral though, more that you really fancy it. Which is more than fair, but don't judge when others do likewise.

oh please 😂

Personally I wouldn't give up decades of my life in order not to have to make a difficult adjustment in my 80s or 90s.

If she wanted to move house at that point already and the bungalow was exactly what she'd have chosen anyway, and in the exact place she wanted, great. But for most of us it wouldn't be, and it's ridiculous to lose decades of living the life you want because in thirty or forty years time it might not work.

We have a 5 bed but only us and ds, 2 bedrooms used as offices and another as a playroom and 2 as bedrooms. So glad to have the room as we were in a 2 bed cottage before.

This is probably a bad time to mention we might also be buying a holiday cottage.

She didn’t ‘give up decades of her life’ she did the same things she did before, just in a new house. She stayed in the local area. I find this overwhelming emotional attachment to bricks and mortar - to the extent that just existing in the house is ‘your entire life’ - to be quite odd. B

Many of my neighbours are retired, 1-2 adults living in 4 bedrm houses. That's who I assume 4 bed houses mostly belong too.

I'd love to live in a small property, I just need to learn how to manage with less stuff. Lovely thing about small properties is they force you to have less stuff & you always know where everything is.

I really don't understand how living in a different house is giving up decades of your life. It's just a house, it's background, just wallpaper, to your life. It's what goes on in your life that's important, the people you know, the things you do. I'll never understand this attachment to material stuff as if it's important.

A house? for a childfeee couple? I think that would be incredibly greedy and selfish, surely a one bed flat would suffice? and let’s only allocate bedsits for “older ladies past their childbearing years”.

It’s often an emotional attachment. My mum’s only ever marital home and my childhood home was a 1950s built detached house, bought off plan so no one else ever lived there, only three beds one bath and downstairs cloakroom, but all double bedrooms, and a large hall and landing, so it felt big, and a huge garden which my dad had made from scratch. My mum lived there for nearly 56 years in total - 36 of those after my father died. Leaving that house for her would have been like leaving my father behind. I can understand why she didn’t want to.

Exactly. This isn't just my home. It's the nest I brought my babies to. It's where most of my adult memories reside, and where the majority of my life with my late husband happened.
It's not an attachment to material stuff, it's an attachment to memories. And of course it's my home, not just bricks and mortar.

I get that people have different attitudes to houses. My cousin, of my age, has barely stayed now than three years in any house. He and his wife are barely moved into one before they're planning their next move. It works for them. But I get my kicks from traveling to far off places, and having my home to return to.

This is where I want to be for now. I'm not going to give it up decades before I need to.
I'm not averse to moving one day, and I have plans in place to make it as financially simple as it can be when that time comes, and I'm already decluttering as a stage forward. But it needs to be at a time that works for me.

Not at all.

We have a five bed house and one child. Before that; just me and DH for quite some years! It’s amazing how you can fill up that space even without children.

I wouldn’t describe a three bedroom house as large. I would say it is the average actually, and many of those have just couples or singles in!

I know someone who has 11 bedrooms and lives alone! He doesn’t want children.

And when all these child free couples and dried up old women are living in their appointed one bedroom flats who knows what young couples just starting out are going to live in.
But that doesn’t matter because ‘hard working families’ will have houses to live in (just like they do now) and as we know from listening to politicians ‘hard working families’ are the only people who matter and are effected by rising prices.

@PriamFarrl There won’t be any competition anymore, so house prices will come down to the level of hard working families’ choosing and we’ll all live happily ever after.

I see. So because people who have lost a baby or have had years of failed fertility treatment instantly move to a tiny house with one bedroom all house prices suddenly become affordable.

Well good luck to all of them going from 0 to 4 bed detache houses because anything in between will be ethically taken by us non worthy. And no, prices will not come own to compete eith 2 beds😂

What about families who are not hardeorking? Where will they live?

You’re all being apogogical now - I never said couples should live in bedsits, or that housing should be ‘regulated’ as to who can buy it. All I said is I find people who buy houses which are excessively bigger than they need (aka not OP) - to be a bit greedy. Because it means a lot of housing doesn’t get lived in, which is its main purpose. And no I don’t think keeping a hat collection in a room counts as ‘living in it’. I feel the same about ‘investment’ properties, buy to let landlords etc. It’s clearly touched a nerve.

I know someone who has 11 bedrooms and lives alone! He doesn’t want children.

Good for him! I'd have one for my bedroom, one for my partner's bedroom, a couple of guest rooms, I'd knock a tunnel through a wall and have two for my cats, I'd have an office (and so would my partner) and a library one for my collectables and one for storage ...

I'd need a lot of reception rooms though simply because I like collecting and displaying things! I also hope that there is a conservatory for my plants and a massive farmhouse kitchen with a separate dining room too - and with 11 bathrooms there would need to be a lot of bathrooms too ...

Sorry, but yes. Calling me greedy because I can’t have children (I bought my house planning to have children, but that failed), is going to ‘touch a nerve’.

From what I gather here it's about buying 4+ bed.
Why is it so greedy to buy 4 bed when most of them are now size of older 3 beds or even smaller? If someone has hat wardrobe in a corner of their bedroom in 3 bed, it can well be the size of new build's smallest bedroom (I've seen things I can't unsee). So basically they are not taking any extra space. There is just a partition present and claim by developer that that cupboard is a bedroom.

So if one knocks down a partition wall then voila, no longer selfish! That bit of plasterboard makes all the difference apparently.