To ask if you are happy in your 'small' home?

[Apricotmuffino]

We bought our house about 4 years ago and have been very slowly renovating it, it has cost a fortune in all honesty with the ever increasing costs, and we are due to get our very old kitchen refitted with new units.

We have 1 child, and would like another within the next few years.

When we bought the house we intended to upsize after 5-7 years but in all honesty it seems so out of reach now, despite having managed to put to the side a decent amount of savings it's not touching the surface, and the costs to move (legal fees, stamp duty, interest rates being high if we were to borrow more) is putting us off.

We are trying to make living in the current house better so we can happily live in it maybe 10+ years from now on, and considering perhaps putting money into the garden/bathroom instead. Problem is, it's small.. a small lounge, small kitchen (just about can squeeze a small table in there) and 3 bedrooms, albeit the 3rd is extremely small and space is limited in there due to the stairs eating into the room. Our garden is OK, but needs work.

Living here long term would mean we would have more disposable income but I'm not sure how happy we would be in a small house with 4 of us.

We are in a dilemma whether to spend our money on this house, or try and skimp and save over the years to make upsizing become a reality!

I know small is subjective, our house is around 1000sqft, perhaps not small to others but feels it to us. Hope this doesn't come across as goady in anyway.

Any thoughts opinions would be greatly welcomed!!!

It’s definitely subjective. We are a family of 4- 2 adults, 1 teen and 1 pre-teen. Our house feels big enough to me- large living room, kitchen-diner plus utility room and downstairs loo. Upstairs is 2 doubles and 2 small singles. But I have seen plenty of threads on mumsnet talking about similar size homes being tiny, how playrooms and studies are a must, even that an extra lounge is ‘essential’ with teens.

So I think it’s more if it feels too small for you and like it’s impacting your quality of life too much.

I actually like living in a smaller house at the moment why the kids are young. 2 adults, 2 kids. Less to clean and less to heat. The key is declutter and have a space for everything. I don't know if I will feel the same when their teens or if we have a 3rd but for now im very happy where we live.

Same here. Bought a 2.5 bed (and the third bedroom is TINY) when our oldest was 2, and had our second baby here. Assumed we would upsize (no garden, on street parking) but the house isn’t selling, we can’t afford to drop the price and it’s in a very convenient location. We’ve decided to stick it out another few years until our oldest starts secondary as we will need to move then, the local comp is dire.

Agree with PP, ruthless decluttering and look up storage ideas. We also have a few of these which are brilliant

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My house is tiny! Even a hamster would complain🤣it’s Like a 2 bedroom flat but with a garage & garden! It’s a lovely cul-de-sac in a safe area which is perfect for my DD. I just have to keep it decluttered!

The best thing I about my small house if definitely my bank account! I have some savings, we go to lovely places, bills are low, we treat ourselves, I have nice perfume etc & I buy mostly organic from Waitrose. I wouldn’t be able to do this if I upsized and these things are important to me.

I genuinely am happy in our 3 bedroom house with DH and 2 DCs aged 6 and 3.

We have spent time room by room choosing different colour schemes and choosing each item, eg I really love my scatter cushions, light fixtures, lamps, clocks, wall art. These things bring me joy!

As others have said, the key is choosing the right sized furniture for the right room, and really thinking through the purpose of each room, furniture item etc. I ruthlessly declutter regularly, and only have clothes of the correct age/season, toys & books of the current ages and interests etc for my children. Things have to earn their place and I avoid duplicates/having too many of any one item, eg mugs, towels, etc.

People ask me a lot how we find only having 1 bathroom. We’ve never had an issue, as DH likes a morning shower before work, I prefer an evening shower/bath after children have gone to bed, children have a shower/bath after dinner. It works for us (may change when they are teenagers! 😂)

It does help me having a loft to store Xmas stuff, other seasonal stuff etc (eg fans). It also really helps that we have a decent brick built shed in our garden, which gives me invaluable extra outdoor toy storage. I would struggle a bit without either of these.

I also love other aspects of having a smaller house- it’s very easy to clean thoroughly week and cheaper to run. I also love our city location, and how I can walk everywhere- school, shop, parks, baby/toddler groups, library, doctor’s etc. I’m 10 mins from my Mum and have wonderful neighbours I’ve known for 12 years now. I’ve really got to know people locally staying in this house.

I wish you well however long you decide to stay 😊

YANBU. We live in a 3 bed terrace, it was expensive and trading up - if we can do it at all - won’t be happening for 5-10 years. We have one DS and another DC on the way.

Our square footage isn’t terrible but the downstairs is oddly laid out with a tiny sitting room, and only a small back yard instead of a garden. We skipped the “starter 2 bed flat” but the compromise will be needing to spend much of our DC’s childhood’s here. It’s central and handy for the station but also near lots of parks/country walks not too far, so we’re going to make the best of it.

The most sensible thing for us to do would be to pull the sitting room wall down and push through to the kitchen/family room, but the middle “family room” (again, not big) currently serves as a playroom and will for the foreseeable when we’ve had DC2, so having a separate more “grown up” space in the sitting room works well now.

It is what it is. DS1 is getting bunk beds and in time DC2 can have our room and we’ll go to the spare room on the 2nd floor or DC2 can share with DS1. Not ideal, but trading up in our area costs hundreds of thousands, and with a second mat leave and nursery fees looming we’re just going to have to ruthlessly declutter and stay put.

I like having a small home, it's cheaper and less work than a big house. Decluttering really is the key to living comfortably in a small house.

I've cleared out the attic and basement and the attic has my erg and yoga mat, a rug, a chest of drawers and a table and chair. I'm really loving the minimal look of it and it cleans up in a few minutes.

I'm happy in my small house, a fair sized 2 bed London terrace style. If we don't move we will need to split the big double into a small double and a box room. I think that would make it a struggle. Hopefully our children will manage sharing for a good while yet!

I enjoy having disposable income for holidays and treats and savings that we wouldn't have if we had a bigger house. We chose to keep our mortgage down to have a higher standard of living.

I'd really love another bathroom and I'm sure the children would like bigger bedrooms but we make it work. My dc are now 14 and 10 so the eldest doesn't have long left at home and it's honestly been fine.

The only thing I would say is we don't really do sleepovers or lots of friends visiting at once as we don't have the space for it.

My friends 19 year-old still has the very small room over the stairs and he's a man mountain!

He has a single bed, but he would still have a single bed even if the room was a football field, and his dad built the bed to fit over 'the lump' where the stairs cut into the room. Yes, in an ideal world he would have a bigger room but he copes.

I love small houses with cosy little rooms. They make me feel all safe and hobbity. I love that every room is used and there's no wasted space to rattle around in. I love one main sitting room so the family are together rather than spreading between lots of reception rooms. I love a small garden, so cheap and easy to make lush with plants. I love that decorating from top to bottom is affordable and that i can go for more high end flooring and fixtures as i dont need so much. I love that what I'm saving on what would be unused square footage I can spend on enjoying my life. I also love that it makes me tidy and organised and minimal so I don't buy loads of stuff I don't need.

Our house is quite small. Like you, we'd always planned on moving somewhere bigger, but it would mean a big mortgage and I am just wary of doing that. We might be able to pay our mortgage off fairly soon which would leave us with a lot more disposable income. On balance I think I'd rather have the extra money. Ours is a fairly new property (about 15 years old), and was well built, so everything works, we are in a great area near schools etc. I hate our garden, as it is small and not private enough for my liking (next door neighbours are a bit annoying), but we just go out to parks and forests instead.

I shared my whole childhood! Not a problem. This is so personal as it’s about what you value. I’d say time with your family (because you not working all the hours) and less financial stress and less to clean is a winner every time for me.

what does you husband value and what do you value?

you sound like your stopping at 2 children

I agree with this approach entirely

Yes, there is a lot to be said for this.

Our old house was a bungalow (all on the level), 3 great sized bedrooms, dining sized kitchen and two lounges.

But it only had one tiny bathroom and no scope to improve on this (conservation area so unable to build into the loft).

I also felt that in the future, it would be good to have a house over two levels, as opposed to a bungalow.

We moved to our new house a few years ago. It's bigger, not as pretty, needs a lot of work...and is a lot more expensive. And I do sometimes regret it and really miss our old house.

We've been here two years and our weekends are still spent on DIY. And we have so much less money (bigger mortgage, higher heating bills, higher council tax, have to pay for a parking permit, have to pay a gardener to help try and get on top of the garden.)

If there was someway to get a second, decent sized bathroom in our old house, I would have stayed.

It was cosy, pretty, and just the way we wanted it (apart from the bathroom).

It was 1080 sq feet so similar size to yours.

I am, I have a 2 bed end terrace. That said, it's not small as such. The rooms are large. But I have 2 dc who really would benefit from a bedroom each. BUT most 3 beds I've seen are actually smaller, and even have a reception room less.

We live in an old cottage which is small as most little doer-upper cottages in Ireland are. We have 4 bedrooms but two of them are barely box room size. 4 kids.
Anyway we spent a fortune on a big fuck off extension out the back, bigger kitchen and family room. It took us so long that now my older 2 are moved out and I’ll have another one most likely away at college in 2 years. I look at it all sometimes and think of all the money, sweat and tears it cost us and think wtaf? I wish we still had our little house, our money and our sanity.
With the right furniture and storage your house will be fine. Can you convert the garage?

Forgot to say yes I’m happy In small terrace, especially when I’m taking advantage of the freedom I have..would never go the other way

There are 4 of us in a 860 square foot cottage. I’d like a bit more room but 1000 doesn’t feel small to me! Minnen beds are your friend for two children sharing a room - flexible lengths and slightly narrower.

This is our issue. Good size living room, good size separate dining room, good size kitchen. Large bathroom, 2 large doubles, and a tiny box room. If we upsized we would ultimately be trading it in for a double and 2 singles and an open plan kitchen diner etc

I'd stick with the smaller property for now and continue with your updating/renovations.

We live in a "normal" sized home which sounds similar to yours although my kitchen fits a table in comfortably and we have a downstairs loo as an extra.

For me although I sometimes think I'd love some extra space the extra costs just isn't worth it.

I do also think we are so influenced now via social media and tv to think that large houses with beautiful massive kitchens with an island and bi-fold doors is the norm when actually at least in my part of the country it really isn't.

In a similar situation to you OP but I am slowly really loving my little home. I could think of 100 reasons why I need somewhere bigger, but the reality is for me at the minute, our lifestyle with a small child and another on the way is that I don’t need any extra space to clean or maintain. We are having to do a lot of decluttering at the minute as we need to make space for another DC but the more I’m getting rid of, the more I’m loving my home. It feels so much bigger. I love I can spend my weekends as a family taking my son to different places - my friends with bigger houses and expenses can only do that occasionally. Then I also think it’s nice to be able to bring a baby home to a nice, cosy, well designed house not a building site or somewhere which needs completely renovating. The only thing I really do wish was bigger was our garden as it’s basically a courtyard so we can’t ever have friends over but we counteract that by going out places which in reality is probably a lot more interesting and means I don’t have to host other peoples kids which is always a bonus for me!

A couple of things I have seen people do which i think are great ideas that may give some inspiration:

• Do you have space under your stairs you could put a extra toilet and sink?
• Could you declutter your garage enough that you could use half for storage and the other half you could convert into a utility and downstairs toilet, or even a small dining room so your kitchen feels bigger, maybe even a playroom?
• Box room, I saw a really cool design where someone put ikea kitchen cupboards on the wall above the bed to maximise the storage. It sounds a bit rubbish the way I’ve explained it but honestly looked really good!

We live in a small house - I don't know the square footage but it's a small 2.5 bed Victorian terrace.

The things I don't like:
Galley kitchen, although we will fix this soon by removing the wall to the dining room
Only one loo
The bedrooms are very unequal sizes - second bedroom is a decent sized double, third a tiny box. The DC are good about swapping over every few years to keep it fair.

Positives are the very central location that can't be replicated without tripling the mortgage, it heats up fast and cheaply, low council tax, less space to clean and furnish. All that means we have plenty of ££ left over for holidays, contributions to university costs, and extracurricular. No plans to move as for us the positives outweigh the negatives.

We live in a 638sq ft house (very precise as I just looked it up lol) there's 2 adults 1 child in 2 double bedrooms. We're very happy. We're considerate in what we buy, how we store things etc, house is easy to clean and maintain.