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!!!

I love my small cottage. It feels cosy in the winter. Yes I have less stuff but the stuff I do have is important and not filler. Mine and DHs art on the walls and clever storage. We embraced it and made it our own. Less housework too 😁

We have a small house - its a 3 bed bungalow but quite small bedrooms. Bonus is though that its on a big plot. It's got a lovely established garden with a view. We're very close to nice walks and a good school.

In the winter, the house feels smaller but when its summer and we have the doors open we are pretty much in and out of the garden all the time and it feels like a nice quality of life. Feels more spacious when we can get out in the garden.

Its very affordable and I very much enjoy the quality of life I have. DP and I can both work part time so we're around for DD a lot. We both have reasonably expensive hobbies and go on lots of little trips at the weekends and things. I would always prefer to have more disposable income than stretch myself massively on a mortgage.

Same! We have just become a family of 4, (DD is 4 yo, DS is 4 mo) and we're outgrowing the house! Everyone still has their own room, but our lounge is basically 'multifunction' room, lounge, play room, office, dining and gym! We've put our house on the market and looking at bigger houses.

Hope you find your balance and happy space!

🤦🏼‍♀️😖🙄😬🏠

Yes. Super happy.

My job is full on. So I needed to know I could step away for my mental health.

That made me choose to under-commit mortgage-wise and settle for a small house with the tiny lounge, tiny third bedroom, only on street parking etc got bullied out of my job and have struggled to get a similar position since then.

Thank god I had made those decisions.

I could not be happier to have a modest house and a great life

We bought our first home in 2003 with the intention of up grading after 5 to 7 years as well. After 2 years it was worth so much more do we remortgaged and got about £20,000 equity. Worst thing we ever did. We ended up stuck in our 2 bedroom house with 2 kids (boy and girl) and couldn’t sell it for enough to be able to buy a bigger house.

We were finally able to move only because wr part exchanged for a new build. They gave us £68K but sold it on for £54k. We would not have been able to move if we got that little.

We are so much happier in our bigger house.

Stay in your house - it's affordable.
Declutter really hard and create storage for absolutely everything
Do the kitchen/ renovations and enjoy your lovely home

I've lived in several different homes over the years and they were all small but cozy. It's easier to keep a small home clean and less expensive to furnish.I know people who have homes larger than they need and they're never home because they need to work 2 jobs to afford to "live" there.

I realise I am very lucky to have a roof over my head (and I do love my house) but the childcare years were brutal and we got stuck in a small house. A kitchen extension helped but now we are four adults living in a small terraced house. I’d like to move but our locale is expensive and the “next size up” where we live is probably still out of reach.

As soon as the big plastic toys stage is over then you really don't need that much space. The older the kids vet the less time they arw in the house and the smaller their stuff is. And you can pair down often, put winter wardrobes stored away etc.

Have a look at Bayley Made This on YouTube. Her and her husband and two boys ages 11 and 8 live in a small townhouse. She has wonderful ideas.

That's if they don't have a solid roof though. If building from scratch, OP would make sure to get a proper roof.

Yours wasn't sound enough as it hadn't been built with a proper roof in mind.

They are great when done properly.

My DCs had ‘small single’ beds til teens because we were pushed for space. They’re 2’6’’ Instead of the regular single width of 3’. That’s a full 6’’ narrower, but the same length. Most bed shops sell these.

Mines 850 sq feet and we have 2 kids and work from home. Doesn't feel small. It's all about perspective.

Yes, absolutely - I love my tiny house. Obviously I wish I had bigger bedrooms, and a third bedroom to use as an office, but it is NOT worth the money, time, and effort to move just for the above.

Top tip - have an insulated roof put on your conservatory, so you can use it all year round - total game-changer for us.

I’m really pleased I came across this thread. You all may have saved me thousands of pounds getting an extension that I absolutely do not need

We did a loft extension and kitchen extension, and our house is still small! We are thinking of investing in one of those garden rooms that has electricity etc. I love being clutter free though, I’m fairly ruthless about it, I also have the same colour scheme throughout, so it’s perhaps feeling a little bigger than it is. Fitted storage is brilliant.

Is there space for you to add an extension? This could give you the room you need with a lot less cost to move house.

We're at a different life-stage and have downsized to a flat from a house.
At first it felt too small to be manageable, but we've gone for bespoke furniture (kitchen plus a lot of extra storage elsewhere) and have changed the room layouts to make the best use of the space, with very large wardrobes in the master bedroom which can also hold all our spare bedding and more. Maybe make the smallest bedroom larger by stealing space from elsewhere? We've taken a chunk of the upstairs landing into one of the bedrooms for example, and made organised space under the stairs for extra long-terms storage to ease pressure on the garage.
If you look at how much more you could afford to spend and at how much of this would be absorbed by moving costs of various kinds you might consider the money better spent on improvements.

I've lived in my small terraced 3 bed house for 20 years.
We've added a downstairs toilet, redone the bathroom and kitchen and spent money on a nice garden adding a garden office for wfh
Bedrooms are two doubles and a reasonable size single.

Over the years it was

1. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H
2. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H plus baby in the small room
3. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H toddler in bed 2, baby in small room
4. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H, kids sharing bedroom 2 for about 5 years
5. Me & (not so 'D') ex-H then kids wanted their own rooms so youngest went in small room and oldest stayed in bed 2
6. Now it is Me and 2 teenagers in same rooms, firstborn is off to uni (hopefully) Sep 26 so we will swap rooms round so second born gets the bigger bedroom as he will be here the most.

It did feel small when kids were small as so many toys everywhere, but now they are teens they spend a lot of time in their rooms.

Investing in good storage and not keeping unnecessary stuff I think has been the key.

The plus side is as we didn't size up and take on a bigger mortgage, instead I was able to buy out Ex-H and then overpay the mortgage to reduce the term.

I'll either move when the kids leave home or stay here forever 😁

Personally I would prefer everyday comfort (larger living space) over holidays etc but everyone is different. Depends what is important to you.

Could you convert the garage? Sorry if already suggested, no time to read all

What's the loft like? We've just had ours fully boarded and foam insulation put in, shoved so much stuff up there and this feels like a new house. )For five years I've had a tent in the bedroom... not any more.) Velux windows start at £160, hopefully we will put one in too. Much more space and it's dry, warm and light as a bonus.

How small a house feels depends on the layout as well as the dimensions of key rooms. What are the sizes of the living room, kitchen and bedrooms - kitchen doesn't sound too bad if you can squeeze in a small table but again the feel of it will be affected by the shape and layout. As you're doing it up you have an opportunity to review that and reconfigure the use of space so that you get the maximum from it in terms of ease of use and functionality. I live in a small house and not an ideal sized kitchen but it is very well laid out which makes it easy and pleasing to use. A box room is fine for a baby or a child for a number of years. This will give you time to get over all the renovations and find your feet again.

Small??!
My cottage is 200 sq ft. I love it, although I do have a lot of stuff and keeping on top of that is hard. I admit I'm always bumping into things, I'm tall and wish the ceilings weren't so low.
I'm always having to re organise but I work at a well known worldwide retailer and get storage inspo from them
But it's cute, cosy and warm and dry.. after living in a freezing mould fest before

Ours is 1000ft2 which I think is pretty generous sized.

We got an ottoman bed recently which is brilliant for storage. It can store all the spare bedding, winter coats etc.