Box bedrooms and big families

[Dauphinois]

I've got 4 primary aged dc's, 3ds's and 1 dd.

We've had an architect draw up plans to remodel our house, and change it from 3 bed to 5. It's a big 3 bed and the architect has managed to squeeze in 5 beds and 2 baths as I wanted.

But 2 bedrooms are pretty small, one being 2.2x2.3m and one being 2x2.5m.

Is it worth squeezing in small bedrooms to give the kids one each, or would sharing a bigger room be better?

What do you think?

If you plan to stay there a long time I would say 5 smaller bedrooms. When the boys are teenagers they will want their own space (however small).

My sons bedroom was 2 X 2.5 (we moved) It was ok and I think most teens would rather be in their own small room than share. But it didn't really fit a single bed, wardrobe and drawers in it so we didn't have a wardrobe in there. Just a single bed with underbed drawers and a tall draw unit and a kallax thing. (cabin beds are fine but probably not for a 16 year old)

2x2.5 isn't really all that small. My dt's share a room that size, before we had it as a guest room, it was fine as a single room and is now fine for the two cots.

We too have 4dc and two massive rooms and the boxroom, I think in the long term we will prob have to move into the boxroom or turn it into a 4 bed by stealing a bit of ours and the dd's room.

I have to admit I'm not great in meters. That's the length of a single bed in one direction and a bed plus 2ft the other way isn't it?

can you leave it as one room for now and build the dividing wall later if necessary? my kids liked sharing up until about 12, that might tide you over as some go off to uni? if not, you could build that dividing wall.

oh my mistake, you are not also extending? hmmm how old are the others when the oldest turns 18?

Thanks for your responses - it's all looking positive.

There are less than 5 years between my 4 as the youngest are b/g twins, so I think we'll have missed the moment if we wait for the eldest to go off to uni, though I can see that can work if you have them more spread out in age or the younger ones are same sex.

It's good to hear that 2x2.5m isn't ridiculously small and that we can make workable rooms from that kind of space. It's so hard to visualise rooms from a set of plans!

Thank you all

I regret getting four rooms upstairs in our extension. Wish I had gotten three larger rooms as one is just too small to be functional.
If you have a larger room it can be divided loosely with a large 16 space Kallax ikea unit or even an actual stud wall... if you have actual
Rooms that's more difficult.

Definitely individual rooms. They'll have their own personal space and it's also so important for study during exam years

Have you asked the children? It might be worth deferring a few years until they want their own space. Ours had eventually had their own rooms except the twins who wanted to share - we moved them into they're own rooms at 11 as we felt they might've been teased by friends who didn't understand twinniness between a girl and boy.
Their room was big so there was plenty of play space whilst they were younger - which might be a consideration. Difficult to set up a train set without the floor space.

They're all quite happy sharing ATM, so no mad rush to separate them, but we're looking to the future really. Eldest DS is 10 and will be at secondary school before we know it, so it feels right to be thinking about this now, even though it will probably be ages before we actually begin work.

Good point re b/g twins. They are very close, as are the older two, but none of them really hang out in their rooms now. We're lucky to have quite a lot of downstairs space so bedrooms are mostly sleeping at present- I'm sure this will change soon enough though and we won't see them for dust!

Unfortunately the proposed box bedrooms are not adjacent to each other so we can't decide to build the divider at a later date - it's all or nothing now really, and I always told myself that it would be nice for ds1 to have his own room by the time he started secondary school.

Thanks for all the comments