Family of five - smaller house

[cliffjumper]

I've got three kids under four (the oldest is four in August) and we're about to embark in yet another house move.

It will be the fourth house DD has lived in so that shows how much we've moved around in the past three years.

The house we are in now is large to be fair. It is three bedrooms and downstairs has two reception rooms and the kitchen. It also has a celler.

It sounds good but the celler has damp (and the plumber has been out twice in just over a year) to stop leaking.

Our landlady also has failed to repair to broken windows which were in that condition when we moved in. She has also failed to install a fence in the back yard and last week someone stole two of our full recycle bins!

The kitchen is tiny with dodgy flooring and a leaky tap.

We are also spending £40 a week on heating the house because the rooms are that big.

The house we are going to is three bedrooms, again with a celler but an attic half way through a conversion to make it four bedrooms. Rent is £100 cheaper but the rooms are much smaller in comparison.

It's hard to think about moving actually because when we moved in to our current house I wanted to buy it somehow, but for money reasons and the condition of the house and lack of contact with our landlady (who lives an hour drive away) we are set to move in the New Year.

I forgot to mention that our landlady wants to sell the house and has had two estate agents come around to value the house.

I suppose I'm asking whether the move would be a good thing. We would be closer to family as well (and I mean walking distance) and the positives seem to outway the negatives.

Would a small house suit a family of five with three kids under four. I think that's what I'm asking. I guess I want others to push me into moving as I have doubts for a reason I'm yet to pin down.

AGGGGHHHHHH!!!! HELP!!!! ADVICE!!!!! SOMEBODY PLEASE!!!!!

We live in a small 3 bed semi. I have a ds who is 5,dd1 who is 3 next week anddd2 is 2 in jan and expecting another. It is small but it works because we are organised. Our downstairsis very open plan but we are just in the process of having a conservatory. It will be a bit cramped when the baby comes but it will work and at some point we would hopefully have theloft converted.

I have friends in small 3 bed houses with 4 or 6 kids. They make it work (teens in a caravan, or a little conservatory out back). Helps if you have a big garden.

We are a family of 6 and live in a small 3 bed semi, we have 1 reception room,kitchen,& wc downstairs and a box room and 2 double bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.DD1 (7) & DD2 (3) share one of the doubles, DD3 (15 MONTHS) has the box room and DD4 (6 weeks) has a crib in our room.

There is a small conservatory which will be used as a wash room for the most part. It has plumping in it.

There is no garden but next door there is the park which is pretty big.

I don't envy you Nemostwonderfultimeoftheyear. Once our youngest DD is old enough she will share with the oldest and DS will have the smallest room to himself.

We will probably find coping with a smaller house will be easier. We are not the most organised (especially when it comes to tidying) but we plan on chucking a lot of stuff we don't need/use/want in the next few months to slim down as much as possible.

Thanks for the replies.

I have 3 kids and live in a three bed flat. The kids are not all as young as yours: 7, 4 and 4 months old. My oldest two share a room, the baby is in with us, and we have lodgers in our third bedroom! So, yes it is possible. We have one reception room which is both living room and dining room and a non-eat-in kitchen. And of course no garden. The rooms are reasonably sized so I don't feel cramped. I would even consider having another child in that space (without the lodger!) as two could share in one room and two in another.

It is possible, I wish I'd made the most of the 3 bedroomed (but double 14 x 14') bedrooms we had instead of wasting money on moving and taking on a bigger mortgage.
The 4th bedroom I reckon has cost me £50,000 and is full of crap and rubbish.

We now think that moving to this house will save us £100 a week. This is mainly because of three things.

1. The rent is lower per month.

1. we will use less petrol as we can walk to a family members house instead of driving the 3 miles there and back most days.

1. The heating bill will not be £40-50 a week! In the last week our current house has eaten up £50 in gas. What a rip-off...we are still freezing and now have convection heaters on.

At least this thread has allowed to me have a whinge and a moan about this house.

Going to see the estate agent today about how long the repairs to the new house will take. Fingers crossed for a short period of time.