How much space?

[Fleurchamp]

We are a family of 4 - DC are 2 and 3 months.

We live in a 3 bed victorian terrace - approx 1,100 sq ft plus a small yard approx 12ft x 12ft.

At the moment it is feeling like a bit of a squeeze with all the paraphernalia- pram, double buggy, high chair - and not to mention toys.

In your experience do children need more or less room as they grow up?

It would be nice to have a proper garden but we have a park at the end of the road which is fine for now (as the toddler needs supervising in a garden anyway).

We can't afford to size up where we live (London) but we don't particularly want to leave the area we are in and have no idea where we would move to. But we will be choosing a primary school for our eldest next autumn and so if we are to move we should probably do it next year.

Anyone had the same? Do you regret staying/ moving?

1000sqft whilst not massive, is kinda a normal 3 bed house size, which is kinda normal if you have 2 children I would say.

Can you go into the loft or has that already been done? Can you do a side return extension to give you a nice big kitchen/diner then you get 2 sep reception rooms downstairs.

1000sqft well laid out is very different to 1000sqft with a crap layout. If you want to stay, look at what you can do to change the space to work better. Do you have unused cupboard space, can you remove a corridor, etc. Also relevant is what the schools are like where you are - if you like them then it would seem odd to move away!
Kids seem to need more space until they hit age 10ish, then their toys become electronics based so less space consuming!

You'll children will grow out of the bulky stuff in a couple of years' time. Is your front garden large enough for a store so that you can put pushchairs - and later, bikes, trikes, scooters - in there? Limit the number of toys by throwing away stuff that hasn't been played with recently and invest in some good attractive storage.

Watching with interest as want to know the answer....do they take up more or less room as they get older!!

I have a 7yo, 4yo and a 10mo. We have just sold our 1930s semi with loft extension (1590 sq ft) and tiny garden to move to a detached house (2400 sq ft) and huge garden. I cannot wait. The loft conversion (which was already done when we bought the house, not our project) was a bit pointless as the 2 eldest like to share anyway, so we didn't use that space at all really. Although we have less 'big stuff' as the girls get older (or we did have, until baby no.3 came along!!) I do find we need the space more as they want to have friends over to play. I enjoy having their friends over and so I am looking forward to having more room to enable this - and also looking forward to them each having their own bedroom with their own stuff in. Less scope for arguments when one of them has a friend to play and the other one objects to them going in the shared bedroom!!
One thing I do wish is that we had bought a house with a garden instead of buying the one we did. We bought it pre-DCs and I had no interest in having a garden. Now all I want is a garden and I cannot wait to have one.
If you can't afford more space then you have to make do with what you have - but more space and a nice big garden as they get older is nice to have.

They take up less room in terms of paraphanalia (generally, although depends what hobbies they take up - dd1 has a kayak for example).
It is good to have a garden from in a couple of years time, for the next 10 years, as they are old enough to play out but not go to the park without you. However, I don't know now realistic that would be pricewise where you live.
Once teens, they disappear into their rooms and you don't see them except when they come and hoover th fridge.

Thanks all - we bought this house years ago before we considered children and now we are completely priced out - we couldn't afford to buy this house now.

We cannot extend - no space and the loft space isn't suitable as we don't have the height to comply with building regs (we have the loft boarded out for storage though which is well used).

The house is over 3 floors (townhouse so lounge on different floor to kitchen diner) so we lose quite a bit of space to hallway and don't have that"flow" between living spaces. Plus so many stairs....

We have no front garden either so nowhere for bikes/scooters etc. If we store them in the back yard we have to carry them through the house.

One of the reasons we like where we live is that we can each get to work in less than half an hour and we have friends and family within walking distance.

We live between two outstanding primary schools (which is probably a reason why the house prices are so high). However quite a lot of neighbours have left once their children reach secondary age as the state schools aren't great and private schools are selective and £££ (we could probably stretch to this in the future once I am back at work FT).

definitely less space needed as they get older. A Ralph Lauren shirt or an Urban Decay palette takes far less space than a skateboard ramp or a trampoline!

PS I think about 9 is the max time for crap taking up loads of space.

We cannot extend - no space and the loft space isn't suitable as we don't have the height to comply with building regs (we have the loft boarded out for storage though which is well used)

I might consider putting in a proper staircase (the riser stair things basically like fixed ladders comply to regs), a couple of veluxes and reinforcing the joists etc to make a 'loft room' - that doesn't need head height. Would be a perfectly fine room for playroom/teenage gaming den.

We've got our two to secondary school age in an 800 square foot 2 bed terrace. It's large rooms, though, which has helped it feel less claustrophobic.

And we're looking forward to moving into a 1300 square foot semi. We've prioritised downstairs space over bedroom space. Saw too many 4 or 5 bed houses that were really lacking on downstairs space and they just felt really cramped. Quite a few just felt like each room was a foot too small in each direction despite being bigger than the one we're buying.

Missed that you're in a townhouse. The only ones we saw with a decent layout were in completely the wrong location. Unsurprisingly, most of the ones in our search area were professional or student let's because the layout just can't work for most families. I'm not surprised that you feel cramped.

Are there any more traditional terraces where you live? They might be a compromise on bedroom space and number of bathrooms, compared with what you have, but might be more livable as your kids grow.

I have just checked. We are moving from approx 1500 to another approx 1500 house. We have 2 DC and are planning a third. We do not feel we need more space than this, as any more would be under used but still need (paying to weekly plus us daily) cleaning. We are planning a loft conversion for an extra bedroom though. At this age we would have moved to get a garden, but not more space

@smu06set LOL at 'unused cupboard space'! Who has this?!

They definitely take up less space but still tend to leave their things everywhere....

Have you had your house valued? If you say you couldn't afford to buy it now does that mean you have lots of equity in it that you could use to move somewhere bigger? I think the garden would be the main thing for me DS LOVES being outside we moved just before he turned 3 from a terrace with a small yard to a semi with a garden and it was brilliant over the summer that he could just run in and out the house

We moved from about 1000 sq foot to 2000. We have two young DC and the difference it has made has been huge. I think space for everyone to do their own thing will continue to be important