Wanting to start a family - would you move from this house?

[2MoveOrNot]

Name change in case I out myself.

We live in a lovely house with the floorplan pictured. It's in a really nice position, beautiful garden, good parking, wonderful area - a lot going for it. However, we are planning to start a family within the next year or so, and I realise that the layout (and maybe size) is not ideally suited to family living.

My intention is to become a SAHM for approx 10 years and then return to work. We would ideally like 2 children. I fully realise that things may not work out this way, or that I might not like being a SAHM etc, but that is our ultimate goal at the moment if we are very lucky and all goes to plan.

We could move house now if we wanted to, but we have done a lot of very careful financial planning over the last few years to help us achieve our longer term goals, and doing so would set us right back. We have also done a lot to this house and we love it here.

If you were in this situation, would you...

• Move now to a more family-friendly house
• Put off TTC for a couple more years, but likely still be unable to be a SAHM due to higher bills in a likely-more-expensive house

OR

• Stay put and be financially comfortable and able to be a SAHM (assuming that was what you wanted, of course)
• Move house in 10 years time after returning to work

If we stay here, I'm thinking that 2 DC could share the small room (large single) on the same floor as us and the top bedroom could be a quiet space / play room / toy room etc. The dressing room is currently DH's office. I don't see how the bedrooms could be split fairly otherwise.

Sorry if I've rambled! Would love to hear your thoughts.

We have a similar layout. It's not an issue. My 3 and 5 year old have been on a different floor to us since they went into their own rooms at 6 months old - no problems, that's what baby monitors are for! My 5 year old has a double room and en suite. Her brother has a small double. At they're ages they're not bothered in the slightest. There's so much brilliant, modern furniture and storage solutions for smaller rooms it really doesn't matter that their rooms are different sizes...they're just different and we've made each room special for the in its own way.

Bedrooms aside my only observation is we struggled with a combined lounge/diner once they started weaning. Table and chairs and high chairs plus messy eating in the lounge was a nightmare and a dining table limited space once they got bigger toys. Also I couldn't see them from the kitchen which made getting dinner ready and keeping an eye on them at the same time tricky. I much prefer our current larger kitchen diner and separate lounge. The lounge stays much cleaner and less cluttered.

Honestly, worrying about the fairness of bedrooms in ten years time is the kind of thing you laugh about when you have an actual baby.

You won't be able to control every part of their childhood, but luckily, once they are here, they keep you busy enough not to worry about it too much. Your house may not be "perfect," but it's lovely in lots of ways and you don't need to move. Absolutely don't put off TTC over this, you could find the right house for the family you are picturing then have triplets.

Another vote for stay. If you love your house, garden location etc it looks like your layout could be flexible enough for 2DC. I'd keep bedroom on same floor as them initially but once they're old enough either move upstairs to the room with dressing room or give that to them as a bedroom to share with playroom/ den/study area off it. Use spare bedroom for guests or study/sitting room/escape room for you. Think of what you'll save by avoiding moving costs, could be a good start to an extension if you ever felt you needed it.

Just stay put. The house is great.
On an aside, if everything was right before people had children, we'd never do it!
We had a baby in a one bed basement flat. Was annoying but doable.
Moved to a 2 bed flat. Great - could always see her crawling about.
Moved to a 3 bed house. More difficult to keep an eye on, but as she got older it suited us better to have separate rooms.

We had an attic bedroom with DC on the floor below. When they holler, you will hear.

Your house is fine - though as a PP suggests, a kitchen-diner is better with kids than a lounge-diner. It would probably be cheaper to reconfigure what you have rather than move.

We're in a bungalow, with our bedroom at the front, then open plan living area and kitchen and 2 bedrooms and family bathroom down the end of a hallway. My DC share (8 & 4) and yes they'd like to be closer to us but it's perfectly fine!

I'm in Aus and this style is very typical. Lots of two storey houses have main bedroom downstairs with DC up. I prefer my layout to that.

Dh and I have talked about what we'd like in our next house but we aren't planning to move for a good few years. We are currently mortgage free and I bloody love the freedom.

Definitely stay put. You can make changes to your house if you want, but really its fine.

Lovely house. No need to move. If and when dc2 comes along, see how it goes. You might want to look at it again in, maybe, probably, about 5 years time but no hurry.

If the loft room is big enough you could divide into 2, even if it meant putting in a new skylight to make the space work, and have kids up there. That's what we did, divide loft master bedroom, for our boys who were not getting on sharing a room, but there were ,9 and 12 at the time. They have a box room each now, but it's their own space.

Thanks so much for all the views/experiences/ideas. Some really useful stuff here, glad I posted :)

We would certainly consider reconfiguring. The airing cupboard is actually now just an empty cupboard, so we can definitely utilise that somehow when the time is right. I am thinking of knocking it through into the en-suite and using that door instead of the one off the bedroom, like what @BobTheDuvet suggests. The top dressing room does already have a Velux window as well which isn't shown on the floor plan - it is like a separate room really. We have also thought about moving the wall to get a kitchen-diner and smaller living room, but the kitchen can already seat 2 + high chair so it's not too bad as it is.

@LetsSplashMummy that is exactly what I've been thinking, we could end up with triplets (or even none at all)... who knows what the future will bring! Another reason I am leaning towards holding off until then.

@LizzieMacQueen you are totally right about the thought of moving worming its way in... I can't sleep because I feel so restless about it, even though I think it would be the wrong decision (and the vast majority of posts here confirm my thoughts)!

@DustyDoorframes luckily I hate my job and cannot wait to jack it in . I want to start afresh when I go back, and retrain into something completely different. In the meantime I will get myself prepared for that through volunteering etc. Thankfully DH loves his work and should have a lot of opportunity to progress over the next few years :)

The house looks fine, totally manageable with young children. You have said you are in a good area, have you considered what schools you would be applying for? For example is your nearest school the one that you are in the catchment area for, are you likely to get in (you can look at furthest offered place online usually on the council website). Also you can look at the ofsted rating. I'd consider moving if the rating is consistently inadequate or needs improvement and if qyou can afford to move in the catchment area of a good or outstanding school then you might want to think about this. Or you might find that you aren't in the catchment area for the school that is round the corner or that a certain religion is actually higher on the criteria than distance to the school. I wouldn't like to be on a different floor when the children are under 5 but you could stay on the same floor until you and they are comfortable to move.

Totally fine, just look at catchment areas as PP wrote. Schoolcatchment.co.uk is a good starting point.

but obviously wouldn't want to be on a different floor if we had a baby/toddler.

We’re on a different floor to our 3 (and, as an aside, 2 of ours share a room even though it’s a 4 bed. Having a spare room to decant to in the middle of the night with a child is really useful if they sleep as badly as ours!) and it’s fine. Baby monitors when they’re little, not now. It’s only the same distance as you being in the living room when they’re in bed on the floor above, and you’d fall asleep on the sofa without a second thought.

I don’t think the bedroom will be a problem, but I think you may find your lack of reception space a problem. We had a townhouse. Planned to use a first floor room as a playroom - it didn’t happen. You need small children on same floor. We ended up moving for more reception space.

Another one for staying and reconfiguring. I think what I might do is turn the en suite into a family bathroom and then the bathroom into a bedroom, then try to put a small en suite into the loft room in the corner of the dressing room area. That way you’d have 3 beds and a bath on the first floor (big for you, small 2 for kids) and a master suite in the attic for guests. If you have a decent garden I would also consider a rear extension and a garden room (ideally both!) for toys/ playroom and a man cave for your DH.