Are we mad? Large house for 3 people

[Cluckycluck]

At the moment we live in a large 3 bedroom house. There is only myself, my husband and our 3 year old and we don't want to have anymore children.

Although I love our current house, it's layout is no longer working for us. It's a bungalow with 3 acres. Previously owners just randomly added extensions around the house so its not conventional at all. The longer we live here the less it is working for us.

We are in a really good position financially and can comfortably afford a very, very nice house. We want something old with features and the majority of places that fill our list of wants in the right areas have 6 bedrooms with 5+ acres.

We have found two places I love one with 9 bedrooms and one with 6 bedrooms.

Honestly are we absolutely mad to be considering such large houses for the three of us?

I could happily live in a Georgian new build too!

DPs also had to to sell their house (mostly Georgian) due to running costs when they retired. It was beautiful but so expensive and I know DM felt guilty about the environmental aspect of all the heating too. DF used to follow us round turning the thermostat back down to a thrifty level.

There's just me and DD in a five bed. We've spread

I'm a family of 7 in a 3 bed terrace.

I would do it if I could!

Me and my DH have our own rooms, it's fab!

where is your bungalow located? im trying to buy a house with some land :)

Please go in with your eyes open.
I don't, but a family member owns an old Manor House. 11 bed- 13 bath and various other houses on the property.
Its never warm. Its costs a fortune to maintain. They have to spend tens of thousands getting the garden into shape for the yearly open garden (which doesn't being in anything near what they spend on it). A full time manager of the place is needed. Never mind the house keeper, cleaner, and army of groundskeepers. Also a pound and a lake, at any one time I think of of them have an issue or the bloody fish.

Also, morally are you ok with using that much natural resources to keep it lit and heated?

Are you really asking this .. what a lovely position to be in

Are you really asking this .. what a lovely position to be in

First world problems hey?
Seriously though, why not if you have the financial means and it will make you happy. Once live once, so might as well go for it.

I think you fill the space you’ve got. We got some rooms we don’t go in often, but they’re useful when others are visiting.

It’s worth thinking about the cost of getting the house as you want it, as well as the running costs. I don’t know what we spend on heating etc, but I know that the internal redecorating will cost around £30k and new windows are £50k. We want to lay new flooring throughout the ground floor and I haven’t even thought about what that quote will look like. Curtains/poles etc are over £2k each window, as it’s all too big for off the shelf.

Gardeners and cleaning are a big outlay per year, but I wouldn’t change where we live. I love it. I did say to DH yesterday that we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have DC though and we agreed that we’d still be living in central London. With DC though, the outside space is fantastic and they’ll have friends here etc. It doesn’t matter if they live with us when they’re much older, as they’ve got their own big living/play room and their friends etc aren’t in our space. So enjoy the space and the fact you can make it a warm, welcoming family home for your DC and their friends, too.

We currently have three reception rooms (but one has three doors so it's a bit of a through space), large kitchen and three beds we're extending the kitchen to add a half brick conservatory/orangery type room initially which will act as a family room/play area for DS when I'm in the kitchen and a utility. Were also planning a loft extension to add two rooms and an extra bathroom, we have one dc . We will have an upstairs study (mainly for me but sometimes DH) , playroom for DS which will become his study as he gets older, our bedroom, DS' bedroom and a guest room. It doesn't feel too much to me and six is only one from more than that. MIL has a sewing room!

I am guessing this is pretty rural if you have 5 acres. I would hate to live in the middle of nowhere and so will your child as they grow. It’s boring having to drive everywhere. I did it for a year then ran back to London. Thank fuck.

@SiaPR

I am guessing this is pretty rural if you have 5 acres. I would hate to live in the middle of nowhere and so will your child as they grow. It’s boring having to drive everywhere. I did it for a year then ran back to London. Thank fuck.

I've lived in very small rural villages my entire life, as has my husband. I cannot imagine anything worse that living in a city, town or even a large village.

@Hforhotel
Both houses have been through a very good renovation so flooring, internal decorating etc has all been done. The work has all been done by local tradesmen who have a very good reputation so we trust that they have been done well so hopefully if we go for it we wouldn't have to do any work for a while.

We have our second viewing of the 6 bed next week and it is looking like we will make an offer.

There's three of us in a four receptions plus kitchen and four bedrooms. Having four beds is perfectly reasonable - one for each plus guest room. And we use all the other rooms too, though the dining room mainly for projects as opposed to dining. All rooms are big with high ceilings - the house is about 150 years old.
But it is a money pit. Expensive to heat and as soon as one thing is sorted something else needs doing. Thank goodness I've only had one small repair to the roof as that would cost £20,000 to replace. When I first bought it all the ceilings in the bedrooms upstairs and hall downstairs needed replacing, and I had to get a specialist plaster guy to recreate the covings. £££.
After three years suddenly had rising damp and three found floor rooms had plaster removed and treated. All the windows were original single glazed sash - I replaced them with double glazed wooden sash at a cost of almost £10k. I love the house, bursting with character, but think twice and then three times about buying a big old house. Old house great. Big house great. Big and old? Start saving!
As for acreage only you know if you can maintain that too.

Smaller houses with lots of land are difficult to find unless you can buy adjoining field etc and extend land that way.
Good luck op.

There are lots of benefits to having a large house. It’s amazing in the summer. However I feel terrible about the amount of fuel this place uses - over £500 per month and we don’t keep it warm, just pile on layers of clothes in the winter. Surely this flies in the face of everything we should be doing wrt the environment? I’m looking forward to downsizing and living somewhere warmer and better for the environment.
Also managing a large house is a job in itself if it includes managing staff (although infinitely preferable to doing all of the cleaning, gardening, housekeeping etc oneself!) and managing house maintenance. Our maintenance bills stand at around 20k per year at the moment.
Fortunately we don’t have lots of land. What a Sisyphean task all that upkeep is, but fine if you have gardeners.
I would honestly be happier somewhere small and manageable.

Parenting in a really big house can be a nightmare. You could be ok with one child, but my two hide at bedtime/homework time, or they cant hear me when its suppertime etc. I walk around a lot looking for them and other things.
I loose my mobile phone constantly.

@HeronLanyon

Smaller houses with lots of land are difficult to find unless you can buy adjoining field etc and extend land that way. Good luck op.

In our area and the villages we are looking at the landowners are incredibly reluctant to sell. We did manage to buy an extra acre of our current house but paid way over the odds for it. At the time we were thinking this would be our forever home and the house next door is derelict so we encompassed the garden to prevent a developer getting their hands on it at some point and building several houses on the plot.

We'd happily look at something smaller than 6 bed but there is nothing available.

Yes! Couldn’t bear all the shouting around the house just to find each other so now we have a system of walkie talkies places in strategic places around the house. My kids go missing for ages too, sometimes. On the plus side it is great for playing hide and seek and I managed to get an hour to myself sitting in a built in wardrobe and reading a book. Amazingly, the kids didn’t lose interest in looking!

@wholelottahistory My friend has tracking devices attached to her phone and car keys because of that!

We moved to our four bedroom, two bathroom house 27 years ago. We have about 3/4acre garden. About twelve years ago and with two children we extended to have five bedrooms and four bathrooms and a fab live in kitchen. Now I'm desperate to move house as I'm fed up
With cleaning, gardening and maintenance not to mention £3000 per year council tax.

We moved from a 4 bedroom terrace to a 6 bedroom detached. 1930s big rooms. It’s just the 2 of us.

Much Smaller garden than we wanted but trade off for location. It’s not a grand house, a pretty house though.

We are wfh using a bedroom for dh and the dining room for me. It looks like we Will go to permanent wfh so we’ll have the luxury of a study each.

2 spare rooms. A big reception room, separate dining room and planning in to change current small kitchen to kitchen diner. A bathroom each.

We could live somewhere much smaller, but the space is lovely, there’s a separate garage for the bikes and stuff.

Downsides, it’s a lot to clean, we have cleaners once a week, window cleaner, man to cut hedges. It’s expensive to heat. It’s expensive to furnish, our furniture doesn’t quite fit and there’s not quite enough!

I am a widow with two young teenagers and we live in a very large Victorian house. I am lucky to have no financial reasons to sell it and intend to stay here even when the DC have left home. When my DH died, the house felt too big for the three of us for a while, but we've adjusted now and just love having so much space.

You could let out the annexe, either long term or AirB&B.

There's 2 of us in a 4 bedroom/2 bath/3 reception room house. We have our own bedrooms, bathrooms and studies. I think the fact we don't have to be in each others company all the time keeps us sane. My study is my sanity as I have all my craft stuff in there as well. My h is musical so he shuts himself away in his to play his guitar and things. The other advantage of having more space is the extra storage. I am a far tidier person now because there is a place for everything. When I (and later, we) lived in a two bed cottage every available space was crammed with stuff, even under the beds. It made cleaning difficult, now it's a doddle as there's no junk knocking around.