Are these room sizes decent?

[EllisRoses]

Purchasing a 4 bed detached property off plan and I can't get my bearings of room sizes. The lounge seems plenty long enough, maybe slightly concerned about width. I was chatting to my mum about how happy I am to finally have a utility room and she replied it was a tiny one. I've been going off the floor plans and thought it was a pretty generous sized house? For a family of 4 plus a dog I'd hate to feel cramped?

[quote GU24Mum]I'm not a huge fan of new-builds so probably not the best person to comment.......... but have you thought about the boring things like where you'd put a hoover and ironing board etc?

I think your room sizes are broadly similar to these ones which might be useful (or not!) - not quite sure whether the bedrooms include the fitted wardrobe measurements though.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72231696.html[/quote]
Just to bear in mind that the living room is wider though. I said above we really struggled with our 10ft wide one and wood have loved 12 feet. Would have been fine.

@JoJoSM2

I think that’s a pokey for a 4-bed detached. The bedrooms are all small. If you were going to use the 4th for a dressing area, you might as well get a decent 3-bed where the bedrooms are big enough for stuff.

They don't do a 3 bed that's the same square footage, so we'd have to lose space downstairs which we don't want to do. New builds don't come up around here often at all, and we need help to buy to get out of our current place asap. Our options are a little limited unfortunately. They aren't huge bedrooms but I wouldnt say they are total box rooms. It'll hopefully be doable.

Just been sent this back from the developer.

Just a thought, could you put both the DCs in a big bedroom each (bedroom 2 and 3) and have bedroom 4 as a dressing room. Get both kids those single beds with a pullout underneath. Then when you have people come to stay, put the kids together in one room and your guests can have the tidiest kid's room for a few days. Not ideal but it just seems a bit silly paying top bucks to get a 4 bed detached house and then your DC having to share to enable you to have a) a dressing room because your master bed isn't really big enough and b) a spare room that isn't used as often as they use their own rooms.

Another alternative is that, because your lounge is separate and can be closed off, you get a sofa bed in there for guests. They could use the downstairs loo in the night if needed. If you and the DC are up earlier than them in the morning, you can just hang out in the kitchen.

I'd ask them to leave out the ensuite and make the master bedroom a sensible size to be honest. Fit a shower over the bath if it doesn't already have one.

We are going into a big recession and prices will drop. You’ll need to remortgage when Help to Buy is up and are probably relying on increased prices to get a normal mortgage then....but 5 years from now, prices might have barely risen or not reached the price you pay

You don't have to remortgage, worse case scenario if prices have dropped, so has the government's equity stake, and you just pay the interest on the loan which on a property of that price shouldn't be more than about £100/50 a month, hardly a huge risk. I would say buying with help to buy is a safer option than buying with a 15% deposit in some regards because the government is carrying 20% of the risk and the only risk to you in the short term is the interest charge which is far more manageable than some of the alternatives.

Also the "new build premium" hugely depends on area, it is not so stark in many areas outside of London. Remember you are getting a brand new house with brand new everything, how's my people buy a second hand property and have to pay out for a new boiler, rewiring or nee kitchen? Of course you pay more the newer something is, it isn't like buying a car that depreciated, property doesn't generally depreciate it depends on the market and supply and demand as you know and I doubt the latter will change that dramatically in the long term. It's a different type of purchase. And if it's a long term purchase it won't make a huge difference to the OP, the equity loan softens some of the risk of house prices do drop.

Excuse all the errors!

You can do a plan in Excel (other spreadsheets are available).
Make the cells all the same size square, then make shapes for different furniture which you can move round to check layout - saves a lot of rubbing out!

Op it looks tiny to me but I’ve never lived in a new build so maybe it depends what you’re used to. The bedroom sizes though if you convert them to feet instead of metres do seem like they’d be tight. My bedroom is 11' 0" x 9' 11" (3.35m x 3.02m) and we barely have any room round our king size bed, maybe 2 feet each side so just room for a bedside cabinet each but no other furniture. Fortunately we have a built in wardrobe so we’ve got storage in there but I hate having such a small bedroom. The floor plans for your house show beds but imagine trying to fit wardrobes and drawers in the rooms too and work out how much room you’ll be left with. Maybe you could map out the room sizes on the floor of your current home, masking tape on the floor to show the walls.

Right we've basically compared every room to our current house. It's smaller than we thought to be fair, but the downstairs is fine. The lounge is the same length we currently have but a little bit thinner, definitely workable. Kitchen/diner will be fine, same for utility. Family bathroom is smaller than we hoped but fine. Spare bedrooms are fine size, master ideally we'd like bigger but it'll be fine if we make another bedroom into a dressing room. We've had a bit of a sob as it seemed too good to be true that we could get this house and maybe now we've realised it's not exactly what we imagined but it'll still be lovely and it'll be ours. We need our own space and without help to buy we can't buy for another couple of years atleast and we need to be out sooner. I think if we're clever with how we utilise the space we'll cope just fine. I could cry this felt like our dream house until today! The house we viewed (not a new build) before we reserved this one was only 2 bed and no parking and we nearly went for it just to move so this has to be better than that..

Aw I'm sorry you're a bit disappointed OP but it's good to be realistic. On paper a 4 bed house should be massive but new builds just really aren't very big, as you can see. There's no reason why you can't enjoy living there though, you might just have to be a bit clever with furniture and storage etc. Hope the move goes well for you.

Oh Op sorry you’ve been upset but it’ll be lovely really. You're going to be 5 minutes from the beach and near family and that is worth much more than big bedrooms. Having a utility for laundry instead of taking up space in the kitchen will be great and you can find great space saving furniture these days. The kids don’t need much space and you’ll have an en-suite and a dressing room. That’s proper luxury! I feel bad about my previous post now but I lived in a Victorian house before and had a massive bedroom and so have a massive bed. You’ll love the house once you’re in and make it your own.

Do they have a show house?

@tinkywinkyshandbag

Do they have a show house?

No it's a small development only 10 of each type of house so there isn't one, I'm not sure if there will be one, we went to see a different site of theirs just to get a feel and we loved it. Thick walls, big windows, solar panels, well designed, seemed really good build quality, the house however was a total different lay out/size to ours so we didn't grasp how much smaller ours was in person. It's the biggest, most expensive on our development, 4 bed detached so we just kind of assumed it would be plenty big enough. I'm hoping I'm panicking more than I need to now. It surely can't be that bad or they wouldn't make it that way

Sorry if my comments have made you feel sad and spoiled the idea of your lovely new house. I wouldn't have wanted to make you feel like that.

I guess you just need to have a bit more of a think about the size and use some of the floor planing methods people suggest to work out exactly what you will be able to get into each room.

You may well decide it's still fine....and if you do, I hope you move in and thoroughly enjoy it all. But changing your mind is still an option too, even if you lose some cash.....you wouldn't be the first to do this, but if it's really not right it's better to lose a bit now than go through with it if it's not what you want.

We don't know what's right for you, but you will get there with your decision making...and whatever you decide is right for your family can be right, no matter what any of us, or anyone else says.

All the best with it all.

I have read this thread with some degree of sadness. Here is a poster realising her dream of buying a house with a bedroom for each of her kids but wondering if the utility is small, and the answers here suggest that she's moving into a bedsit.

OP - it's going to be lovely, all new and shiny with a garden and a brand new kitchen!

Ps my utility room is smaller and is fine.

I think you need a Murphy bed or a Studybed for your spare room. The first folds up against the wall in a cabinet and the second does the same but makes into a desk when the bed is folded up. You could combine either with wardrobes and have a spacious dressing room with a full sozed double bed when you need it.

Look at Diva model from Hideaway Beds or the Studybed company. Not cheap but v useful.

I'm just so bloody torn now. We've gone full steam ahead and are ready to exchange and now it seems to of all fallen apart. I always said I'd never buy a persimmon type home because they have awful box rooms and paper thin walls. We are using a more local independent company who have such high build quality, all walls double insulated, what seemed like a well thought out space and we fully trusted that we'd found an exception to the 'never buy a new build' rule and I just feel so bloody stupid. We've thrown money into this, gotten all our hopes up, had an argument with dh this morning because I'm being negative and ruining what should be exciting but I just feel sick that we're going to move in and be cramped and on top of each other with no storage and we'll of made a huge mistake. I just don't know what to bloody do. To use help to buy we have to get a new build. If we don't use help to buy we're stuck here for years longer. This was going to be our forever home, why would they make it unliveable? I don't understand there's 12 of these plots why would they make so many too small family homes.

OP the rooms you have are about the size of the rooms in my bijou two bed. The house looks almost exactly twice the size of my house.

My house is a perfectly fine family home and people (in 3 beds of about the same square footage) comment on the decent size of the rooms. They are both 'double bedrooms'. Though it is absolutely not a 'big house' it has a much better layout, as does yours, than some larger, much much more expensive 'Period' properties and is new enough (60s) that it is not a money pit.

Unless you wanted a 'big house' it is absolutely fine.

@PrincessBuggerPants

OP the rooms you have are about the size of the rooms in my bijou two bed. The house looks almost exactly twice the size of my house.

My house is a perfectly fine family home and people (in 3 beds of about the same square footage) comment on the decent size of the rooms. They are both 'double bedrooms'. Though it is absolutely not a 'big house' it has a much better layout, as does yours, than some larger, much much more expensive 'Period' properties and is new enough (60s) that it is not a money pit.

Unless you wanted a 'big house' it is absolutely fine.

Thanks. I'm having such a panic now. I don't want a big house - but I don't want it to feel cramped. I want it to be a comfortable, liveable size and not feel cramped.

Not much help, but I think a solidly built slightly built house will feel a lot better than a flimsy one.

It's a perfectly liveable size. If you were coming from a much bigger house you might need to declutter and buy different furniture to adapt, but it is a decent size.

I wouldn't want a bigger house myself, I'm always being told mine looks empty. Mine is a three bedroom newish build and the third barely fits a single bed. You adapt to the space available. It's cheaper to heat a smaller space and new builds are well insulated too.

Op the house is absolutely fine. You’re not going to get better. You can’t stay where you are. I am unsure of this extreme negativity you’re feeling, the house has huge benefits for you. No it’s not a huge house, and I get that is disappointing but you need to be realistic and look at rhe positives.

There are a lot of people on here who have vast houses and oodles of cash, normal people on the other hand .