How big is your ideal house for 4?

[HouseCart]

In square feet, for family of 4. Both parents WFH. What would be your minimum and ideal? Im thinking 1500 & 2500? I know layout and garage, drive, garden adds to requirements.

Our house is about 2250 square feet, 5 bed, 3 bath. Perfect size for me, dh, 2 dc. Obviously wouldn't say no to bigger but this is comfortable for the number of people.

Our old house was 1100 sq ft. We had a big kitchen / diner / playroom, a smallish lounge with 2 single and 2 double bedrooms. We converted the detached garage to allow DH to wfh so probably added an extra 100 sq ft. We had a bathroom, ensuite and downstair loo. We lived in it as a family of 6 and were fine but we did have excellent storage (a garage, loft and secure carport type thing) and a double drive.

We have now moved and have about 2400 sq ft and it feels massive and lovely. I wouldn't want to maintain any bigger. Stuff like getting new windows, carpets (or even windows cleaned) adds up.

We have 1800 sq ft for DH and me! 5 beds, but 2 are offices for me and DH to WFH, one is a spare, and the other our gym. We certainly don't have problems filling the space , I really need to declutter.

It might sound a lot, but I grew up in a tiny 3 bed flat - when that had two teenagers and two adults in it, crowded was not the word. I really value space now.

We are just two adults and we are rattling around in 740 sq ft so probably wouldn’t need more than 1300 as we wouldn’t need another kitchen etc. But I wouldn’t want to live in a big house, your stuff expands to fill the space and I couldn’t be bothered spending twice as much time cleaning.

What @alluser512 said pretty much word for word! We are in an 'Alnwick' Barratt Home which is almost identical to the 'Alnmouth'.

We moved here 3 years ago from another 4 bed which was quite a bit smaller as the DC we getting big (they are now 11 and 14). I cannot be thankful enough that we made the move before covid happened, as DH and I now both work from home (although I head to the office a couple of days a week these days)

Its pretty much 1500sq feet and it works well. We certainly don't feel the need to go bigger.
In an ideal world, I would have more utility space and possibly a larger kitchen although I love our kitchen and the fact that we can all sit round a table in the room that we cook in. I work from the 4th bedroom and DH works from the 'play room' which is basically the 'lego and other crap' room with his laptop in it. The 'study' is my sewing room and to be honest if we did go larger it would be pretty much so I could have massive craft room (One of the reasons we moved was so I could have a dedicated sewing space and not the dining room table)

The hallway - it gets really crowded in the morning - I would like that to be bigger, but overall I'm happy with the space.

@thesugarbumfairy hello fellow Alnwick/alnmouth owner! I agree, my dream home would have a luxurious hallway! Very happy in the home overall though, I think it's well configured for a family or 4.

@daisypond

I think mine is about 900 square foot. Two adults and three teens, though two of the older teens are now away at university /working. DH and I now both work from home. It’s a two-up, two-down Victorian terrace with one bathroom. It has two bedrooms and two reception rooms. We don’t have a garage, a utility room or off-street parking. It’s been tight but doable.

That is quite a fun and very manageable cottage style terrace size. Perfect for upcoming empty nesting?

@DelilahDingleberry

No we don’t - we have 4 bedrooms, 2 showers and a bath,

To me, 2000sqft is a big detached house. I can’t see how that’s average for a family of 4. If you can afford that, you’re doing well. Look at the rows and rows of 2 up 2 down terraces. I live in a middle class kind of area and often feel like we need to upside but we could live somewhere smaller if we needed to. Surely the average for family of 4 is a 3 bed house? Do lots of people have a spare room?

I lived in a row of "2 up 2 down" extended 4 bed 2 bath extra downstairs loo 1500 SF before. It was definitely liveable but as kids grew some things became harder (first world sense) like where to put 4 bikes and no driveway. It was all young families or older retirees and I assumed everyone moved for secondary. I do think you get to a teenage age (where it's treated as more of a hotel or kids lock themselves in bedroom) that size is also fine

Wow, a MN thread with normal sized houses rather than the usual 4000+ square foot you see on AIBU!

Ours is 2000 sq ft plus separate double garage and a decent garden. It works for us but ultimately I'd probably like to square off the kitchen and maybe make the utility bigger. We have the 'dining room' as an adult snug and the kids use the big lounge but I think we'll flip that when they get to teens.

@Peraltiago

We have 1800 sq ft for DH and me! 5 beds, but 2 are offices for me and DH to WFH, one is a spare, and the other our gym. We certainly don't have problems filling the space , I really need to declutter.

It might sound a lot, but I grew up in a tiny 3 bed flat - when that had two teenagers and two adults in it, crowded was not the word. I really value space now.

I grew up in a tiny flat with no bedroom of own until my sister moved out. So I value space too.

We don't have stuff though the kids are forever cluttering the place with forts they build from boxes etc

@mafsfan

Wow, a MN thread with normal sized houses rather than the usual 4000+ square foot you see on AIBU!

Ours is 2000 sq ft plus separate double garage and a decent garden. It works for us but ultimately I'd probably like to square off the kitchen and maybe make the utility bigger. We have the 'dining room' as an adult snug and the kids use the big lounge but I think we'll flip that when they get to teens.

That is spacious and nicely laid out. Would the bedroom and snug be designated offices if you needed 2 WFH spaces?

@gwenneh what do you dislike? Also did you not like townhouse? Ive seen some, they can be fairly large and have ensuites but spread out over 3-4 floors (good stairs workout, gym sorted).

My DC rarely play in garden unless friends are over. Even then they go straight to their rooms.

What are people's WFH set up or where would you put the office. I don't like being in my actual bedroom unless it's a spare or too open living/kitchen areas. I know it can be anywhere and easier to double up, but I need the psychological separation (from personal or family space)

That is spacious and nicely laid out. Would the bedroom and snug be designated offices if you needed 2 WFH spaces?

We currently use bedroom 5 as a study but it's also got one of those IKEA day beds in which makes another king size spare. If we needed a second WFH space I'd probably try to put a desk in bedroom 2 first which is currently our spare room rather than the snug. Purely selfish - I love our adult space with no toys! It's also a reasonable size room so it would feel a bit of a waste as a study for me. But I can't WFH so maybe it's just not my priority.

[quote HouseCart]@gwenneh what do you dislike? Also did you not like townhouse? Ive seen some, they can be fairly large and have ensuites but spread out over 3-4 floors (good stairs workout, gym sorted).

My DC rarely play in garden unless friends are over. Even then they go straight to their rooms.[/quote]
I dislike the location of our office room, which is off of the utility and away from the rest of the house; the DC aren't old enough to really be left totally unsupervised so I end up working from the kitchen. I also don't like that we don't have a garage either; we have good off-street parking but DH would quite like an electric vehicle and I don't want to get an outdoor charging point installed. We do have garden access from the kitchen, which is what I wanted, but cosmetically I'd prefer sliding doors instead of the standard door we have -- it's on my list of things to have finished but it'll involve changing some of the plumbing as the water lines run through that bit of wall.

I definitely did not like the townhouse. Most of the space was in the bedrooms and we rarely spend time in those when everyone is home. I also wound up breaking a leg while we had that house and having the bedroom on the second floor and everything else floors below was REALLY inconvenient (the en-suite was handy at that point, though!).

@FurierTransform

You could fit it into 1300sqft if it was designed well - you probably wouldn't have a 20+ft kitchen, separate 'play' room or a dormant spare bedroom, but space for 2 adults, 2 kids with separate rooms, and dedicated WFH space shouldn't be a problem.

Quite. Ours is 1250. 2 reception rooms plus 15 by 18 kitchen diner. 3 smallish double bedrooms. 2 small bathrooms. We fill it, with 4 adult sized people. If we could add any space, we'd want a slightly bigger master (or a dressing room), a futility room and one of the bathrooms to be a bit bigger.

We'd have had to forfeit the location quite drastically for that, though.

And we came from an 800 sq ft terrace.

Ours is about 4,000 sq ft for 4

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

This is the floor plan.

That is a pretty average house size, where I live and I think it is average, nationally, too. I know there are people on mumsnet who would insist that anything less than 1000 square foot per person is slumming it but once you get above the reasonably well maintained if a bit dated 1200 Square foot 3-4 bed semi in a good area, I've noticed that prices rise far more steeply for each incremental increase in space/rooms/privacy/finish.

I recently found out that anything above 280k is in the top 10% of house prices, in my county. Prices are much higher in my city, than the wider county. These are what you get at that price point. I've tried to cover a range of house styles.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111573044?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113269931?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

"3 bedroom detached house for sale in Woodward Way, Aykley Heads, Durham, DH1" www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111067031#/?channel=RES_BUY

If you want bigger, you have to go where houses in this price bracket take forever to sell, for various reasons. This one is 1800-ish and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole without local ties. "4 bedroom detached house for sale in Studley Drive, Spennymoor, DL16" www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111884717#/?channel=RES_BUY

I'd love to know how many sq ft ours is. How can you find out?

Is it total square footage of living space, or just the footprint of the house? Ours feels ideal size for 4 with room for a separate office (should be the spare bedroom) and it's got 1300 sq ft on the ground floor and 750 sq ft upstairs, with 2 beds upstairs and 2 on the ground floor (well, 1+office) and 2 baths. The thing that makes it really comfortable, space wise, is that it has a basement the same size/space as the groundfloor. It's not living space because it's not "finished" into rooms, but it's a shit-ton of storage space and has room for excercise equipment too.

Were in the middle of a build of a 3000sq ft house.
We are a family of 4 but to be honest, we always thought we would have more children and thats why we made the house so big. Now, I think we will be staying a family of 4.

The house is probably too big for us but we will still make use of all the rooms. We have a big open plan kitchen/living/dining and a separate smaller living room which will be nice for evening times. One of the bedrooms will now be a playroom and the other spare bedroom will be a guest room or have some gym equipment in there. We also have a really large entrance hall so if you take that out the sq ft of the house would be much smaller.

I have a small office for WFH.

Good luck!

Your EPC has the area in m2 rather than square feet but you can use a converter. We have approximately 180m2 which has 2 equal sized sitting rooms, a large kitchen diner (BIL lives in London and said our kitchen was bigger than his 2 bedroom flat in Islington, probably worth about half the price though!), a good sized utility room, 3 bathrooms, and 4 bedrooms (3 doubles plus a small single). Our house is a period property with high ceilings so feels very generously sized. I think modern houses prioritise bedrooms and we bought this one because the two sitting rooms were equal sized (both 4m x 5m) and with 3DC having lots of living space is important. For a family of 4 I think our house would be perfect, for us I'd like another double bedroom, a dedicated study and for the small bedroom to be bigger then the kids could all have even sized rooms. At the moment we have 1 child in the smallest room, the other two share a double and we have as pare room on the top floor that I also use as my office for WFH. If we had the extra space we'd be better set up for visitors (our family live a long way away and come to stay for weeks at a time).

@MyOtherProfile If you have the floor plan from when you bought it then it should say on there

Good point about high ceilings, I have a new build but with higher than average ceilings and it really creates a feeling of space.