How big is your ideal house for 4?

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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.

I love high ceilings, quite unusual in new builds so great find

Usually the quoted floor space is internal rather than footprint(ex garage, unconverted loft or cellars etc)

JaninaDuszejko 180m2 is about 2000SF so that's relatively spacious plus the extra basement storage

@Buddyhobbs that is so dreamy. May I ask how u got into self build, I have no clue... is it a reconstruction or a greenfield plot of land

Great thread! We lived as a family of 4 (2 under 2) in a 900 sq ft house and that did feel too small. Currently in 1200 sq ft and feels much better but the kids are only 1 and 3. Moving to an 1800 sq ft house that I think will give us the growing room we need. I think you're spot on with around 1500 sq ft as a minimum if you don't want to feel cramped. And as previous posters said, layout does make a huge difference. Our new place will be open plan which makes it feel massive but one we viewed that was over 2000sq ft felt smaller as it had lots or really small rooms.

@surreygirl1987 I'd be careful opting for all open plan, works great with younger kids but as they get older you appreciate the lots of rooms for various reasons!

I agree re open plan. Our whole downstairs is open plan and I wouldn’t go for it again - it’s cold and noisy.

We have large ish sqft but the way the old house has been extended over the years means a lot of that is actually ‘empty’ space such as two staircases, two large entrance rooms and hallways. The actual rooms are normal small size and not lots of them

@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.

2000sqft is not a 'normal' sized house.

One spare bedroom, one playroom in addition to kitchen/diner and living room. That seems ideal to me and I live in just that or would if we ever get the attic room cleared to use as a spare room

We started from scratch and bought a plot of land to build on. I'm in Ireland btw.

Its been difficult with increasing cost of materials and labour but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

Sorry not sure why OPs last post did not show as quoted there. I was answering your question

@whatsthecomingoverthehill People have mentioned living in 900-2500+ square foot houses on this thread! I wasn't actually commenting on our house in that sentence but, as other people have also commented, the idea that MN can often appear to suggest you need at least 1000 square foot per person living there which definitely isn't normal!

It's funny as I've checked and we moved from a 1200sqft newbuild to a 1270sqft cottage but the new one feels much bigger. I think it's a lot to do with the layout. Also we now have an outbuilding not included in the count so maybe that helps storage wise etc. Our rooms all feel much bigger and there are more of them, but we've no hallway and our landing is tiny so we lose less space to those. I feel we could easily fit 4, 2000 sqft would be too big for me, but I may be weird!

I think 2000 is good, though it depends on how many rooms as well as the size. For four I'd want four beds (three plus a spare), kitchen diner, living room (could be open plan to kitchen/diner), and a study. Those rooms should be a decent size, but not huge. A four bed in 1500ft might be a squeeze, 2500sq ft and the same rooms would be very large.
I recently downsized from four beds/five receptions 2600sq ft and we hardly ever used the large dining room, though I used the orangery daily and we had a games room my son pretty much lived in. For four that was ample.
I've downsized to 1250 and I'd say that was fine for three, though no spare room as the fourth bedroom is tiny and only good as an office.
However, my old neighbour raised four boys in a 900sq ft house perfectly happily as that was all she'd known.

We have about 1600 and it is more than adequate. My friend is in a 2500 sq ft house and says they don't use quite a bit of it and it feels wasteful. I think 2000 is a very good size but not necessary!

It's beyond bonkers to describe a 2000ft house as normal - what world are people living in?! Great and maybe ideal but definitely not normal.

Ours is about 1650 and feels massive. We'd like bigger rooms (some) but there is no way it can be considered anything other than spacious - 2 adults and 2 teens.

Oh and we have no garage. We keep bikes in a shed.

Mine is a little under 3000 square feet, which does feel big. I wouldn't want to go any bigger as the council tax, maintenance costs etc would increase as well. However, the house has been made this size by going up into the loft, out at the back meaning the garden is now quite small and by converting the garage. So although there is a lot of living space it wouldn't suit a family looking for a big house but wanting to store lots of sports / camping equipment etc.

I shared a room until my 20's with no garden access.

2000 sq ft would be a dream home for me yet to many on MN it is the norm.

You manage with what you have. I am sure if I grew up in a 3000 sq ft home and then lived in a 1000 sq ft home as an adult I would feel hard done by/deprived.

Other than location and style of property, square footage/meterage is always one of the first things we look at when buying a home.

We were only ever three in family - apart from when DS was at uni and for a while during the holidays his GF stayed with us too - and our houses ranged from a 900 sq ft 3 bed when he was a baby/toddler, up to a 3500 sq ft six bed semi.

In between there was a 1600 sq ft 5 bed and a 2000 sq ft four bed, both detached.

The 3500 sq ft never really felt too big as we often had my parents visiting as well as lots of DS's friends for sleepovers etc. It was a beast to clean and heat though 🙄 and I do think some of the bedrooms were overly large (20' x 15'). We ended up with way more sofas than three people actually need, lol!

Since DS left home and there's just been the two of us, we've downsized to a 1700 sq ft detached that only had two beds on the first floor but five reception rooms on the ground floor. When we sold it was to a family with two teens and three DC under six! Fortunately we'd added two extra bath/shower rooms so there were three in total. I know they extended the kitchen into the existing conservatory and think they've since moved on.

Our next house was a 2000 sq ft five bed attached that we extended to 2500 sq ft by building a huge kitchen extension. That did end up feeling way too large for the two of us (plus three cats and two dogs!) but was purchased by a family of five when we sold. I imagine it suits them far better 😉

More recently we bought what was described as a detached two bed cottage - although originally a mill, it was converted to a three bed/no inside bathroom during Victorian times - of 1400 sq ft. This feels tiny (!!!) compared to what we've been used to (spoilt, I guess 😉) and next year we'll be adding an extension to provide extra living space, possibly a third bedroom too as the original third bed is now the family bathroom. What we miss most though is the storage we had in those larger houses. As a consequence we've made adding built in storage a priority here. We also completely reconfigured the layout to make better use of the space/position of windows etc.

Imho, although we've owned what are admittedly some pretty large homes, I think layout/storage/the way you use the space is paramount. For example, our 2000 sq ft four bed detached was packed with original built in cupboards and apart from the main bedroom, the others were small doubles which was perfectly adequate compared to the 2500 sq ft 5 bed which whilst bigger/rambling didn't feel such a good use of space.....

Not a clue about sizes but for me it would need:
3 bedrooms with a good size master (king size bed plus bed size tables and built in wardrobes) and 2 fairly equal sized bedrooms for the kids.
A separate study or study / guest bedroom (might be a sofa bed option).
Dining kitchen
Ensuite to the master bedroom, family bathroom and downstairs toilet.
Utility room
Garage

We have 1000sqft at the moment but the kids are small so it works for now. No garden or loft for storage (in a flat) so if we had those things it would be easier.

I think ideally we'd have 1700sqft. We're in London so I think that's as big as we'll ever get! Could do 1500sqft if the garden is big enough for a proper home office/summer house additionally.

We are a family of four. Two adults, one young teen, one primary age.

We are getting an extra bathroom installed (already had two toilets) and a porch. Our house is approx 1300 square feet. The porch is only 1 m by 3m so not massive but will be great for shoes, coats etc.

We have a large kitchen, diner, living room, an extra living room and a TV room downstairs, a cellar for storage for the dryer etc, three bedrooms, soon to be two bathrooms. We do have a large garden which is priceless to us as we can have a kids area and a relaxing area plus a shed.

I'd say that I would love an extra bedroom for my wfh husband to go in to work but the cost of building materials at the moment puts us off. The porch and bathroom will be about 9k for both so not too bad to enhance ours lives so much. It's awful fighting over the shower and that's only with one teen.

We have

Family of four: 2 adults, 2 pre-teens. We bought at 1800 and extended to probably 2200 - we added another bedroom upstairs over the garage (now 4 double bedrooms) and squared off a random bit of garden up to the fence line to convert a downstair bedroom into a sort of "snug/den" at the back for the kids which has made a massive difference. I prefer more, smaller, reception rooms, having lived in HK where your living space is invariably completely open plan living/ dining with galley kitchen. Small courtyard garden but beach very close so not an issue and my DC are too old for "playing in the garden" now unless it was absolutely massive. House is now a bit of a "Frankenhouse" as been converted from a detached to a semi before we bought and extended twice (before we bought and then by us). The space really works for us though.

Definitely dont need bigger. Only issue is garage now doesn't really fit a car as we hived some off for a utility but I can never be bothered to park in the garage anyway and the drive can fit 3 cars at a push so.....

We're in the process of buying a house now, 2370sq.f, for 4 of us (but that's 3 adults and 1 child). Plenty of room for everyone, bedrooms to spare, and sitting on a few acres.

Our house is about 1600 sq ft for 5 of us ( DC are teens/ tweens). The downstairs is a good size but upstairs is quite small. We are having and extension soon that will make the house about 2000-2100 sqft.

So I would say maybe 1800+ is a good size for a family of 4. However I think most families of that size live in much smaller houses in the UK.

My parents, just the 2 of them, live in the States in an 8000 sqft house. It's all relative.

We moved from a 1300sqft semi with a tiny garden to a 5 bed detached 2400sqft with big garden and it is a good size I think for us, 3DC. Kitchen is spacious but not one of those massive ones that everyone seems to get these days (you know those huge box extensions that are very popular - not 'spacious' like that, just a normal kitchen size with a small central island), adjacent dining room big enough for a large table and sideboard, separate pantry (may convert this to a utility room at some point as we are lacking one). Big living room, good size front room that is used as a play room, downstairs loo, very big spacious hall. 4 double bedrooms and a good size single that I use as an office. The bathroom and en suite are both very small which is a disappointment (original bathroom has been split to create an en suite as this is an older house), but otherwise the house is a good size in that we aren't all on top of each other, but not too big to keep clean/heat. I quite fancy a loft conversion but we don't need the extra space and DH is not keen on spending the money so we probably won't bother. I would only really want it to get a big luxurious bathroom with walk in shower.