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.

Ours is about 700sqft. I’d definitely like to have a bigger house but I think if it were too big we’d just spend ages cleaning… so maybe about 1000sqft?

@DelilahDingleberry

“I am shocked at how many people fall for number of bedrooms rather than looking at sq.ft.”

Perhaps their budget doesn’t afford the luxury of additional square footage?

Did you see that the title thread says ‘ideal’?

My ideal is about 4000 square feet

We bought 1,600 for 3 (DC is 1) which is on the tight side I think (but it's London and we don't intend to have any more children). Ideally I'd have liked 1,800-2,000, so I'd say 2,000+ for four.

Wow!

Many of you have large living spaces. Our current home is under 900 sq foot and unless we come into a great deal of money, we will be unable to upgrade to a larger home.

@mobear

We bought 1,600 for 3 (DC is 1) which is on the tight side I think (but it's London and we don't intend to have any more children). Ideally I'd have liked 1,800-2,000, so I'd say 2,000+ for four.

But 1,600 is double the average size, even if you think it’s tight.

No it isn’t. The average detached house in the uk is just under 1600 square feet. The average semi or terrace in the uk is just over 1000 square feet.

Two adults, two ten year olds and a dog in 900 sq ft. Three floor Victorian terrace. It's tight but doable. I'd like 2500 in the next step.

@cloudtree

No it isn’t. The average detached house in the uk is just under 1600 square feet. The average semi or terrace in the uk is just over 1000 square feet.

A new build 3-bed is about 950. Average size in general is about 750. And clearly 1,600 is vastly bigger than your stated average of 1,000 for a semi. And there’s only three of them, one of whom is a baby.

We are 4 in a house of 1800sq ft, which is plenty big enough. 3 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 1 WC, 1 small spare room and a lot of reception space (it was 3 receptions but we knocked space through so it's 2 big ones). We're in London so anything over 2000sq ft was out of the question unless we had a million+ spare.

www.dwh.co.uk/advice-and-inspiration/average-house-sizes-uk/

Ours is 1450 not including the garage and balcony - plenty big enough for 4 (large master, 2 good sized doubles, office, open plan kitchen diner living plus separate lounge. But no guest room if you need both doubles as bedrooms if that's an essential. We are just two plus 2 at university who live here for about 5 months of the year

@cloudtree tbf id not class David Wilson as an average house builder, they're the premium version of Barratts. If you look at the standard builders, TW, Barratt, persimmon their basic 4beds are 1000-1500sq ft.

Weve had 2 new builds, both detached- 1st, 3 bed was 980 square ft. Current 4 bed is 1100, there's 4 of us here. Layout works perfect, we have 2 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms (3 are real doubles) utility room and downstairs loo, an integrated garage which we intend to covert as the kids get bigger for a TV room for them.

David Wilson might be a more premium builder (I don’t know) but the document shows the average uk house size fir each type of house. It isn’t David Wilson specific

Depends on how it is averaged. There is essentially no limit to how big but there is a minimum size, which would pull the size up if it's mean rather than median. Detached houses are unlikely to be below 1000sqft, and I would estimate that most are in the range of 1200-1700. So if you think of 'typical' then that's what I'd have in mind.

We live 4 of us in a 2000sq ft house. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, downstairs loo, kitchen/Dinner, utility, large lounge dining room and separate living room. Drying room.

Eventually we want to remodel it to 4 bedrooms switch the kitchen/dinner and living room and create a snug with study and separate loo which would make for a bigger utility.

House feels massive and the bathrooms are large we have two baths, 2 bidets, 3 showers and 5 sinks across the three. And my DDs bedroom is ridiculous but eventually we will split into two doubles and steal some of the bathroom. Giving us a 16ft x 9ft room and a 10ft by 14ft room.

We also have a 550sq ft garage.

Loads of work to do over the next few years.

I once lived in a 3000sq.f house, with only 3 bedrooms. The room size was ridiculous, huge kitchen diner, huge lounge diner, 3 massive bedrooms, a reasonable family bathroom, large ensuite, upstairs utility room and a second huge lounge upstairs (where most sensible houses would have just a landing). It was ridiculous. We 'downsized' to a 2000sq.f house after that and I was much happier.

[quote cloudtree]www.dwh.co.uk/advice-and-inspiration/average-house-sizes-uk/[/quote]
Thanks this sets it out nicely! A tad on the "minimum" rather than ideal side, e.g. 1000 SF terrace when lots of victorian 2 up 2 down have a 700 SF footprint so can really fit 1200SF on 2 floors and probably 1500SF including a loft.

Semis vary more I find

New builds should have the advantage of implementing modern layouts e.g. ensuites, kitchen/dining semi open plan, placing stairs such that there is less corridor or hallway... for developers to squeeze into tiny / ever smaller floor plates (to sell more!)

And most detatched family buyers (not bungalow) will likely want 1600/1800+++ otherwise there is not much point paying more for detatched

Mine is just under 1600 square feet, we are a family of four adults. We were all at home during the lockdowns and had masses of space.

Had a look at a few new house developments. Most 4 bed detached are under 1400sqft. I'm sure people would like more than that, but it is not typical. Anything above 1600sqft is into premium territory. 1800+ will have the likes of multiple reception rooms (as well as a big family room/kitchen), big master with dressing room, separate study etc. All lovely things to have, but not the usual.

Not square feet but a playroom, at least one office, one reception room and a bedroom each for the DC.

So a 3 bed, 3 reception as a minimum.

I think its much much more about layout than square footage.

We have 1300 sq feet for 4, in a house we actually extended to get to the 1300 sq feet (was originally 900), but the layout has everything we wanted and is reasonably future proofed so I think its actually better than most 1500-1800 sq foot houses I've been in.

We have three double bedrooms and a well-designed bathroom upstairs (so, shower cubicle separate to bath rather than over bath: its not huge but that was something I wanted). We could have squeezed an en suite in our bedroom but I really don't like them, and we have a separate shower room in the downstairs toilet so that if we end up in a situation with teenagers being annoying in the mornings we can send them down there. Attic storage space, though not convertible. Almost no hallway: that's the main place we save square feet but its a compromise I'm happy to make, you come straight into the house and the stairs are facing you immediately. However, we have three separate living spaces downstairs: a study/snug inside the door, a decent if slightly narrow 'grown up' living room and then at the back a full width open plan kitchen/diner/playroom with couches and a tv where we currently spend our time (small children). There's a shower room and under stairs utility tucked away too.

Its all designed with lots of storage built in: eg bench seating in dining area has hidden drawers, under the stairs we can fit washer/dryer/coat storage and high shelving plus an extra freezer.

Its much, much easier to manage and maintain than a bigger house. It has everything we need and wanted, but doesn't require us to spend hours hoovering. We have a small front garden that has a decent bike shed and space for one car. When children are bigger, I can imagine we will make some adaptations but certainly it would be easy enough to have child A on a playdate in one room, child B doing homework in another and us sitting in the snug watching Netflix. I think a lot of modern townhouses waste a load of their footage on stairs and hall space and needless en suites. In an ideal world, post-covid, I'd like an extra room, for a home office, so I can see 1500 sq feet being ideal. But really I see so many bigger houses with impractical layouts. Our friends have just renovated a much bigger house and to be honest, I find their kitchen/diner a slightly oversized version of ours and all you really get is extra steps between the dining table and the kitchen, one side of workspace and the other.

Having spent a long time viewing houses and planning a renovation, I am now pretty convinced it is mostly about design and layout and most family homes have tons of wasted space due to either initial bad design or not designing the home for how you really live in it.

I downsized from over 5000sq ft as it was just too big, but I think between 2-3.5k sq ft is good depending on layout.

When DC were young I needed a big family bathroom and smaller rooms close to main living areas that could be designated play rooms but on which the door could be closed.

Now we don’t need play rooms (especially not close to family spaces) or a big family bathroom but self contained den; smaller en-suites and study areas are key.

Also big open plan areas are increasingly desirable to accommodate all the space teenagers and their gangly limbs take up.