House size

[WarChild123]

We are looking at an Edwardian house which is 1495 square foot split across 2 rooms downstairs, kitchen/diner and 5 beds (2 large, 2 medium-small and 1 small). We are a family of 4, 2 adults, a 5 year old and a 3 year old. It's semi detached and has a garden and side passageway. Does anyone live in a similar sized house with kids? We are moving from a larger house (but nothing around it) so worried it will feel cramped. Husband and I both wfh at times so will also have to fit desks in. Thanks!

3-storey is absolutely no problem with children - these houses are pretty standard around our way.
We moved into ours when our children were 4&2y and they had the top two rooms and we had the middle floor master. No stair gates but we did use a baby monitor.

Now they are teens, we are going to take the top floor and they will move to the middle with desks in their rooms for study.

Or you can all sleep on the middle floor with the DCs sharing until you are happy for them to be on a different floor from you.

We live in a 3 story terraced house, modern and different layout to yours but slightly smaller size overall with 2 teens, it is fine. Top floor is 3 beds and bathroom (3rd bed is very small, but DS2 doesn't seem to mind). Middle floor, where we spend most of our time, is the living room and a 2nd reception room with desk for DS2 and a lot of the teens' stuff too and an attached shower room. Ground floor is kitchen/diner, downstairs toilet and garage. DH works from home and has a desk in our bedroom. I work part time from home and we have a nice table that I use as a desk but clear it afterwards and put everything away so it can be used as a table too. I like having a toilet on each floor and a separate bathroom and shower room are really useful. Two separate reception rooms are also really useful. Our rooms are quite small, other than our bedroom, but we have adapted. I moved here with my kids when I split with my ex and later my now DH moved in. I had to get rid of a lot of stuff to make space for his, but we managed.

I think as you are moving from a bigger house you might find it small even if it’s not. If you were going the other way from small to bigger it might feel very spacious. Many years ago we moved with 2 medium sized children from 900 sq feet to 1450 approx. We felt it was quite big. It did have wonderful cupboards though for storage. However it was top heavy. Currently in a 1455 sq foot house which has much better laid out /sq footage downstairs and 3 bedrooms. Much better balanced and feels spacious despite downsizing from 2300 sq feet. Children missing from equation now though. I think your living space might feel slightly cramped.

The utility looks pretty pointless, at 0.9m width you couldn't have a run of units or appliances. How do the current owners use it?

Much clearer now you've included a layout! Seems sensible gif kids to have top floor snd you have second bedroom on middle floor as your office. Possibly have office in smallest room at top of house if o it sn occasional use.
I'd knock through family room to kitchen diner - that part hardly looks wide enough to be comfortable and you'd have a nice big space if knocked through snd still have a more grownup room at the front.

It would be big enough in my view but as others have said, it Felton how much stuff you have.

I have a similar house, though only 4 bedrooms & 3 kids! Did not wfh when they were small though.

I’d make the family room a playroom & keep toys there, sofa & tv and have the front living room as a more adult space to retire to in the evening.

You can set up offices in the smaller bedrooms or have a desk in the front living room.

I keep furniture to a minimum.

Our house is about 1500sqft maybe a bit more (although is a 4 bed modern house), ours is split across 2 reception rooms, kitchen diner plus office downstairs, then we have 3 double rooms and a single. This is perfect for us as I have the office downstairs and DH has the box room as his own space, then the kids have have good sized doubles (2 kids), we have the main bedroom which has an en-suite.

We use the second reception room as the kids, if they were younger it would be a playroom but now it's more a gaming room! We don't need it as a dining room as plenty of room in kitchen diner.

Separate rooms are more important to me than space, for me we need; an additional reception room, 2 spare "spaces" one for WFH one for DH, good sized doubles and enough eating space in kitchen.

Other really important thing to me is bathrooms, we have 2 plus a downstairs toilet.

So yes your set up sounds very similar to ours which we are very happy with.

I have 3 kids and would love that much space 😀

Smallest room as an office and one of the other bedrooms can be a guest room with additional wfh desk in one corner.

The only query I'd have is whether there's a garage or shed for bikes etc.

My only issues with the floor plan you've shared are 1) downstairs toilet 2) is there any light in the second reception? It might feel smaller in a terrace where the rooms all lead into each other rather than off a central hallway which can give a house a sense of space.

Sounds a bit small - considering you want something to grow into. And that you're already in somewhere bigger

Can you extend?

The floor plan looks fine. Especially as it's over 3 floors.

I'd use the 1st floor for children's rooms and the "spare" bedroom as a storage space and as a teen den as they get older.

Then the 2nd floor as yours and DH bedroom and the other room as your office.

That way you won't have disturbance when your kids get older and have friends around.

The family room can be used as dining/playroom/ visitors room and keep the sitting room as a separate space for just chilling and very minimal.

I'd have the top floor as a bedroom and dressing room. The small room in the middle floor could be an office. If you both WFH "at times" do you need a permanent set up or do you use laptops? If it's laptops, you could easily put a desk in one of the downstairs rooms and use it when you're both working from home and need two work areas. My home office is our guest bedroom and is just a slim table with a chair where I plug my laptop in. It works just fine.

So odd. You've got 2 big bedrooms on first floor for kids. Master bedroom on top floor for you and DH. Two bedrooms left over to be an office each. Two receptions plus a kitchen diner. Two bathrooms and a decent sized garden. This is really not a problem and if it is, you have bigger problems than house size.

I'm really not missing that.
This is a family with only two dc, and a house with 3 double bedrooms PLUS two more singles - whether they become studies / offices, or can be used to sleep in quite easily.

I get that downsizing isn't easy - but even if you have a hobby that takes over a whole bedrooms, there are still plenty of rooms and plenty of good sized spaces here.

A double room only needs to hold a double and have a window to qualify as one. Likewise for a single. There may not have been room for a wardrobe or bedside table - not really practical for a family home esp as moving is so expensive and most people don’t want to outgrow their homes in a couple of years. That’s why several PPs were asking for the dimensions and floor plan, which the OP has since uploaded.

2 of those bedrooms are really only usable as offices or for a single bed and very little storage , I’d try and find something with the same sq footage but over 2 floors as it will probably be better laid out .

Looks pretty good actually. Would knock the back rooms through and take out that chimney all the way up.

Utility does look a bit pointless. So would turn that into two. One half utility and one half outdoor store.

But that is all the OP needs @Floralnomad
She only has 2 dc, and her dh and her need desk space.

True but it means she won’t be sleeping on the same floor as both of her small children , and most people don’t like to do that .

We are a family of 4 in a small 5 beds. (It’s one of these modern houses where the rooms are small). Looking at your floor plan, on the top floor, I will have the master and an office. The kids will have the two larger bedrooms on the first floor, and the small room will be another office. That’s how we do ours, 2 children bedrooms, two offices and one master. We have a single bed in one the larger office, so if you have guests regularly, you can think of how you can use one of the smaller rooms as WFH and guest bedrooms. The downstairs look ok. I think you will be fine. I can’t see how much storage space you got. I can guess you don’t have a loft. But does it have a garage?

Honestly, I think most people have way too much stuff - downsize your belongings and marvel at the new found space!

Really appreciate everyone's comments on this one and I know it was a bit of a contentious question to ask so thanks everyone. The lack of storage space is a concern for me and I think we'd have to reconfigure the layout to make it work.