Room sizes

[Wenway93]

Hi currently selling our home. Haven't had much feedback but a couple viewers have said that the bedroom sizes are too small, to me they are standard for the era of house 80’s. Why don’t people compare the sizes to what they currently have and what’s on the listing before viewing. We have 3 doubles one small double and one single. For reference the sizes are all in feet and inches
bedroom one 11’1” x 11”1’
bedroom two 11’3 x 9’9”
bedroom three10’9” x 9’7”
bedroom four 8’3” x 7’6”
bedroom five 8’ x 7’6”

You might be better off advertising as a 4 bed, and setting up the 5th room as a dressing room/office/playroom. We viewed a 3 bed that had been on for ages, because the 3rd room was only just big enough for a cot and a chest of drawers! They ended up advertising it as a 2 bed with office, and it sold within a week or 2 after that. Viewers looking for a 5 bed may be disappointed with your house, but viewers looking for a 4 bed may be pleased with the extra space.

They're still bedrooms for marketing purposes though. I could fill all my bedrooms with various things but just because they don't have beds doesn't suddenly mean that's not what they are.

It can be beneficial to stage smaller rooms with beds so people can see they can fit one in though but realistically there aren't many houses that will have a room with a window that doesn't fit a bed in it, however small it may be!

So if you’re going to
Market 2 very small rooms as bedrooms
best put a bed in there

bedroom one 11’1” x 11”1’ = 3.38m x 3.38m
bedroom two 11’3 x 9’9” = 3.43m x 2.97m
bedroom three10’9” x 9’7” = 3.38m x 2.92m
bedroom four 8’3” x 7’6” = 2.51m x 2.28m
bedroom five 8’ x 7’6” = 2.44m x 2.28m

This is 2025 not 1970. We work in metres these days.

For comparison the double bedrooms in our totally standard, pretty basic 1930s ex-council semi are 4.20m x 3.30m and the single room is 3.30m x 2.80m and the double rooms feel pretty pokey at that. I'd rather have more like 4m x 4m so there's more room for a comfy chair too.

I feel at least one of the dimensions should be 4m for a room not to feel claustrophobic as a double. So I would perceive your house hhashaving two pretty small doubles and 3 singles really.

Does the listing use fish-eye lens photography to make these rooms look spacious? It's such a waste of time. You see what looks like a decent room in a photo and so book a viewing, take the time to go in person and realise the camera was lying.

Hey, think you’ve had a bit of a hard time on here. Out of curiosity checked the marketing on last house as we had a 4th bedroom that was 8’6 x 7 (30’s semi so this was the traditional box). It was marketed as a bedroom but clearly dressed as an office with sofa bed to indicate could be used as an occasional guest (which is how we used it- prior to which it was a nursery), was clear to any prospective buyer though this was def a small room ! Though I do get that people kind of know what to expect more with a 30’s semi. I’m also in what was a 5 bed 80’s too now the extended part being two large doubles, original main was small double so we knocked through to a second small double to create a master suite with walk in wardrobe, the fourth is a large double used as office / guest which we may split later. The good thing about these houses is they are easy to reconfigure and knock about to suit a family needs. A lot of the larger family houses are sticking round here too when 2//3 years ago they were flying so could just be timing. Hang in there, think about how your smaller rooms might be presented and hopefully a buyer will be along soon .

Well yes but it's not a necessity to allow it to be sold as a bedroom, it's just helpful to some who don't have the vision to see past the furniture that's in it currently.

For example, I sold my dad's house and made a makeshift bed out of bits and bobs to show the 3rd bedroom as such, but the new owners turned it into a dressing room anyway 😂 I'm not sure what OPs dressing room is like, but if it's nice, with fitted cupboards, going to the hassle of ripping them all out might not actually be beneficial if a potential buyer would like to use it in the same way.

Personally, I'd just stage the 4th room as a bedroom, as the 5th is only about 3" smaller so potential buyers can be made aware it can function similarly.

Well yes but it's not a necessity to allow it to be sold as a bedroom,

not a “necessity”
but it would seem it might be necessary if the op wants to sell

Op how many people live in the house?
Are you able to post a floor plan?

I sold my dad's house and made a makeshift bed out of bits and bobs

I would love a picture of a handmade bed out of “bits and bobs”! 😆

We actually did this too - my DM’s house wasn’t selling because her layout was bloody odd with awkward bedroom sizes. We used boxes/crates to create a “bed base” and then wrapped a sheet around it and draped a duvet/pillow over the top.

Looked exactly like a bed - we were just praying no one would attempt to sit on it 😂😂

Did the job though. Her house sat unsold for 5 months (when the market was hot). Added the fake bed and it sold within a week 🤷‍♀️

People sometimes need help imagining things. Tbh, I’m terrible at judging space so stuff like this is really helpful for me.

Lots of houses have one small bedroom in the set - so in a 4-bedroom house, you’d get three decent bedrooms and a 4th bedroom that’s small/a box room.

Its often talked about on here as a source of frustration - if you need three bedrooms you actually have to buy a 4-bed etc.

Your issue though is that you have TWO teeny bedrooms, plus three smaller than average doubles.

When you’re comparing to all these other houses, have you looked at the main bedroom? Because I feel that’s quite an issue here. We would struggle in your main bedroom sizes - we have a super king size bed and we like to have a big bookcase in our bedroom, as well as the usual wardrobes, chest of drawers etc. bedrooms 2 and 3 would be ok for the kids but bedroom 1 would feel squashed for us. Bedrooms 4 and 5 wouldn’t be any use as an actual bedroom.

I’d be OK with one small bedroom out of the 5, I’d even expect it, tbh. But two box rooms and three smaller than average doubles? That would be a disappointment.

And I don’t think that’s common actually. The main bedroom is usually bigger than yours, bedrooms 2 and 3 would be ok. Bedroom 4 is way smaller than expected, and bedroom 5 would be the usual shitty boxroom that is almost always included. That’s not great.

Can we ask about the dimensions downstairs? You say that you have an extra living room that’s the same size as bedroom 3 - ie/10’9” x 9’7”. You also said you have another living room and dining room, and the kitchen.

I have to say that 10’9” x 9’7” is very small for a living room. It’s a snug den, or a large study. That’s almost the exact size of the living room in my DM’s annnexe and we knocked down walls to make it bigger as it was small and pokey. So if you’re marketing that as a living room, that might be another issue.

So my question is, how big are your other rooms downstairs? Are they a similar size?

The expectation is for a 5-bed to be spacious, it shouldn’t feel cramped. I think some smaller rooms are fine, but the other rooms should be larger to create that feeling of space that you’d expect from a 5-bed house.

Have you got a floor plan? Might be useful to see how easily people could make amendments.

I really struggle to visualise space so I do sort of understand people coming to see the house in person. We had similar feedback from a couple of buyers when we were selling ours a year ago so I get your frustration. I think sometimes people just need to physically be in the space to be able to judge though.

When we’re talking 4/5 bedroom properties it’s mainly families that are looking

and the idea that just being able to fit in a bed in a room is unlikely to be appealing. My tween and teen need a desk, bed, bed side table, wardrobe and storage

Wrong thread

We’re in a small 1930’s semi and all the houses in the area are 1 bigger double (4x3m) 1 small double (3.2x3m) and a box (2x2m). They’re all still listed as 3 beds. Our neighbour are 2 adults and three kids. The daughter has the 2x2 box and the two boys share. Might be more of a problem if there’s more than one tiny room, especially if it’s a 5 bed, but I don’t agree that we should be relabelling the rooms.

I think it depends where it is and who is viewing, but you are right people can look at the sizes but can't get a feel for the space (or lack of) until they see it...if it is in a city and space is a premium then they might be ok for sizes, but I have a house that is a 100 years old not in the center of a town and relatives have a new build away from the town and I actually think their footprint for an alleged 5 bed is smaller than mine for a 3 bed and a box room/single bed, so I don't find their house very spacious, nice as it is, especially as they have filled the rooms with furniture eg king size rather than double

If you're a stick insect maybe...

Only because we don’t need the 2 smallest rooms as actual bedrooms.
the forth one we did until recently but the smallest has always been a dressing room only because we didn’t need it as a bedroom

The extra living space is part of the extension so the same size as bedroom 3. The actual main living room is approximately 11’x 18’ (3.37 x 5.34)

Haha we did exactly this but with an actual mattress on top and one of those awful valance sheets over the top. Was slightly worried I'd get sued if someone sat on it and fell through but nowhere had I stated it was an actual bed and I wasn't present to invite them to sit on it so I figured I'd be fine 😂

Yes. First thing is to put measurements in metric. Then I will ask them to change it to having 3 double rooms, I know you will probably disagree but them rooms have double beds and furniture in and imo are in line with the era of the house, and one single and a further room ideal as a study or dressing room.
i am just so shocked at the people saying the rooms aren’t double sizes when I have looked at loads of properties currently on sale and for the era of house are comparable to mine so I will have to disagree. But I do appreciate the comments and advice

Then I go back to my op as to why people don’t look at the sizes and floor plans

Don't credit people with so much intelligence and imagination ?

I'm not getting into the whole argument of what size is a double.

But you are effectively saying there are 2 doubles, and one is not double because it is 5cm less in each dimension than one that is.

OP you can only take the feedback that viewers give. Unless you are prepared to reduce the number of rooms there isn't much you can probably do about it.

A significant proportion of people viewing a 5 bed house are expecting to get a sizeable amount of space, so yes people who are not good at figuring out room dimensions are going to turn up and its not going to be suitable if they were expecting a large 5 bedder. Just ignore them. They were probably never in the market for your place anyway.