what is the sq footage of your current home?...

[Dancing Fire]

will your next house be bigger or smaller? do most people down size after the kids move out?

 

[FrekeChild]

Our condo is 937 sq ft. 2 bedrooms, one bath. We'll upsize. I don't really care about the living space but I want a yard so I can have a puppy or two.

ETA: my parents built their house as an expandable thing for when I moved out. Half of the square footage is on one air conditioner and half is on the other. The side they live on consists of: Master bedroom, 2 master bathrooms, sunroom, casual living room, kitchen, breakfast area, laundry, powder room and garage. The other side has 2 bedrooms, 1 full bath, entry, formal living, formal dining, coat closet, and linen closet. I mention the closets because they are all walk-in and very large.

So when guests come to stay, they can crank up the air conditioning or heat and have a huge house, and when they leave, they can turn everything off and go back down to a half of a house. It's really very cool, and my mom and I designed it that way.

 

[LtlFirecracker]

600 square foot condo, it is just me and 2 cats. No compliants right now for me about the size.

I will be moving out of the area in a year and my boyfriend has told me that he will come with me, so at that point I will probably be looking at something bigger being that I have to share the space with someone .

Since I don''t even have kids, and I will answer you question using my Mom. She built new house after me and my sister grew up, and it was much smaller, and was designed for a couple rather than a family.

 

[Rhea]

I don't know what it is in sq feet. I've never really heard Brits talk about that houses like that. It's one bedroom, about 11 x 11 feet, with a living/dining room the same size. The bathroom and kitchen are also the same size at about 6 x 5 feet. The part of the kitchen we can stand in, since oven and sink encroach on that space, is about 4 x 3 feet - I just measured it. We measured it when we moved in so this is going by memory. I know we can't both fit in the kitchen at the same time, it's really small.

Our next flat will be bigger, we can't get much smaller!

 

[appletini]

2200 sq feet...3 br, 2 bath, study, and a fabulous kitchen. Don''t plan on having kids for many many many years, but if we do, well we have room to grow in our current house...so we''ll see where life takes us.

 

[pennquaker09]

Our house is about 3600 sq ft. The last house was over 5000, and I miss it like crazy. I would say next time around, we''re going to build. The size is going to be dependent on if we have another kid.

 

[Girlrocks]

3800 sq ft. 6 bedrooms (1 is used as an office, 1 as a playroom, these 2 are on the main floor, main floor also has formal LR/DR combo in front, big country eat-in kitchen, 1 full bath and 500 sq ft FR. Upstairs has master bedroom/bathroom with 80 sq ft walk in closet, kids full bath, and 3 bedrooms for kids all with walk in closets. Then we also have a 750sq ft detached 4 car garage.

 

[ursulawrite]

1400 sq. ft 1.5 bedroom apartment in Soho, Manhattan. Plan to move to a Brooklyn townhouse, Spring 2009 (3000-4000 square feet).

 

[Independent Gal]

I hate you all!

We live in a 1bd/1bath, 800 sq ft plus a balcony.

We are definitely sizing UP, if we can afford it.

The only thing I really like about it is how fast and easy it is to clean. It must take all day to clean a 5000 sq ft house. But I guess if you can afford that (+FOUR CARS!!!) you can afford a cleaning person too.

 

[ursulawrite]

Date: 6/21/2008 4:17:00 PM
Author: Independent Gal
I hate you all!

We live in a 1bd/1bath, 800 sq ft plus a balcony.

We are definitely sizing UP, if we can afford it.

The only thing I really like about it is how fast and easy it is to clean. It must take all day to clean a 5000 sq ft house. But I guess if you can afford that (+FOUR CARS!!!) you can afford a cleaning person too.

Forget 5000 square feet--I couldn''t live without our cleaning person, and we only have 1.5 bedrooms!

 

[ericad]

Well, we keep going bigger. 1st was an apartment @ 1050 sq ft. Next was a townhouse @ 2000 sq ft. Then our current rambler @ 2300 sq ft on 1.5 acres. We have a new home under construction that is 4650 sq ft on 5 acres. That will be it until we retire one day, lol. One DD (one more planned later down the line), 2 dogs, 3 cats, so we can really fill up a house! New house will be ready in August...can't wait - I like big spaces!

ETA - we don't have a cleaning person, never have had. But I'm thinking of getting a weekly service in place for the new house. Start with a "clean" slate and keep it clean!

 

[Rhea]

Date: 6/21/2008 4:17:00 PM
Author: Independent Gal
I hate you all!

We live in a 1bd/1bath, 800 sq ft plus a balcony.


We are definitely sizing UP, if we can afford it.


The only thing I really like about it is how fast and easy it is to clean. It must take all day to clean a 5000 sq ft house. But I guess if you can afford that (+FOUR CARS!!!) you can afford a cleaning person too.

You don''t hate, mine is much smaller than yours...and no balcony or yard at all.

 

[FrekeChild]

I forgot to add that the 'rent's house is 3,500 sq ft (3 bedrooms, w/ 4 toilets, 1 bath, 1 shower and 1 bath/shower aka 1 1/2 bath, 1 full bath, and two 3/4 bath-it's confusing) with a oversized 3 car garage that brings the square footage to 5,000. On 1.7 acres.

Yes, that means that my parent's garage is about 1.5 times the size of our condo.

And my dad won't move because he can't find another house with a garage thats big enough.

And IndyGal! Don't hate me either-we've got the 937, but the second bedroom is really just a storage room, and isn't usable for living (unless you're a turtle and have to live in there with all of the stuff).

 

[robbie3982]

Ours is 1550 sqft according to our appraisal, but we have a finished basement which isn''t counted since it''s below ground. It''s a 3 bedroom, 3 full bathroom ranch on .8 acres. The appraisal says the basement is an additional 1,316 sqft (game room, laundry, 1 bathroom and storage downstairs).

I don''t think we''ll ever move. We plan on having 2 kids and I''d like for them to each have their own room, hence the 3-bedroom, but if we end up having more they''ll either have to share rooms or the gameroom will become a bedroom. Being near family was really important to us and it''s why we moved to the area we did. We live in the same town as my parents, my sister, and 2 of dh''s siblings and their families and very close to the rest of dh''s family.

Housing in this town is expensive (not compared to the rest of the country, but compared to the rest of the county) and I feel like we got a really good deal, without which, we would not have been able to afford a house here.

 

[deegee]

Our first house had 4200 square feet. When my husband accepted a new job and we relocated to a new state, we downsized to 2200 square feet. That''s about the perfect size for the two of us and our three cats. We are currently looking for a one-story house with the same square footage. Our first house had so much unused space, but it we had plenty of space when family came to visit!

 

[Dreamer_D]

We rent a three bedroom, one bath, old brick house that has about 950 sq. ft. It has a nice little yard too! When we buy, we will go a tad bigger, but we''d rather be undermorgaged and have a nice standard of living, so it may not be *much* bigger, depending where we end up settling.

And we also have a cleaning person

 

[scarlet16]

Date: 6/21/2008 4:12:09 PM
Author: ursulawrite
1400 sq. ft 1.5 bedroom apartment in Soho, Manhattan. Plan to move to a Brooklyn townhouse, Spring 2009 (3000-4000 square feet).

I am SO envious...we are currently renting a 530 sq. ft 1 bedroom in midtown! We love our location but I seriously wish we had more space (and wish we could afford more space). The plan is to upgrade in about 2 years to a condo.

 

[Pandora II]

Ours is 550 sq ft - 2 bed, 1 bath, 1 kitchen, 1 reception.

I am having a mega-sulk this evening.

FI and I spent all day house hunting and saw some great properties. Then... we saw the ONE.

825 sq ft, 2 bed, 2 bath, HUGE reception room with floor to ceiling whole wall french windows onto a big balcony - and it's on the Thames with amazing river views. It's still disgustingly expensive, but that's London, but it is in our price range.

We would have put an offer in on the spot (we kind of did anyway), but we are still waiting for our remortgage on our current property to come through (we're letting it and using the equity as the down-payment on the next). It's been 3 months now - bank is so swamped they've outsourced to a firm of lawyers who have out sourced to another firm of lawyers (who lost all our paperwork last week

). Everything is agreed we just need the money to go into the bank. I have never hated a bank so much in my life as I did this afternoon.

Then we need a new Agreement in Principle for the new place and we can go!

The property we saw today only came on the market this morning - we are hoping we might be able to sort something in the next 2-3 weeks, but this place could go really really fast.

FI is nearly in tears over it

Can we have lots of dust that:

a) No one else puts an offer in
b) the sodding bank gets a move on!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

We just downsized from a house to a townhome and are so incredibly happy about it! It's such a relief to know we're not slaves to our mortgage, yard, or vaccum cleaner. We have a great corner unit with TONS of windows and light.

Previous home - 2,600 sq. feet on 1.23 acres
Current townhome - 1901 sq. feet - with tons of parks neaby

We still have 3 bd. 2.5 bath and the new place also has an office, but doesn't have a formal living room or dining room (neither of which we need).

Our payments are 1/3 of what we were paying before

My goal is to ALWAYS live below our means from here-on-out!

 

[FrekeChild]

*****Fairy Dust for Pandora!!******

 

[ephemery1]

We live in a 1-bedroom, 1-bath, 950 sf condo in center city Philly. It feels spacious and comfortable to us, but it would be nice if the space were divided into 2 bedrooms, instead of just 1. The condo is owned by DH's parents, so when we're ready to buy ourselves, we'll probably look for something a bit bigger outside of the city... 3 bedrooms at least. Personally, I prefer an awesome location over having lots of space... so that will be our priority.

As for downsizing after the kids move out, my parents went from a large 5br, 3.5ba home to an even larger 6br, 5ba home (about 6000 sf) a few years ago. Plus they keep adding vacation homes (Virgin Islands, Hilton Head, and Rehoboth, at last count). So definitely no downsizing for them!

 

[ursulawrite]

Date: 6/21/2008 5:47:15 PM
Author: scarlet16

Date: 6/21/2008 4:12:09 PM
Author: ursulawrite
1400 sq. ft 1.5 bedroom apartment in Soho, Manhattan. Plan to move to a Brooklyn townhouse, Spring 2009 (3000-4000 square feet).

I am SO envious...we are currently renting a 530 sq. ft 1 bedroom in midtown! We love our location but I seriously wish we had more space (and wish we could afford more space). The plan is to upgrade in about 2 years to a condo.

Weeeeeell

...we're selling next spring (although we are a co-op).

Hubs and I would *love* to stay in Manhattan, but we've got a mental block on 2000 square feet plus + roof terrace--for our dog, plus next dog, plus kids--but there's no way we can afford that in Soho or Tribeca. So Brooklyn it is. I am excited about having a yard, though

Do you plan to stay in midtown? (And gorgeous ring, by the way!)

 

[Dancing Fire]

Date: 6/21/2008 4:40:59 PM
Author: ericad
Well, we keep going bigger. 1st was an apartment @ 1050 sq ft. Next was a townhouse @ 2000 sq ft. Then our current rambler @ 2300 sq ft on 1.5 acres. We have a new home under construction that is 4650 sq ft on 5 acres. That will be it until we retire one day, lol. One DD (one more planned later down the line), 2 dogs, 3 cats, so we can really fill up a house! New house will be ready in August...can''t wait - I like big spaces!

ETA - we don''t have a cleaning person, never have had. But I''m thinking of getting a weekly service in place for the new house. Start with a ''clean'' slate and keep it clean!

i don''t know,maybe just me.....i wouldn''t feel comfortable with a cleaning lady coming in.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

We started in a 2 br/1 bath, 800 sq ft apartment. After a year we moved to a 3 br/2.5 bath, 1500 sq ft house. Lived there for 3 years. Now we live in a 4 br/2.5 bath, 3250 sq ft house. It is perfect for us and we plan on raising our kids here. The rooms are large, open kitchen, separate office and sunroom (which I think would be a perfect playroom) and at the end of a cul-de-sac. We plan to build another garage (with an apartment on top for DH''s business). I guess once the kids are gone (in a million years

) we''ll downsize.

 

[Dandi]

My first place was a roughly 650 sq ft apartment with a tiny front courtyard, comfortable for one person. My husband (boyfriend at the time

) had a 3br 2 bathroom house that was probably rought 1500sq ft. 2 years ago we built our 3800sq ft 4 br/plus study/3 bathroom house, it's big for the two of us but of course we built it with lots of room to grow.

ETA: And we're currently in the process of building a workshop down the back for DH, probably about 1200 sq ft on the ground, but it will have a mezzanine floor for the car hoist (yes, he simply MUST have a hoist

) so I'm not sure how many sq ft that will make it ultimately. There will be an office and a bathroom in it, so I said to him all he needs is a bed and a barfridge and I'll have the house all to myself!!

 

[Haven]

Our house is 1597 sq ft, plus a one-car garage. We're sitting on a perfect size plot of land, 70 X 140 ft (9966 sq ft), so our yard is nice and big.

We have 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. If anything, we'll add on when we have kids, but I don't think we'll ever seriously upgrade. I love this house and location so much I can't imagine leaving. We also want a summer or lake house (even though we're 2 miles from Lake Michigan in our regular home) so we'll put our money there, instead of into a larger home.

I grew up in a small home (1550 sq ft) and loved it, and FI grew up in condos in the city so he likes smaller spaces, too. We like not owning a lot of stuff, so we don't really need a lot of space, anyway.

We were also influenced by Susan Susanka's "Not So Big House" books when we chose our home. If you love living in a smaller space you'll love her books.

This is a really interesting thread, DF.

ETA: Regarding downsizing once the kiddies are out, my parents are actually planning on adding on some serious space so all of the hypothetical grandbabies can pile in and stay with them on the weekends. I told them they have PLENTY of time to work out the details, because I'm the oldest and there are no babies in sight yet!

 

[fleur-de-lis]

Date: 6/21/2008 1:42:38 PM
Author: FrekeChild
Our condo is 937 sq ft. 2 bedrooms, one bath. We''ll upsize. I don''t really care about the living space but I want a yard so I can have a puppy or two.


ETA: my parents built their house as an expandable thing for when I moved out. Half of the square footage is on one air conditioner and half is on the other. The side they live on consists of: Master bedroom, 2 master bathrooms, sunroom, casual living room, kitchen, breakfast area, laundry, powder room and garage. The other side has 2 bedrooms, 1 full bath, entry, formal living, formal dining, coat closet, and linen closet. I mention the closets because they are all walk-in and very large.


So when guests come to stay, they can crank up the air conditioning or heat and have a huge house, and when they leave, they can turn everything off and go back down to a half of a house. It''s really very cool, and my mom and I designed it that way.

What a clever idea, FrekeChild-- major props to both you and your mom!

 

[fleur-de-lis]

Date: 6/21/2008 6:04:42 PM
Author: Pandora II
Can we have lots of dust that:


a) No one else puts an offer in

b) the sodding bank gets a move on!

The place sounds fabulous, PandoraII-- dust on both accounts coming your way!

 

[bebe]

5600 sq. ft., depending if you count my junk room!
10 yrs. old, custom built
and oh yeah, no maid!!

 

[vslover]

Date: 6/21/2008 8:27:16 PM
Author: Dancing Fire

Date: 6/21/2008 4:40:59 P

i don''t know,maybe just me.....i wouldn''t feel comfortable with a cleaning lady coming in.

If you''re able to be there when the cleaning lady comes...it''s not so bad. I''m a stay at home mom and I love ours (it''s actually 3 ladies) and I''m usually there when they come. I don''t stay the whole time, though, usually...