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Oh boy, NAH, we once had a 5,000+ sq ft home in Texas, w/ 6 bathrooms. It darn near killed me keeping that place clean. Happy now with my little 2800sq ft colonial in MA. Yes, there is such thing as too big, at least for me!
That's how we feel, we recently moved from a 3700 sq ft home to a 2200 sq ft, basic floor plan is about the same. I don't miss any of that monster---the sky-high utility bills, and, like you said, just cleaning that monster was a full-time job in itself!
Although we're just renting this "little" place until we can sell our biggie place, its growing on us. Once we resolve the other home, either manage to sell or get a good, stable renter, we might just make an offer on this. What on earth did we need with all that space, anyways! This house, and the smaller bills, frees us up for other things. Unless you plan on just spending all your time in your home, what do you need all that for?
This place almost has a cottage-feel to it, with a brick fireplace, and plantation shutters, my "antique" style furniture really fits in here. this place feels like home, the other place felt like a hotel.
I don't know about that MaryleeII, I own a 3000+ sq feet and I live in it by myself... the utility bills aren't sky high for me (probably around $200 per month for everything including internet)... I looked at 2000-3000 sq ft homes before and they were too small even for me... I also don't clean very much... what is there to clean? Alright, so I hired a person to take care of the yard perhaps that took a lot of the housework out... hehehehe... I am actually looking to build a 5000-6000 sq ft home in the future (as soon as I can find the "ideal" piece of land)... I need some space to hide from my wife once in a while... hehehehe...
I guess I am one of the few to admit that I like a big house. We don't need all the space we have but we like it. We could easily live in half the square footage we have now but we enjoy a large home.
I think there is such a thing as too big. I have no personal experience with living in a too big house. All 3 of ours have been 2000-2300 sf. I just think enough is enough. Ideally, I'd love to have about 2600 sf. We are a family of 4. Anything more would be a waste of money and resources.
You people calling 2200 sq ft and up homes "small" crack me up. I have never lived in a house over 1530 sq ft. And I only have that much space because we added a family room 12 years ago when the kids were young. But I can't imagine anything over 3000 sq ft (for those really large families) feeling like a home.
I have been in huge homes that have a great flow and design, a few open rooms, some cozier rooms - they have felt warm and cozy. A big home can feel inviting and cozy depending on the way the house is designed, architecture and interior design. I've been in gigantic rambling homes with mutliple hallways and wings - you literally can get lost in homes like that. My husband and I live in a 3200 sf house by ourselves and it is definitely not too big.
I read through this whole thread, and it was great entertainment on this beautiful Monday morning!
Currently, I live in a house that is about 1000 square feet, with 3 small-ish bedrooms.. Originally, the 2nd bedroom was an office, the 3rd bedroom was the junk room, and the dining room was just a glorified hallway between the living room and the kitchen. (since it's just me, I always thought sitting alone eating dinner at the table would be too depressing, so I eat in the living room) Now, I've moved the office into the dining room for a better view into the backyard/park. The former office has become the junk room, and the former junk room has become the guest bedroom.
The house I'm still trying to buy across town is about 1700 s.f. and has 4 bedrooms. I don't think I'll need all that space, but I love the house. So I'm sure I'll find some use for the extra rooms. I'm already thinking of turning one of the extra bedrooms into a retro architect's studio (since I'm an architect) with a drafting table, old wooden filing cabinets, etc.
However the current trend of trading quality for maximum square footage is unfortunate and in many cases foolish. All too often, even in custom homes people trade off quality for more square footage. All too often, this comes back to haunt them int he long run.
A client once told me that I should never get a big house. He said that when he was building his company, they had a small house and the family was often together. They only had one place to watch TV, one comuter, one main common room. They often played games together, watched TV together, etc. Then his business took off, he got a giant house with tvs and comuters in every room, a game room, a hobby room etc. Now he never sees his family anymore. Everyone is laways in their own room and scattered around. They never do things together anymore.
I took that to be a problem with his family, not the house. Now we have a biggish house and I see that he has a point. I come home from work and there can be as many as a dozen people in our house and I cannot find any of them. Our kids do not hang out together as much as in the past. They tend to go off to seperate rooms to do their things. Part of that is a function of them getting older. My client did have a valid point though. We are not thrown together as much as we were in a smaller house. People can and do spread out and hide. People want to watch idfferent TV shows go into different rooms rather than working out a compromise.
We also found that we pretty much end up using three or four rooms most of the time, and probably 50% or more of our time is spent in our bedroom. There is no reason for that, it just works out that way. The kids come in for Mom do help with hair, to discuss something or watch TV. Sometimes we order a pizza and everyone just sits on our bed and watches a movie while eating Pizza. The kids always try to use our bathroom because it is much nicer than any of the others. If Mom comes home tired and goes to our room to read for a while, the kids often go to our room to do their homework. On the weekends, if they want ot hide form the evil daddy who might make them work. A lot fo the extra space is wasted a lot of the time. Frankly, I think we could get by just find with a small house that has a large master bedroom, several small bedrooms and a small kitchen.
The disadvantages were mostly discussed by others, but it is not all disadvatnages. We find that a big house has advantages:
1. Lots of room for sleepovers, or multiple kid gatherings at once (i.e. teens in the back parlor, pre-teens int he game room, college kids in the library, adults in the front parlor or dining room, etc).
2. The extra bedroom allows us to host exchange students, seperate fighting kids for a night (or a season whatever is necessary).
3. It is easy to set aside one room as the "clean room" and do not use it for day to day life. That way if you ever have a surprise visit you can host in the clean room while other people are quickly cleaning the other rooms.
4. Multiple bathrooms are nice even if they rarely get used.
5. Although it is harder to get around to clean each room, the dirt and clutter tend to be less. Thus it is easier to clean any given room than when our life is concentrated, but thre are more rooms to clean.
6. It is easy to get away if you want to be left alone to read, think, meditate, pray, etc. we have one room that everyone usually forgets about. Thus, if you go in there, it is unlkely that anyone will find you.
7. Noise control. The gameroom in the basement is where we keep the organ (for voice practice) musical instruments, electric guitar, X-box (and guitar hero), air hockey and other noisey things and events. The room is sound dampened, so it takes an insane amount of noise to impact the rest of the house.
8. Messy activities can be done in a room witha closeable door and we can just close off that room if we are going to have guests.
9. Big dinner parties. We have only had a couple but it is ful to host dinner for 40 or so people.
10. Decorating variety. If you enjoy decorating, the more space you have the more different ideas you can apply.
11. Winter sports. During really nasty winter days, we can still play tag or hide and seek and run around enough to get our hearts beating.
12. Working at home. Working at home is wonderful if you have the discipline to make it work out. WE had a fully functional business office in the carriage house attic and I worked at home for two years. It was nice to be home when the kids got home and take a half hour break to do something withthem.
You can resolve some of the disadvantages by finding neat products. For example, the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner can be programmed to sweep a room once a day and then return to its charger. Yes it is pricy, but you always have a clean room with no effort (except that you have to keep clutter picked up and you have to empty the roomba once in a while.) You do nto have to fully heat all of the rooms all winter if it is too costly. You can turn some rooms way down and keep the door closed and only heat them back up when you need them. You can also just forget about cleaning some rooms for a time if you are nto going to be using them.
give me 1300 square feet with real woodwork and cabinets, high-quality flooring, sound-proofed walls, high-end carpet, no vinyl siding, etc. over a 3000 square foot house of cheap materials.
to me, a square of fine chocolate beats a king size Hershey bar.
We moved from our 1265 sq ft home (with basement) to a 1640 sq ft home (with basement) and a 3 car garage on an acre of land we had. It's enough of a "bigger" home for us. We're "empty nesters" with one dog and have plenty of room, could have had a smaller house built actually and been fine with it.......
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But I can't imagine anything over 3000 sq ft (for those really large families) feeling like a home.
