Kids can crash anywhere…I wouldnt worry about them. A couple of air mattresses, pillows and blankets will solve the problem once a year
Heck if the weather is good, the little ones may like sleeping in a tent in your yard with blankets and sleeping bags–slumber party! Little ones take very little space. Air mattresses, futons and convertible sofas are fine as well as Murphy beds. Don’t overthink and go too large–small is easier to maintain.
My inlaws had the HUGE house…and the huge condo because theynwanted places for all,of their kids to be able to come at the same time. It worked out sort of ok when the kids were little. But by the time they were about 8 years old…there were just TOO many people at the same time in the same house…sharing NOT enough bathrooms.
If my inlaws had moved to a hotel, their kids still would,NOT have stayed in the house. It was too congested, too crowded, and too noisy with all of their kids, spouses, and grandchildren. None of us particularly liked that.
Our kids will be welcome to stay with us…if they want to. But the smaller house, with one floor, will not be purchased for the couple,of weekends a year when they all might be here. That’s what hotels are for.
It took so much effort to convince DH to buy a house in the first place, that I know when we downsize it will have to be a forever place. I’d love 1800-2000 sq ft with 3 BR, 2 BA, two masters (one would be my craft room), no yard. Must be one level. Alternative is to build an extra BR/BA on our current house on the main level, so that we could have our dads here periodically and that we could use later and age in place. Current main level has no BR or BA. Downside is that by adding on, we are overimproving for the neighborhood. I don’t see DH wanting to leave this area (and I want to stay near my medical team), but we could get what we want and pay a lot less for it if w were geographically flexible. Another advantage to staying here is that S2 is likely to say in this area, and it’s an easy trip for S1 to get here if needed.
Alternative is a 3 BR condo, which would be an even swap for our house, but would not get us closer to his office.
Am giving lots of thought to this. I would pay for families to stay at a hotel if they want; we are all sufficiently introverted that some space away from the happy chaos would be appreciated. (We started doing this a few years back when we visited my parents. Twenty adults in the house and now grandnieces and nephews was just too much.)
We just returned from 6 nights staying with D and FSIL in their apartment in Sommerville on the edge of Cambridge.
Their guest room has a double so I took that and H used the futon in the living room.
One bathroom. The place is super clean–thanks to FSIL not D! Still, I just wanted my own place
in a hotel at night.
In the past we have stayed in a hotel a few nights and with them a few nights.
Due to graduations the close hotels were booked. We even broke up the trip with an AirBnB for two
nights in Providence for her graduation. My first experience of AirBnB and I have mixed feelings about
other people’s stuff around but the younger set does not mind.
Great ideas here and has me thinking. We have been hanging on to our house for a number of reasons
but one is that there is space for the times they are all here.
We did build so that we can stay–wide halls, everything needed on one floor with all the extras on
a different floor.
I stopped going to H’s family vacations years ago largely due to having huge groups–20-24 one cottage
and 12 at the other. The lack of quiet time drove me nuts. No decent motels around and H would not
leave his relatives.
I think about this almost constantly. We sold our house a couple of years ago and have rented a nice townhouse in a luxury complex right outside of Boston. That is our short term plan until we figure out what we’d like to do. The good thing is now I know what I like and don’t like here and what I’d need in the new place. I actually the space we had in our house. I’ve had a difficult adjustment living in a small space (about 1600 sq ft), but realize it would be ludicrous to move back to a house. I have three kids in the area so we wouldn’t need space for them and their families to stay here. My youngest just graduated from college and will be moving to California for his chosen career. He would be the only one we’d need space for. I miss some outdoor space and the ability to grill. I would like that in the new condo as well as a lower level master bedroom. I agree with the poster above who would like most of their space to be in the living room/dining room and kitchen. Believe it or not, we are having a very tough time finding a condo in this area that has everything we want.
My kids love to be together as they see each other so infrequently. The night before my daughter’s wedding, we had a big party in her bedroom while she packed for her honeymoon! Because we only have the two children, and they each most likely will only have two of their own, we are not talking about a lot of people when they visit. When we visit them, they insist we stay at their homes so that we can spend more time together. That said, 10 days in my daughter’s tiny flat was just a bit too long; husband and daughter are both type A! 
We have a large family in the area, so there will always be a place for my kids if we can not host them, or they might chose a hotel; time will tell. In the meantime, we will continue with our search for the perfect home.
We just bought a home, sight unseen, in Scottsdale, AZ. The market is so hot, we had to offer more than list price. . I found it online and our college aged son saw it with a realtor, so got his approval. We go down for the inspection on Friday. It is all on one level, 1800 square feet, with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It has a lot of carpet, which will have to come out at some point. Son and wife will live in it for a few years, until H retires. In the meantime, we’ll visit for extended periods in the winter.
One of our kids broke his leg in 7th grade football, so we learned early that homes with stairs can be a nightmare. Our current home is a 2 story, plus it has a sunken family room AND living room.
Going to be extremely repetitive and vote for the single level no stairs. I’m 55 and currently live in a three level house which I absolutely hate. I hate having the laundry room in the basement. I hate so much wasted space. I hate the high cost of maintaining a big house. When we retire in a few years, it will definitely be to a one level. We once lived in a one level four bedroom house of about 2300 square feet that I absolutely adored. The laundry room was three steps outside the master bedroom. The master bath was plush with a separate shower and soaker tub. It had a small den off of the main living room that was just a perfect size to be our casual TV room. Just a great house. I hope I can find something similar for our retirement. If not, I am thinking of resorting to having a modular home built somewhere. I will absolutely not be living in a three level home ever again. I know, smh, but they are just not for me.
Also, re: stairs, 1800 sq. ft. on one floor feels much more spacious than a 3,200 sq. ft. home with 1600 sq. ft. on each floor – you lose so much space to the staircase and useless area around it.
We downsized seven years ago. It actually two about two years to consolidate into the smaller place, so my first advice is to allow plenty of time. Our current home is a three level town home. We love not having a big yard to take care of! We hadn’t realized how much of our time was spent on yard work. Our home requires a flight of steps to reach the front door on the middle floor, with a partially finished (family room and full bath) and rough finished (laundry and storage), plus garage, downstairs, and three bedrooms and two baths on top. Middle is living room, dining room, kitchen, and half bath. What I don’t love is laundry in the lowest level. Our old house had an upstairs laundry room and I loved it.
We have three bedrooms but the two non-master are small. Right now, with no married kids, it’s OK when everyone happens to be here. We have already told them that marriage will get them a hotel room nearby. I would have loved a hotel room every time I visited my in-laws, so I feel no sorrow about that.
There were not any one level homes in the area when we bought except 55 and over communities, for which we did not qualify. A friend’s husband recently had a stroke and H and I looked at each other and said “What if…” We realized that we can roll a wheelchair from the garage into the lower level and the infirm one can live there until other arrangements can be made, should we find ourselves in a situation like that. We plan to stay until retirement unless something happens.
I’m about to start construction on my “downsize”. Unlike most posters here, my current home is only 1800 square feet (2B/2B) with a finished basement that has a bedroom and living area, another 800 square feet or so, but used only intermittently, mostly “teen space”. My downsize is an in-law apartment above the new two-car garage. I’m having it built into the hill so access is ground level into the backside of the apartment which will be 734 square feet (1B/1B with a small hallway kitchen) all on one floor which can also be accessed via the garage by a full set of stairs. I designed it with wider halls/entry and it will include grab bars and a built-in bench in the shower, for my future years. Probably won’t move in until D graduates from college because there will be just the one bedroom. I’ll then rent my current house.
We never upsized. But, we built over 15 years ago (at 45 years old) with kids in tow our retirement home 2700 Sq Ft. It has xeroscape, so no yard work. We do have a lower level garage and space to add a stair lift or elevator if needed to the first floor and to the second floor and ability to expand the door ways if needed. I realize that decreased mobility and a walker and wheelchair change everything.
There is a guest bedroom and full bath (also used as a powder room) on the open concept dining/kitchen/living room main level. That was intentional. And a den/exercise/office room that could also be a bedroom. The plan was, if needed, to add a lift or elevator, get the laundry washed by someone who comes into clean or take away. The laundry is on the second floor next to the 3 bedrooms which are great for now.
There are 2 evaporative coolers that are very inexpensive to run. The solar panels cover the electricity. There are 7 heating controls with electric basewater heat. This is very nice for just heating only the parts you use which this winter only required 2, the living room and the garage, with the heat rising to the rest of the house. Heating is our biggest utility expense. I would not have thought of separate controls but our builder did.
All that said, none of my relatives, parents (who lived until 95) who had stairs needed to move. Their main level had a bedroom and only some had a bathroom though on the main level. I think about 900 Sq Ft would be comfortable if laid out well.
I guess there is no ideal and we have an open mind that if needed, we would move. The future is unknown, isn’t it?
I bought my first and only house 21 years ago in a city with high housing prices thinking that it would be the "starter home at 1400 square feet. At the time I jokingly thought, “I could live here when I’m old since two of the bedrooms and a bath are one the first floor, and there’s no basement.”
Things were a little tight space wise but with only one child and soaring house prices (meaning I could get a lot more than I paid for my house but then would have to pay a lot more than that to upsize) I’m still there. I added a large screened porch on the back, which makes the house seem much more spacious about four months of the year.
So now that I’m on my way to “old” it looks like I’m not budging, at least for a while. I’ve never lived in a multi-family building and think I would hate hearing noises from other units, so I just can’t imagine doing that…unless my hearing starts to go. 
We are in the process of evaluating what type of housing we want as we approach retirement. We currently have a 2 story with additional finished lower level, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. We have a very private, heavily wooded yard which we love. We are physically active but H has had back surgery and I have had knee surgery so we want a one level with a finished walkout basement. We do not want a condo or apartment as we want to be able to have our own private outdoor space and I don’t want to have a shared wall with anyone where I have to worry about keeping my music volume down or keep grandchildren quiet.My in-laws lived in a condo and when our girls were little they were yelled at for skipping down the hall. They never wanted to go visit them after that and I never want that for my future grandkids. Both Ds live within 10-15 minutes from us so we don’t want to move very far. We have looked at new downsized detached townhomes in our area but they are more expensive than our current home and then there are the additional HOA fees! Yikes! If we don’t find the almost perfect place we will age in place and hire someone to do physically difficult chores for us. It is a dilemma that we think about every day!
I’m amused by how many people are downsizing to houses that are bigger than our house, or at least bigger than ours was before we tripled the size of our kitchen and added a master bath and laundry upstairs. Around here it’s pretty hard to find a story with rooms that can really be used for bedrooms on the ground level, and most houses are raised two or three feet off the ground so the basements can have a bit of light. I’ve worked on a lot of houses whose last owner was someone old - people add grab bars and stair lifts and convert sun porches and dining rooms into bedrooms. I love our house, though it’s clearly now bigger than it needs to be. (Youngest son just left for his next adventure this morning. He’s unlikely to ever be home again except when he’s on leave.) My inclination is to stay here until I’m not interested in gardening or one of us becomes too frail, or goes gaga. Then perhaps an apartment near the train station so trips to the city are easy.
I designed a one level house for my parents. It was located where my father’s retirement job was. What they discovered was that once my Dad started to fall apart, a big house on a huge piece of land no longer worked. Many of their friends had moved or passed on. They originally intended to find assisted living closer to one of their kids, (the closest - me - was a seven hour drive away), but ultimately they got a cute Cape in New England - near everyone but me. (Still closer than Virginia had been though.) The master was on the ground floor, and it had two rooms in the attic for guests and sewing.
I’ve looked for an article that addresses this directly, but I remember reading years ago that people who live in houses with stairs live longer and are able to age in place longer than those who live in one-story houses. We hope to stay here in our present house as long as possible.
There have been studies which conclude that physical fitness (rather than weight or other factors) is the key to longevity. As long as one is fit and active, they get that benefit. They do not have to reside in two story homes to be fit. My left knee is not liking going up stairs, but at the very least, I can power walk, swim, do yoga, etc. to improve my odds. Right now, going upstairs 30 times a day seems to be harming my ability to be active rather than helping me. I had to ice my “bad” knee today after riding, and that made me frustrated and sad.
We currently live in a home we could make OK for retirement/aging. All bedrooms are on the second level, and there is only a half bath on the first level, but there is a large office room on the first level and there’s room to add a bath or shower in the half-bath.
What worries me is we live in a neighborhood bordered by “major” highways, and to exit our neighborhood, you need to merge into traffic going quite fast. To go north, you need to cross at a light, and merge into the FAST lane very quickly. As we get older, I feel like we would be taking a bigger risk to execute the merge successfully.
I think it’s important to have at least some kind of bathroom on the main level, for ourselves and for guests. I also want to have a room that could be a master on the main level, even if we initially don’t use it as such.
Of all the things I thought that might go wrong in my late 50’s, a bad knee never once entered my mind. Wow, does it ever affect your life. I live in a big 3 story house with a hill down to the lake. I love it here, but we are simply going to have to move.
I would like a 1800 square foot (main floor) one story house with tall ceilings and a main floor master. I would like a finished basement basement with 2 small bedrooms, family room and a small kitchen. I don’t need a formal dining area, but would like my everyday eating space to be large enough to accommodate 8-10 if needed. To make my world even more perfect, I would like a huge garage waaaay in the back of the property where my DH can have his stuff. He can get his daily exercise by going to visit his treasures!
I would love a private back yard overlooking a park or lake.
I think half the fun of visiting grandma is the crowded sleeping arrangements. Kids and stuff everywhere…love it!