I have a five bedroom, 2400 sq ft home and while I want to downsize some day, we do use our entire house - except the covered patio since we’re having a mosquito problem this year. I know we are in the minority, but we eat dinner in the dining room every day. Even when it was just Kiddo #3 and I the other day we ate in the dining room. It’s a calming thing. Breakfast is at the counter, lunch on weekends on the kitchen table. Our spare bedroom was used for an exchange student last year, and my parents will come visit for a couple weeks each year. The living room is used for homework and I teach some classes there periodically through the year, the family room is for TV watching. (We have doors that can isolate the noise from the Kitchen/FR area). Basement has a home office and TV/video game setup and an air hockey table. And the washer and dryer. So it will always get used!
We downsized about a year ago to about 2200 square feet. The dining room and nook don’t get much use since we have a huge counter in the kitchen with 4 bar stools. The patio isn’t used enough. And the guest bedroom and bathroom are only used when D is home on break or family visits. But it’s much better than the last house, which was twice the size with many unused spaces.
We are in our empty nesting dream house, an antique property restored with reckless disregard for resale value.
The only consideration was how we would use and enjoy the spaces and there are no extra rooms.
Downstairs is entry hall, parlor, dining room, small kitchen with large pantry, bathroom. Upstairs is office/library, bedroom, large dressing room with closets, bathroom. There are upstairs and downstairs porches.
We use every space daily and eat meals in the dining room. It’s a space only for eating. Occasionally we eat on a porch. We never eat in kitchen. It’s deliberately designed not to have an eating space.
The small original kitchen house is now a guest space for our adult children. We added a bathroom. Between kids and other out of town company, we make heavy use of this space.
Depending on the final count of grandchildren, and how often they visit… we may add a very simple bunk house structure.
I have a large home. We even have a huge pool house next to it. I use almost all of it all the time. I suppose I’m the last dinosaur who entertains and has a large family. I just had 20 people here for a long weekend. “Kids” in the pool house, adults in the main house. When we all weren’t outside, some sat in the living, some in the family room, people were playing pool in the billiard room and hanging out at the bar there. And we ate in the dining room and kitchen. I also have a home office where I am right now.
When it’s just the two of us - and our 3 cats and 1 dog - I use the office every day, I drink coffee in the living room, or just hang out in there to talk on the phone (the dog can’t go in there) I use the dining room for holidays and when it’s our turn to host a dinner group we’re in. We’ve done an occasional project there and when my cousin is here to work she uses it as her office. Of course we’re in the kitchen and family room most. Both kids have a room, and we have a guest room. I also use my sitting room in my bedroom as well. My home gym is in the basement next door and hubby’s office is over there. So yes, I have a huge house, but honestly we do use it and spread out. And yes, it is a lot of upkeep. I have a house cleaner, and yard people to help out.
Obviously I could be fine with way less, but it works for us.
Slightly off topic, but thank you to those with large homes who are willing to host big groups. H’s sister (6 kids, 4 grandchildren with many more on the way) constantly invites us and her other 5 sibs and their families over. Their house is very large, allowing everyone to spread out, chat with different guests, etc. My kids love to spend time there with their cousins (16 of them live in the area). SIL is a terrific cook and a really unflappable hostess, so she handles 30+ people for dinner with less stress than I have hosting six. I love visiting there as it is a nice switch from our usually quiet lives (and I tell SIL that often, and wash lots of dishes when I’m there :), to ensure that we keep getting invited).
Our house has 24’ x 24’ interior space. It’s just the two of us now, though my mother lived here for a couple of years, and our two sons come back, sometimes with DIL or SO.
- Unfinished basement: washing machine, clothesline, work benches, storage.
- First floor: entry and half-bath, open concept kitchen / dining / living area. Currently bloated with moving boxes from late MIL's house. Home to two large dogs and their crates. We spend most of our time here.
- Second floor: three bedrooms, full bath. Sleep only, though each bedroom is comfortable enough to use as an away space when we have a houseful.
- Unfinished walk-up attic: storage now, exercise equipment, office space for DH when he teleworks one week in four. So many boxes, still purging MIL's things and ours.
When my mother moved in, we gave her the master and used the attic as our bedroom. There was enough room for all of us, though introverted me had a hard time in the open concept with my highly interactive mother. If we’d had the dogs at the time, I would have curled up in one of their crates. 
The house worked nicely when we have family over. Biggest “crowd” we’d have is around nine people. Dining table doesn’t have leaves, but we moved my writing desk over to extend it.
I’m on my laptop at my desk now, looking around, and those dogs take up a lot of room! :o3 :o3
Our usage of all the spaces in the house went way down when every one was gone to university, but the last few years, with a nearby married kid and grandkids, as my DH says, there is no place those kids don’t go. We have extras of all the kids and grandkids clothes in the dresser, toys here, toys there. It’s messier, but sweet and fun
^^ Fun post @HouseChatte I can picture it all!
@LuckyCharms913 , your point is SO true. My brother and SIL have a large first floor with a huge kitchen and huge family room - it’s so easy when we are there and everyone is so comfortable. We and I REALLY appreciate it!
I also want to say that we do NOT have an open concept and it is my preference. The living room/foyer/DR/sunporch are all separate rooms but with open wide archways so it doesn’t feel closed but does feel separate. And I love a kitchen that is just a kitchen and not open to other rooms. It would drive me nuts to have the noise of H’s tv or time on the phone or whatever - leave me be in my kitchen!!! (that said when people come over everyone tends to hang in the kitchen - no matter how crowded - it would be LOTS of red dots on the heat map! I’m like TAKE YOUR RED DOTS ELSEWHERE THERE ARE PLENTY OF ROOMS HERE!!! )
Our 2000+ old house felt very small when the boys were teens plus a big dog. Most of our friends upgraded to more square footage and are now selling, but we stayed because we could never replicate the location and it has house multi-generations already so not something we are wiling to have pass out of the family. But now that the boys are gone it feels just right again. The 3 bedrooms they used are closed up and doors shut. One converted to an office, one to a guest room and one just for a spare room. The bathroom they shared doesn’t get much use which is one less room to clean IMO. Our dining is off the kitchen and we use it all the time even when it’s just my H and I as neither of us was the type to eat in front of the TV. Our small living room doesn’t get a ton of use but the dining, living, sunroom are all open to each other so feels more like one big space and the sunroom fuctions more like a family room in the more modern floorplans. I could probably draw a heatmap just based off what needs to be cleaned constantly although you still have to dust the living room regularly even though it’s use is very limited.
If anything my house is too small but that said, I wouldn’t really want it much bigger, just redesigned for better use of the space we have. It’s probably about 2000 sq ft including a small room downstairs (not a basement as we have a coastal style house where our garage is ground level with a (later finished) room next to it, then the middle floor is our main level and top/third floor is where our bedrooms are.
We are a family of six, originally purchased as a starter home while dh was in the Navy and we thought we’d move 3 years later. Alas, he decided not to make a career as a Naval officer but we ended up staying and for a variety of reasons, we never moved. Original house was 3 bedroom with eat-in kitchen and living/dining room. We had a beautiful and well used screened in porch off the back. When child #3 was due, we looked at moving but we loved our neighborhood/neighbors (still do!) so we ended up enclosing the porch into a family room and added a fourth bedroom above it. Eventually fourth kid arrived so our boys have always had to share a bedroom and the girls have had their own rooms. Tiny hall bath for them - one thing I’ve always wanted to enlarge but no space to. We use every room in the house - the least used room is the old living/dining room (which is also the room entered from the front door as we have no foyer) but I have an armoire in there with my computer and all my paperwork, etc so it does get used daily by me. However it is a good sized room so most of it is only used when we host family for holidays.
A couple of things I would change if I didn’t have four kids to get through college - enlarge the kids’ bathroom, bump out our front porch and screen it in as we can’t add to the back (and b/c we are in a coastal area, this type of facade would not be strange - many houses here have screened front porches), rearrange my main level such that the cooking/prep side of our eat-in kitchen was bigger and a small nook for my office. However, aside from maybe doing the porch, we will probably not bother with the other things and just move once at least the first three are in/out of college.
I’ve never wanted a huge house and as noted before, if my house were laid out better, the space we have for our medium sized family would be fine. When we leave here, most likely we would not downsize or at least not by much. I think I’d still want four bedrooms so that when our kids are older and coming to visit we’d still have room for them and/or grandkids. I’d probably make one of them an office.
Two years ago, a friend of mine of mine, family of four, went from a beautiful waterfront home with 11000 sq feet, unground pool and guest house to an in town row house of about 1800 sq feet. Family of four and the oldest had just left for his freshman year of college. I could not imagine how she was going to down so much in size as in their old home. Each kid had own bedroom but also their own living space as well, plus several other rarely used spaces. Their new home has a living room and eat in kitchen - that’s it for common space! However, they absolutely love being able to walk everywhere around our historic, tourist town. They have more time together when they are home b/c there is no where, other than bedrooms, for them to hang out. No basement, no backyard or porch. I’m so happy it worked out b/c I truly was nervous they would be ready to kill each other (her dh does travel a lot so maybe that helps LOL).
Yes, most marinas have pump out facilities for cabin cruisers, yachts, houseboats, etc. Some ocean going craft are also equipped with “macerating” toilets, which are basically garbage disposals that grinds up the poo and flush it into the sea. Too much information, I know. Sorry.
Back to the topic at hand: Our house is much larger than we need. As I’ve explained in the home improvement thread, we purchased and completed a house that was basically a shell when we bought it from a bank. It’s roughly 5000 square feet on two levels but its septic system is only rated for 3 bedrooms, so all of the rooms are quite generous. On the main floor we have entry, kitchen, bathroom, great room, laundry room, a library, and a master suite which we currently use as our shared office but intend to use as our bedroom when we’re too old to use the stairs.
Upstairs we have a master bedroom, guest bedroom and bath, and what we call the “view room”, which is a great spot for morning coffee or evening sunsets.
Truthfully, we use all of the rooms, but realistically we could be comfortable with half the square footage.
We use all of our space in our 1,400 square foot home. We have a lovely outdoor space that we entertain in year round since we live in Southern California. Our community has a pool and tennis courts and we can walk to shops, restaurants, movies and the beach (a little less than a mile). And in 3 years public transportation will be completed in our area that will get us downtown and all the way to the Mexico border. We are really looking forward to this with retirement in the next 5-7 years.
Our House2 is the same square footage as House1, not counting the finished basement. We definitely use a much bigger % of space in House2 even though it is mostly just the two of us. The space is simply more adapted for grownup use and not as compartmentalized (semi-open plan downstairs): a kitchen, dining room, living room, laundry room, powder bath, and library downstairs and 3 beds/2 baths up. A hodgepodge of “rooms” in the basement. In the old place, we had an extra (fourth) bedroom and a bonus room upstairs and a formal living room downstairs in addition to the rooms we have now.
This reminds me of a recent conversation with a friend who pointed out that we only use our cars 5% of the time, but have a lot of money tied up in them, so we should get rid of our cars and use Uber. No. I never felt I needed to use my car a huge percentage of the time to justify having one.
Likewise, I don’t feel I need to use the living room, dining room, porch, patio, basement, and spare bedrooms all the time to justify having them.
Our map would look a lot like the one in the story now that our 3 kids are off doing better things and it is only 2 of us in the house. My contribution would be kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and laying on the floor in the family room with the dog. Ours is a 2000 sq ft tract home in a little cul-de-sac. Downstairs is kitchen with a breakfast nook that seats 6 comfortably, family room with the tv, 1/2 bath, a rarely used dining room and our living room that used to be the kids’ playroom that eventually morphed to two reading chairs and a piano. Upstairs is 5BR, bath in the master and another in the hall, none of it large, but it gave us enough walls so each kid could have a room and we had a spare for guests and what used to be the computer room. The move to laptops has changed the need.
It was big enough to raise our kids but small enough that we don’t feel a need to ever downsize. Some other things we were fortunate to get that were not on the list when house hunting: a half acre where most newer houses are on less than 5000 sf and walking distance to all 3 schools. Houses on the street don’t change hands often.
Washer and dryer are in the garage. Basements are not a thing here.
Our house is 2300 sq feet with 3 beds and 2 bathrooms with the master on the main.
Our kitchen is small compared to our dining and living rooms. The living room has two full sized couches, a piano and two different sitting areas. DH and I each have a favorite couch and our cats have a favorite person, so often our evenings end with us chatting on our couches while petting our cats =))
No eat in kitchen so the dining room is one of the most used communal spaces and has a huge dining table that can extend for holidays. No tv on the main floor so we have to go up to the den (located between our boys’ empty bedrooms) and frankly the tv doesn’t get much use. We set up the house so that the kids had the upper floor, so right now it’s a whole bunch of unused space.
We are converting an unused space off the living room into a walk in closet for the master. It used to be a playroom.
We use our wraparound porch a bunch. Realtors stop by often to ask if we want to sell- people apparently see the porch and want the house. The porch is huge and set up for lazy lounging (railings are hand carved by DH and wide to accommodate a cold drink while sitting in a chair.)
The house is too big for just the two of us but we will stay here until we can’t. The local housing market is crazy and we’d never find a quiet neighborhood like this again.
We have a very large home in terms of square footage, but we use most of it. DH runs his business out of our house, so his office is quite large, with adjoining bathroom, TV room (for finance channels/stock market tape during the day, movie room at night), and tiny kitchenette-this office set up probably takes up at least 1000 feet or more. Only 3 bedrooms, but each with ensuite (master bedroom is enormous and has separate full his/her baths). No formal living room, but we do have a dining room that gets used only at holidays, and a “library” that functions as a music room/my office (if push came to shove, I could easily live without it). A large kitchen opens to a breakfast nook and “cozy” family room. I love our house; we could live with less square footage as the bedrooms are all pretty large, but we do use each room frequently (other than the formal dining). The only “cold spots” to be found would be the dining room, but as said frequently on here already, when we need it, we really do need it.
We use almost all of the house every day. Except of course DD’17’s bedroom when she’s not home. 1800 sf and an unfinished basement.
Our “dining room” has no dining table. It has the computer and piano instead so we’re still in there a lot. Also a favorite spot to lay on the floor with the cats.
The best thing we did to our house was our addition. We put a bedroom/bath on the main floor for us. Three bedrooms in a small upstairs 3/4 story is cozy and convenient when your kids are little but too close for comfort when they’re teens and everyone’s keeping their doors open in hopes some heat wafts in (no vents upstairs). Now there are just two big bedrooms and walk in closets upstairs which was perfect for two teen girls. And when the kids are gone, we can just shut those doors and not worry about upstairs, until they come to visit with their families!
We have lived in this old 1924 house for 20 years.
3 bedrooms, one full bath, 2 half baths, about 1800 square feet. It’s definitely not a floor plan I’d replicate if we were to build or buy a new home.
I would love to downsize. I’m tired of barely taking care of the yard, and paying the utilities to heat and cool this old house. But, we are still underwater, our property taxes are very low, and the surrounding areas are so expensive!
We have been in this house over 15 years and how we use the space has changed over the years. 4 bed, 3 bath single story, about 2300 sq feet. Now that we are empty nesters, we could easily live in half the space (or less) but our mortgage is small, commute is short and since we renovated about 3 years ago, we love the space.
2 bedrooms and one bath rarely get used now unless a kid comes home. Actually we do use the shower once a week to decrease the chance of plumbing issues as recommended by a plumber.
When we did the renovation, we opened up the kitchen to the family room. The breakfast nook became part of the kitchen and the formal dining (which we had used for the kids’ tv room) was partially opened to the kitchen. We put in casual furniture and consider it part of the kitchen now. I love having it all open though don’t know if I would feel that way with kids in the house! Living room used to be home office/school room which is no longer needed as we have no desktop. Now we use it as an exercise room.
Fourth bedroom is right near the tiny laundry room. I wish I had thought to enlarge the laundry when we did the renovations, but don’t feel like spending the money now. So, I am using that 4th bedroom (used to be exercise room) as an extension of the laundry with some space for me. I am moving my freezer there this weekend and creating some storage in there.
We do use our screened covered patio 5-6 months a year. French doors from master and family room open to the patio/pool area and the area gets heavy use when it isn’t stiflingly hot in FL.