Those who have a cape and kids

I am putting in an offer on a Cape today, I would prefer a ranch, but we haven't found anything we like in our price range. This house is way below our range, and with a little bit of work will be perfect. The one thing I hate is that it is a cape, it's an extended cape, but a cape nonetheless.

If you have a cape, and kids, do you have your kids upstairs and you are downstairs? My kids are 13 and 5 and we have one on the way. The baby will be downstairs with us. I hate not being on the same floor as the other two, but I am thinking since the house is well over 50,000 below our budget, we can dormer and put three bedrooms upstairs. Any thoughts?

Those who have a cape and kids

i grew up in a cape..my sister was downstairs when she was little and i was upstairs on my own..when she turned 10 or so she was moved upstairs, and now she's upstairs on her own (since i moved out when she was 17)

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

I grew up in a cape also. My parent's bedroom was downstairs, and the other bedroom was used as the nursery. Myself and my brother (we're 1 year apart) slept in there until my second brother was born. Then we both moved into our own rooms upstairs (we were 5 and 4).

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

My brother has a cape and the kids are upstairs. They didn't do this until the youngest was 5 or 6 before that the kids shared one room upstairs and the parents had the other.

FYI - to dormer it probably will be close to 100k so keep that in mind

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

We have a cape and we are downstairs and the kids are upstairs (they share a room)
Hopefully in the spring we are going to go up in the back (half dormer) and just put 2 big bedrooms upstairs so we can all be on the same floor

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

We have a rear dormered cape. We took the bigger of the two bedrooms upstairs and put up a wall and two new doors and each child has their own room (although my DS sleeps in DD's room most nights!) and we are in the smaller room (which still has plenty of space, even with a king size bed. I anticipate as the children get older they will need bigger bedrooms and then we will decide if we want to do a full dormer.

Those who have a cape and kids

We have a cape and a baby. We sleep downstairs and she sleeps upstairs. We kept her in the room with us for the first four months and then moved her up there. We have a video monitor and its never been a problem. Then again, she's just a year now it may be more of an issue when she's able to get out of bed on her own?

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

I lived in a house when I was little- my brother and I were upstairs, mom downstairs...

DH grew up with the kids all upstairs, parents downstairs- they loved it...

We now live in a house where we are upstairs and kids are downstairs- while that is not my ideal situation, we have gotten used to it. The video monitors help and it really dosnt bother us anymore now that the kids are old enough to crawl up the stairs to get to us when they want to cuddle into our bed...

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

Our first house was a cape and we only had one child at the time. Our bedroom was downstairs. We kept her in our room the first four months then moved her upstairs. If we stayed we definately would have tried to dormer so all the bedroom would have been on one floor, but we moved.

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

We have a cape. The kids' room and the guest room are upstairs (prevents people from staying too long ), and we're downstairs. I have a baby monitor (they're 2 & 3), and it works fine for us.

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

Kids are upstairs in their own rooms. We are downstairs.

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

We have a cape and our youngest (1.5) is upstairs across from us and then our oldest (3) is downstairs. It's not ideal, but we wanted the room upstairs (it has a master bathroom built-in and is bigger than the downstairs room, seemed like a waste not to use.) When DS #2 is older, he will move downstairs as well, as we built a 2-bedroom extension off the back so they could each have their own rooms.

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

Im pregnant now and will be putting the nursery upstairs and we will stay downstairs.

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

Thanks!! All I see are capes for sale! We are putting in an offer on one. The two kids who will be upstairs are 4 and 13, so I am sure they will be okay, I am currently pregnant and I will keep the baby downstairs with us, then move him/her upstairs with the younger one.

You guys def made me feel better about having them upstairs!

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

i just moved into a cape.

2 rooms upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs.

the upstaris has a rear extension so the rooms are bigger there.

the downstairs room has one decent size room and another small room.


we have on DD and decided she will be upstairs and we will be dowstairs even though those rooms are bigger. we plan on having another DC and i didnt think it was fair to split them or give one a really small room.

Those who have a cape and kids

I grew up in a cape. My parents dormered the upstairs so there were 3 large bedrooms

Re: Those who have a cape and kids

The former owners of ours blew it out into one big master bedroom. That's where we sleep and DS is downstairs.

We've contemplated adding on another extension either upstairs or down, but live below Montauk Hwy and didn't think financially, it would be worthwhile BEFORE the hurricane to do this.