Square footage in a house

Because we're in the process of selling and buying something bigger. We're a family of 4 and officially have outgrown our house. But also our layout kind of stinks which I think is even more important than "size..." anyway just wondering if you care to share.....

How much space do you have? How many people live there? Does it work for you? Anything you LOVE or HATE about your space.

Message edited 3/6/2017 9:04:24 PM.

Square footage in a house

We are a family of 4 plus a dog that has more toys than my kids. Our square feet is just under 1300. 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms. We have 3 floors a 3 level split. I love my house. My lower level is a den the full size of my house plus bathroom and laundry and back yard access. My main floor is a kitchen/ dining and sitting area and upstairs I have 3 beds and a bathroom plus a large bonus walk in attic we use for quick storage. We also have a 1 car attached garage. I love my house. We have plenty of space. My twins share a bedroom and our middle room is our office. I wish our bedrooms were a little bigger but then again it's just a bedroom. My kitchen is outdated and again wish it was a bit bigger but for us it works!

Message edited 3/7/2017 12:12:23 PM.

Square footage in a house

2 adults and a 14 month old 1450q ft. plus a large finished basement (don't remember the square footage but our garage is detached so it's the footprint of the whole first floor, I'd guess maybe about 800sq.ft?)

It works for us because we only have one child- 2 bedrooms and a bath upstairs and the other 2 bedrooms and bath downstairs. Multiple kids would be a problem.

I love our basement and yard. I love the house/property, actually, I just hate where it is. And obviously we'd like something bigger. DH and I always say we would love to just pick up our property and move it somewhere else!

Message edited 3/6/2017 8:21:13 PM.

Square footage in a house

We have a 2000 sq ft , 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath colonial. It's me and DH plus his 2 boys - his youngest lived with us full time before he left for college and the older one has rarely ever spent much time here - but it was important that our home had a bedroom for him. It was important for us to have space for the boys to be here with their friends and still have space for DH and me without being on top of the kids. For that reason, a separate den and living room was something we looked for. We also have a full basement that we could have finished if DHs oldest spent more time here. ( and DH is in the middle of finishing the basement to make his man cave down there now). And at least 2 full bathrooms was also important to me - I did not want to have to share one bathroom with 3 guys!

And one of my favorite things about the house is that we converted the extra bedroom into my dressing room. It has one wall of closet and a wall of shelves for shoes. Plus a tv in the middle of the shelves - makes getting ready for work do at least somewhat more bearable .

We also have a pretty big backyard we the a big covered patio and a semi-inground pool. We love to entertain - especially in the summer and the yard is great for that.

I would say that for most of the year, we really have too much house for us. I wouldn't mind downsizing, but it is not something we will do until the youngest is done with school and ready to be on his own.

Message edited 3/6/2017 9:18:51 PM.

Re: Square footage in a house

We have a center hall colonial, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, around 2500 sqft. We are a family of 3 right now (hopefully 4 soon ). It works for us and we will probably be here forever but I do wish that we had some more space sometimes.

Square footage in a house

1100 square foot ranch. 2 bedrooms, 2 kids not a problem

Re: Square footage in a house

1700 sq feet 3 bed/2 bath ranch - we bought last year after selling our flood-zone located prior home that was smaller (760 sq ft 2 bed/1 bath). Finished basement on both homes (our basement now is basically the same size as first floor- we plan to add a 1/2 bath at some point).

Its just DH, me and a parrot. Our current house feels huge, we love the space although cleaning it totally stinks!

Re: Square footage in a house

I think that sometimes over time a house just begins to feel small bc you get used to it. 2 adults, 2 children. Our house is 3400 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. We have large living spaces- living room, den/playroom, loft, sitting rm and good sized bedrooms. When we first moved in, it felt huge. Now we sometimes wish it was bigger and had 2 more rooms.

Our old home was a colonial and about 1300 sqft plus a basement. Strangely it didn't ever really feel small to me. Could be because my children were younger (4 and an infant when we moved.)

We don't spend a lot of time in our bedrooms, 3 of which are upstairs, so living space is what is most important to us. My kids don't really have any toys in their bedrooms and don't go upstairs much at all. Same in our old house.

ETA: I love that we have some wide open spaces but not all. I wouldn't like a completely open floor plan. Our kitchen, dining, family room and playroom are one open space, clear sight lines. But our sitting room is on the other side of the stairs as is the guest suite and powder bath. I like the division. I like having my kids bedrooms on the same floor as mine. LOVE having my own master bath (didn't have that before), like having a laundry room on the 2nd floor. Not crazy about my oversized master bedroom - wasted space in my opinion.

Message edited 3/6/2017 10:43:51 PM.

Re: Square footage in a house

4 people (2 adults 2 kids) 2300 square feet four bedroom 2.5 bath. Living room connects to the dining room which was really important for me so that when we host our families or parties we have enough room for 14 people to sit at one table. I could theoretically extend it to about 22 people. That was something very important to me. Then the kitchen, eat in kitchen area and den all connect so you can see the tv from the kitchen, which I also like. We also have a three season room, but it is not used much, just as a way to get outside, but it is a good place to change from snow clothing so you don't get snow inside. Then the laundry room and garage are next to each other. Upstairs we have four bedrooms, plus a bonus 12x7 storage area that we use for the kids toys. I love the layout of our home. It feels like the right size for us. We don't have a basement. That was the only concession we made. We got really everything else we were looking for. We have a center hall colonial.

The one thing I would have liked is the laundry upstairs like I had in my old house. But I like the flow of my home a lot. It feels big enough, but not unmanageable.

Message edited 3/6/2017 11:08:39 PM.

Square footage in a house

I have a 1550 square foot center hall colonial. It is me, DH and dd. We have three bedrooms and one and a half baths- the house is a great size and layout for our family. We have a big yard. The house has a patio that can be accessed from the living room or kitchen- it is a great layout for summer parties. Our master has a large walk in closet and the other bedrooms have a good size closet. Our basement is unfinished but we plan to finish it in the future.

Re: Square footage in a house

I'm not sure exactly, but we're between 1800-2000 sq ft. (I asked my DH, but he just played dumb because he knows I get pissy about the house being too small. ) I think it's closer to 1800.

3br/2 bath - family of 6 with a soon to be large dog (Newfie puppy). 1600 sq ft basement.

I definitely feel cramped to say the least. We were supposed to start a 3000 sq ft addition, but we put the brakes on that for a bit (it's not going to be easy living with 4 kids through that, and house rentals are few and far between in our area.) And unfortunately there aren't many homes for sale in our area that meet our wants & needs. So I made my DH put in a pool & spa "in the meantime".


I keep trying to put things in perspective - We're fortunate in so many ways...we have our health and we're happy. (most days )

Message edited 3/6/2017 11:21:53 PM.

Square footage in a house

Almost 1800 split with addition. But it's weird b/c there are 2 bedrooms upstairs and the third is downstairs with the den. So we have 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, living room, dining room, kitchen, den and large family room. Since we didn't want to split the kids, we will put both upstairs and convert the den and 3rd bedroom into a master suite. We figure since we have an extra family room, we can do this.

We want to add another bathroom and maybe an office/guest room. We also want to finish the basement at some point. We also plan on taking down a wall that separates the kitchen from the living room and making that whole space open.

Right now, we are very happy with the amount of room we have.

Re: Square footage in a house

1850 sq ft "L" ranch, family of 4. I feel like we've outgrown our house but it's not just about sq footage. We could really use a finished basement for the kids, an extra bedroom so we can have an office, a 2 car garage for more storage, etc. More than anything though, I hate ranches and want a 2 story so the bedrooms are away from the main living areas.

Re: Square footage in a house

we are 4 people and a dog. We upgraded from a 1700 square foot to a 3000 square foot. I LOVE the layout and having more space. They only down size, it takes longer to clean

Re: Square footage in a house

We have a 1500 sf front to back split with 3 levels. Three bedrooms, 1.5 baths for me, DH and DD. I like that we use our whole house and I think we have just the right amount of space. If we had another kid it might feel tight because DH and I both need work spaces as I work from home and he does a lot of work at home. He uses our third bedroom as his office and I have a good size space in our family room.

Re: Square footage in a house

We are 3 people, hoping to grow our family. My house has 4,000 sq ft of living space if you include our finished basement. We moved here less than a year ago from a condo which was around a total of 1500 sq ft., so it's a huge upgrade for us.

I gotta say, I love all the space. I love that it's easier to stay organized. I love that instead of finding space for things in places that don't make sense, I have full closets that are totally empty because I still haven't had a need to fill them.

I think more than the square feet, the best is having a large finished basement to store all my DS's toys. My house isn't "full of crap" and the toys are mainly contained to that space instead of all over the house. My best suggestion is to find a home with a finished basement.

One other thing I'll say though is I've learned that regardless of the size of your home, it's all about how you use your space. You can be extremely organized and decluttered in an apartment, or you can crap up your house. I think a lot of it when you move especially is about being honest with yourself about the stuff you don't need.. tossing.. donating.. so that regardless of the size of home you're moving into, you can make the most of the space you do have.

Re: Square footage in a house

Family of 4 with a dog. We have a 1900 sq foot center hall colonial. We'll be expanding the kitchen at some point, which will increase our square footage to 2,100.

We have 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, an unfinished basement and 1 garage. We have 2 kids, each has their own bedroom, and we use the 4th bedroom as an office for DH since he works from home most days. If we had another kid I think it'd be tight.

Message edited 3/7/2017 12:27:19 PM.

Square footage in a house

We have a 3200 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. I love our Master suite! It was an extension put on by the last homeowner and it sold us the house, its huge! I wish our house was more updated. it needs a lot of work and updating but the bones are there and we have been moving through slowly. sometimes I regret not getting a home where all the bedrooms are on one level. I have two kids that are upstairs and DH and I are downstairs. I wish we were all on the same floor sometimes but I know that will change once they are teenagers.

Square footage in a house

Ours is about 1200 ish. Its me DH, DS and a dog the size of a mini horse. We have 3 beds and one bath (no basement). The only thing I need is another bath (which is int he planning process).

Could we be happier with more space sure but I also think more space jsut means more crap and thats the last thing I need.

Square footage in a house

1400 sq ft ranch, with ~800 sq ft finished basement. 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. we are a family of 4 but soon to be 5. the house feels okay now but will quickly feel too small once the kids get older. we plan to either expand or move into something bigger.

Re: Square footage in a house

I am not sure of the exact square footage- I'd have to look- but I can tell you it's small. Maybe 1100 sq feet?

And the BIGGEST issue of all is that we have no basement.

That was our biggest mistake as young, naive, first time home buyers. I would never buy a house without a basement again.

We have a 3 bedroom ranch, 2 bathroom (TINY TINY bathrooms but 2) and only one child. But without a basement we are DYING for space.

Our 3rd bedroom is used as an office/walk in closet for me (DH coverted one full wall to open closet space).

We have no room for a treadmill or gym of any type which I'd like. We have no storage.

Our "den" is used as a toy repository for my DD. And we use our "formal" living room as more of a den- couches, tv etc


We have a one car garage that is packed to the gills with crap. We have TWO, count them TWO BIG LARGE HOUSE LIKE sheds on either side of the yard that are packed. One came with the house, the other we had built a few years ago.

We also have terrible attic space which does't help either- it's all cross beams so you can't stand up up there and you can't access certain areas. It's terrible.

The other issue is the bedrooms are small (master is decent but a king size bed would be very tight in there- we have a queen) and the closet in the bedrooms are great either (Hence why the spare room is part closet now)

It's ok with 1 kid- just barely.
If we had 2 we'd be dead.

I often tell DH that we are living in an apartment masquerading as a house

My advice- from that huge rant never buy a house without a basement.
If we had a basement, our house (even though it's small) wouldn't see so small and restricting.
It would be perfect actually.

Message edited 3/7/2017 3:51:22 PM.

Square footage in a house

We are in an apartment and have a little over 2000 sf with 2 adults and 4 dc. 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. I feel lucky to have the space we have, since we live in manhattan. But we have a very large master, since our place is 2 apartments combined and our master was formerly a studio. I would love a fourth bedroom and a larger kitchen. I was really excited when our building added storage units. Now I have a space in the basement for our xmas decorations and luggage.

Square footage in a house

We are a family of 4 and have about 1000 sq ft. Personally I enjoy a smaller space. It forces me to stay on top of things coming into the house and keep clutter out. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths. We have the kids together and use the extra room as a guest room.

I don't like our living room kitchen layout but will be changing that pretty soon. We have a large deck and sunroom too which we use a lot in the warmer weather. I enjoy the coziness of a smaller home too. We have a lot less expenses which allows us to go on vacation a lot.

I also enjoy the proximity of the washer and dryer to our kitchen. It's so easy to multitask, I'm not running all over the place. Also to maximize our space we don't have dressers. We each have closet organizers from Amazon. We also have a direct tv enabled flat screen mounted to the living room wall. In our bedroom we have a direct tv genie so we don't have any boxes out.

Message edited 3/7/2017 2:16:08 PM.

Re: Square footage in a house

Posted by NervousNell

I am not sure of the exact square footage- I'd have to look- but I can tell you it's small. Maybe 1100 sq feet?

And the BIGGEST issue of all is that we have no basement.

That was our biggest mistake as young, naive, first time home buyers. I would never buy a house without a basement again.

We have a 3 bedroom ranch, 2 bathroom (TINY TINY bathrooms but 2) and only one child. But without a basement we are DYING for space.

Our 3rd bedroom is used as an office/walk in closet for me (DH coverted one full wall to open closet space).

We have no room for a treadmill or gym of any type which I'd like. We have no storage.

We have a one car garage that is packed to the gills with crap. We have TWO, count them TWO BIG LARGE HOUSE LIKE sheds on either side of the yard that are packed. One came with the house, the other we had built a few years ago.

We also have terrible attic space which does't help either- it's all cross beams so you can't stand up up there and you can't access certain areas. It's terrible.

The other issue is the bedrooms are small (master is decent but a king size bed would be very tight in there- we have a queen) and the closet in the bedrooms are great either (Hence why the spare room is part closet now)

It's ok with 1 kid- just barely.
If we had 2 we'd be dead.

I often tell DH that we are living in an apartment masquerading as a house

My advice- from that huge rant never buy a house without a basement.
If we had a basement, our house (even though it's small) wouldn't see so small and restricting.
It would be perfect actually.

Square footage in a house

We just moved from a 2800 sq foot house to a 2100 square foot house. My larger home was a center hall colonial. The key in that house was the open concept kitchen/family room. It really was the heart of the home, especially when we entertained. What I didn't like about the center hall colonial is the formal living room/dining room. They were a waste of space for us. Granted there were only 3 of us living in a 4 bedroom house. The dining room only got used a couple times a year. We were toying with turning the formal living room into a playroom before we decided to move.

One thing I had in my larger house that I loved was having the laundry on the main floor. My new house doesn't have room for that so it's in the basement. I'm already dreading laundry in the basement.