Moving to a larger house

[Anonymous]

We moved from a 1900 sq ft rowhouse to a 4500 sq ft new construction house in 2018. The best thing hands down is having a garage and parking our cars in it after 20 yrs of no off-street parking in DC. Next is having plenty of storage - large closets in each bedroom, linen closets in or just outside bathrooms, upstairs laundry and a large laundry room. We also have a large furnished basement with high ceilings and an office that doubles as a guest room. I really appreciate our teens having a space for gaming and playing with their friends that keeps all the clutter out of the main floor of our house. The areas we don't really use are the upstairs den outside the kids' bedrooms...we end up just piling laundry there until we fold it. Plus the upstairs guest room rarely gets used because it requires sharing a bathroom with teen/tween boys. The best thing we did when moving in was setting aside some of the proceeds from our previous house to furnish the new house and hiring a designer to help. We got custom carpets for some oversized rooms and got appropriately sized furniture, lamps, lighting etc for the whole house. We both have decision paralysis so it really helped having someone present us with a few options and making a choice. Overall the cost was reasonable...basically Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel level pricing with less expensive items in the upstairs den and basement. Having someone order it all and coordinate assembly and furniture placement, hang all the curtains/window treatments and art (some our own, some new to us antique, some new) and getting it all done within a month of moving in was amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 kids, moved from 2000 to 4000 square ft.

Love the new space.

Try birth control

Maybe it’s a blended family or Angelina Jolie. Whatever the case, be kind. It costs you nothing.

[Anonymous]

900 - 1200 sq ft per person is the right size in my mind. Everyone needs a bit of space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find these square footages meaningless. Is it 4,000 sqft above ground or 2500 sqft with a 1500 sqft basement that never gets used. Huge difference.

This X1000. For me, layout and climate make a big difference. We live in CA now. I love the vaulted ceilings, big windows, sky lights, large great rooms connecting to an open kitchen, outdoor living spaces etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4K is not that huge for this area. You make it sound like it’s a 10K sq.ft. Home. If you have 3 kids and want each of them have a room and and especially personal bathrooms (or same sex bathrooms) and an office/guest room, you will use up all this space quickly. Extra living areas like basement can be quickly occupied by play equipment, or a ping pong/pool table for older kids, plus any exercise equipment. I think you are stressing out more by appearances trying to make your dwelling attractive to the visitors or impressive and always picture ready vs. making a comfy living space for your family. FWIW, we have 3K sq.ft. And don’t have formal living/dining rooms, so everything is used and used up. I do wish we had more space and separate bathrooms for diff sex children.

+1. We have a custom 10ksqt home (3levels) for a family of 4. We use all but a couple of rooms. You grow into the space. Prior we were in a 6k sq ft home and the current one feels more comfortable - but not overwhelming. The big costs are outdoor property upkeep such as lawn care, driveway, trees, patios, pool etc. The home is well built so same energy (if not lower) vs the 6k sqft home.

How much do you spend on outdoor maintenance upkeep, just curious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk about first world problems. Furnish it slowly once you see what you need and how you use the house.

I was just going to say the same. Such privileged problem to have. Enjoy your space and don't obsess if it doesn't turn out to look like a staged showcase picture. It's ok to leave some rooms empty if you don't use them until you need them or have furniture, and it's ok if your basement just has a dingy couch, a TV and a ping pong table, or just carpet and a few bean bag chairs or a bunch of kid toys. It's a 4K sq.ft. house.. unless it's in Gtown or Kalorama nobody is really going to hold you to the uppity standards you think they will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find the 2000-2500 sqft house to be the perfect size - unless it is terribly designed.

Few of those 2000~2500sf houses are well designed. Quality design really matters for any size house. I have seen so many ~5000sf houses without enough storage and with lots of wasted space. Hallways can be a huge source of wasted space if the rooms are not laid out well, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 kids, moved from 2000 to 4000 square ft.

Love the new space.

Try birth control

With the birth rate cliff, I am happy to hear some folks are able to have a larger family.

[Anonymous]

Moving now is insane.

The US dollar is decreasing in value daily

You are idiots

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find these square footages meaningless. Is it 4,000 sqft above ground or 2500 sqft with a 1500 sqft basement that never gets used. Huge difference.

When I read house sf numbers, more often than not those sf numbers are finished sf, not including unfinished attic space or unfinished basement space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7 kids, moved from 2000 to 4000 square ft.

Love the new space.

Try birth control

Maybe it’s a blended family or Angelina Jolie. Whatever the case, be kind. It costs you nothing.

Ok. You are right.

Please try birth control

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find these square footages meaningless. Is it 4,000 sqft above ground or 2500 sqft with a 1500 sqft basement that never gets used. Huge difference.

This X1000. For me, layout and climate make a big difference. We live in CA now. I love the vaulted ceilings, big windows, sky lights, large great rooms connecting to an open kitchen, outdoor living spaces etc.

Climate is huge. I grew up in a temperate climate where we often ate outside, all playdates were outside, etc. Same wardrobe all year round. We had a 2 br/2 ba for 4 people, no basement, and it was one of the larger homes on my street.
DH, from this area where you are inside a lot more and need like 5 seasons of clothes, can't imagine living in my childhood home. The lack of basement especially bothers him.

[Anonymous]

I moved from 2000 to 6000 sq ft. Only difference was a few more bathrooms and more bedrooms. Basement was bigger.

[Anonymous]

We're on year 3 in our new (much larger) house. We had grand plans but so far haven't done anything major other than replace appliances that broke on us. We are enjoying the extra space - we have one room (the living room, we didn't have one of those before) that just belongs to our kids. They play there, do homework there, we play family games there, it's lovely. We honestly only clean it if someone is coming over. DH and I are loving each having our own sink in the bathroom and the kids enjoy having big closets that fit all of their clothes AND toys. We enjoy not having to go down to the basement to get our large pots and baking dishes, which is what we had to do when we had a small galley kitchen.

BUT we're taking our time with improvements/new furniture. We want to live with what we have for a while - it all looks a little mini at the moment, but I think waiting has given us a better idea of what we need.

[Anonymous]

I would not have gone over 3,000 sq ft with 3 kids. I would just want a well designed home.