We have 5,800 square feet. Four kids at home (six kids total) and DH and I both work from home and we have frequent guests (Covid notwithstanding).

Family of five with 3100 Sq feet. 3 1/2 baths, 4 bedrooms upstairs and a guest room downstairs. It is the perfect size house in almost every respect. We have three rooms where you can sit and watch tv or hang out with friends. It is NOT and open floor plan which is marvelous because it does allow for privacy and cancels some noise between rooms.

The kitchen is decent but I love to cook and it is my stress relief to cook for others and entertain. In my ideal world the kitchen would be half the house but that is not practical.

But we have plenty of room.

Like you OP, we have ~4,000 square feet. It's PLENTY for a family of five (especially if you need a home office), but if we made enough I'd probably look for a 5,000 sq ft home for similar reasons as you point out (larger kitchen, mud room, slightly larger rooms overall). But I have noticed that it often depends on the layout. We have friends with homes the same size as ours whose kitchen layouts allow for a huge island in the middle, but ours doesn't. Everyone we live near either has 3,500 to 4,000 sq ft homes or 7,500 to 8,000 sq ft homes. It seems like there are fewer options in the middle.

And yes, I know any family can live perfectly find in a 2,500 sq ft home (family of 5)... but if money isn't an issue, many people will upsize if they have a family

Family of 4. 4 bed rooms. 4000 sqft with 1000 sq finished basement. I honestly feel it’s too big. We almost never use the basement space.

Anonymous wrote:We have 2 kids and 1800 sf. I wish we had a bigger kitchen, but we could do that without increasing sf. I also wish we had our own bathroom (we share with the kids), but there’s room for that as well.

If we had a mud room it would just be a landing spot for stuff. We have a bench and hooks in the foyer. If there was more space, there would just be more stuff accumulating.

Like PP said. More to clean.

I grew up in about 1300 sf - one parent, 2 kids. It was fine.

Our kitchen is the mud room. Problem solved.

I live in a 3 bedroom house, with a basement room that's not a legal bedroom that can be used as guest/office area.

We have 2 kids and our house feels perfect (it's about 2300 sq feet, a townhouse). If I had 3 kids, I'd want another upstairs bedroom. We have 2 living spaces (a living room upstairs, and a basement room with a fireplace) and with 3 kids I'd REALLY want that basement hang out room to be a kid hang out.

We have 4 bathrooms (2 half, 2 full) and I think that's perfect for us. With another person here, maybe another full bathroom in the basement would be nice. Maybe not required.

So I'd say 2500-2900 sq feet would be pretty perfect for 5 people, 2000-2400 for 4 people but it does depend on layout.

We have 1000 square feet and its fine but I'd like 2500-3000 would be my idea. Remember your kids will go off to college soon enough. Can you add a sun room? The house is very big. Better to save the money for college and graduate school.

just under 2400 sqf for a family of 6 (2 parents and 4 kids.)

The older two are in college now so they don't live here full time, so I'd really like to downsize to something more like 1800 sqf.

I can't imagine 4000 sqf unless we had 8+ kids living at home.

Lol we have 2400 sq ft and make it work!

I'm not interested in being house poor.

We have 2 kids and 1800 sf. I wish we had a bigger kitchen, but we could do that without increasing sf. I also wish we had our own bathroom (we share with the kids), but there’s room for that as well.

If we had a mud room it would just be a landing spot for stuff. We have a bench and hooks in the foyer. If there was more space, there would just be more stuff accumulating.

Like PP said. More to clean.

I grew up in about 1300 sf - one parent, 2 kids. It was fine.

3500 and it’s great. It’s a 5 bedroom with a big kitchen. We also have a basement and an upstairs playroom off our family room. Family room, large kitchen and playroom are key to my sanity. Kids rooms don’t matter and we don’t have toys in them.

We have 2300 sq feet - 3 boys, 2 parents - 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I wish we had one more bathroom. That's about it. We use all our house, and I'm so glad there isn't wasted space to furnish and clean.

Anonymous wrote:We have 2800 sq ft and two kids (4 people total). I honestly don't know what we'd do with more space. Clean it, probably.

+1

We have 2800 sq ft and two kids (4 people total). I honestly don't know what we'd do with more space. Clean it, probably.

If you think you have the ideal house size and have a family of 4 or 5 (parents and two or three children) what size is that house. We are trying to decide if we want a larger home, but on paper our house is definitely more than sufficient. We have 4 bedrooms and 5 full bathrooms and a finished basement, approximately 4,000SF inclusive of the basement space. Thigs we wish we had are: a mud room, sunroom, larger kitchen.
I am just not convinced though that we should go larger, if money isn't an issue what woudl you say is the perfect size house ?
TIA