My DH and I live in a largeish house.--about 4500 square feet. We don't have any kids yet. Our plan was to buy a house before we have kids, have time to settle in, and get good at managing a household (for me), and have time to decorate it, because I know once we start having kids I won't have time for interior decorating. Managing a household of this size has been challenging for me. We don't have a cleaning service, and I will admit I am overwhelmed by the cleaning. I clean about two hours a day (including laundry), and I never feel that the place is clean or even that neat.

We spent about a year house hunting. What I like about the house is that even though it's largeish, it doesn't feel cold. It feels warm and cozy. I specifically did not want a house with a two-story foyer, because that feels cavernous and cold to me. Same thing with a two-story family room. So our house has neither. It doesn't have a sunroom or a large eating area or a screened in porch. The bathrooms are quite small. Although it has a decent square footage, the rooms are all on the small side, which adds to the coziness. At first I was concerned that the house would feel empty since we don't have kids, in terms of having all these spare bedrooms with nothing in them. The house has 5 bedrooms. Besides the master and the guest room, which is fully furnished as a guest room (and which DH sleeps in due to snoring problems), we use two bedrooms for storage and the other is for the cats' litter boxes (we have four cats). Having empty bedrooms (except for storage) doesn't bother me at all or make the house seem empty. In fact DH and I feel that we pretty much use every room.

We live in a 8,500 square foot house without basement--everyone who comes to my house says it is warm and inviting. I didn't necessarily want such a huge house but my husband grew up in a tiny house and said that he was determined to have a larger house. To someone's point that most people who own large houses have cleaning services and are not worried about heating costs..you are correct--this is not a worry and if we couldn't afford this, we wouldn't have bought it. I actually can't think of a negative--it's great for entertaining and both my husband and I have our own offices..which is nice and there is a separate living area for my family (who lives far) to stay for extended visits with their own privacy. The ironic thing is that we lived in a small house for a longtime before we had kids and then made the leap to huge..never looked back.

Largish urban home--craving a bungalow. There is something about the levels and the enormity that leaves me feeling a lack of cozy. However my 10 yr old is oddly enough really proud of how big our house is, though she won't go upstairs on her own? House proud? I'd like to squelch it.

Anonymous wrote:Yes I grew half my life in a ~6000sq ft house on 5 acres.
Yes its cold and expensive to heat. We never used foyer, foyer bathroom, formal dining room, formal living room, library,4 acres of the land but still cut the grass. It was the worst thing that ever happened to our family because it was making us house poor , everyone had their own wing that they stayed in the majority of the time. The only thing i loved was the time (years ) we spent searching for the perfect house (marble open foyer, hardwood, privacy, big kid bedrooms,3car garage,open family room,pond. It was ahuge jump from our rambler on 1 acre.Cleaning and maintaing was a nightmare $600/mo elctricity, hard water, FFX prop tax, HOA.

I will never live in anything over 2000sqft

I think the amount of use the rooms get depends on the family's lifestyle, age of children, etc. At my parent's house, the formal living room is used daily b/c it's my mother's favorite place to read and write (she still keeps a written calendar My father preferred reading in the library - I think he was hiding from a house full of women. I hung out in the family room with my friends. The formal dining room was used at least twice a week, one family dinner, and one take out dinner. The other times were when my we (my parents, my sister, and/or I) had friends over at dinner time. It got lots of use because it was a big accommodating space. We weren't a "formal" family at all. The house is also old and the layout was different from today's houses. All the rooms were compartmentalized, so maybe that's why they got used more often

I grew up in a RHOBH type house (15,000sqf) we had a live in maid & nanny so my mother didn't clean anything. It was a wonderful place to grow up, the house always felt warm but I think that's mostly because of my family and my mothers choice of decor.

I'm the poster who has the 7,000sf home. We do use all the rooms. 2 of which are used for my work. It has been incredibly helpful having a space that I can work out of as well. I don't have to pay rent for an office. While it is a large house, it does not feel like that when you get inside. We don't have a 2 story foyer or family room. We have zoned heating which are on timers. The one area that we don't use all the time (the guest suite) is not heated until people come to stay. My in-laws come to stay quite a bit...so having a home that would accommodate that as well was important to us. I am actually considering getting geothermal energy in the near future, so we don't have to rely on gas.

I do the day to day house work myself, as I have the luxury of working from home and can work whenever. We do have a cleaning service who comes to do the bathrooms, mopping, etc. once a week.

I don't know why some people have to be such a-holes about it. Different strokes for different folks...ya know?

I was just looking around my 1100 sq ft townhouse wondering how people keep their large houses clean. I struggle with this place! I guess if you have a "large" house you can afford to have someone clean it? At least I'd have to!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PPI'm pretty sure over a certain size house, most owners have a cleaning service. Cleaning is not likely one of their first concerns. Having a big house means having "rich people" problems, if you will. Most people I know who own a big house do not realize they own a big house. It is either nicely appointed or partly empty - they know better than to spend all at once - how do you think they GOT the big house? They are smart with money and do not spend all at once.

As far as actually living in one, I agree with one of the first PP's, there are large houses that feel warm and small houses that feel cold, and vice versa. It depends who lives there! You can tell a home that is one extreme of the other, either too perfect or too messy. Like most things, moderation is best and most comfortable.

OP, why are you asking? Certainly you can be happy for those whom you perceive who have more than you, as a grown adult. Right?

Op here- i ask out of genuine curiosity. The equivalent of asking what its like to shop at SteinMart. It exists, but I have yet to go there. I was actually watching the latest episode of the Housewives show when the thought popped into my mind. Is the space lonely?

I guess it would depend on how many people live in the house.

We are a large family, and while our house is large and on a lot of land, it feels cozy and warm and people love coming here. We have both a gas and a wood burning fireplace, and both are heat-producing, so we stay toasty in the winter without much effort. The boys all share one room and the girls all share another, and we constantly have guests.

The greatest difficulty is keeping it clean. The kids all have jobs, but still, it's never all really clean at the same time. Sometimes I get wistful for the tiny, ugly military housing we left behind in the past...but then I look out the window at the pine trees, and I feel so grateful.

That being said, I do wonder about families with one or two children in huge houses, when no one is home a good deal of the time.

Anonymous wrote:No matter how big your house is - everyone hangs around the island in the kitchen.........

Not true. Grew up in a large house. The staff hung out in the kitchen, we only went in and out when we wanted something.

So to answer OP's question, no, they're not all cold and uninviting. At least ours wasn't. Not in the US, though, and built 200 yrs ago. Think lots of paneled wood (not the 70s tract home kind) in the study/library. Fireplaces that are large. Warm colors, plenty of furniture. We did keep the 3rd floor closed off most of the time. It had 6 bdrms, 4 bathrooms that were never used, and older servants quarters above that. Actually, as I'm typing this, it sounds almost funny, and like something I made up. But little point in that on an anonymous forum.

FWIW, I live in a large-ish (maybe it is-5500 sq ft) house now. Plenty large enough, and no huge representational spaces--double height foyers, etc. Nothing in it is meant to impress, and it actually appears smaller than it is--you really have to walk through all of it to realize it's pretty big.

Anonymous wrote:PPI'm pretty sure over a certain size house, most owners have a cleaning service. Cleaning is not likely one of their first concerns. Having a big house means having "rich people" problems, if you will. Most people I know who own a big house do not realize they own a big house. It is either nicely appointed or partly empty - they know better than to spend all at once - how do you think they GOT the big house? They are smart with money and do not spend all at once.

As far as actually living in one, I agree with one of the first PP's, there are large houses that feel warm and small houses that feel cold, and vice versa. It depends who lives there! You can tell a home that is one extreme of the other, either too perfect or too messy. Like most things, moderation is best and most comfortable.

OP, why are you asking? Certainly you can be happy for those whom you perceive who have more than you, as a grown adult. Right?

Op here- i ask out of genuine curiosity. The equivalent of asking what its like to shop at SteinMart. It exists, but I have yet to go there. I was actually watching the latest episode of the Housewives show when the thought popped into my mind. Is the space lonely?

No matter how big your house is - everyone hangs around the island in the kitchen.........

PP this has nothing to do with money but with tradeoffs. I chose to spend my money on a small home close in. I could have picked a larger one further out or even a small one further out and used the savings on something else. With all the mcmansions around I think its valid to ask what its like to live with so much space.

PPI'm pretty sure over a certain size house, most owners have a cleaning service. Cleaning is not likely one of their first concerns. Having a big house means having "rich people" problems, if you will. Most people I know who own a big house do not realize they own a big house. It is either nicely appointed or partly empty - they know better than to spend all at once - how do you think they GOT the big house? They are smart with money and do not spend all at once.

As far as actually living in one, I agree with one of the first PP's, there are large houses that feel warm and small houses that feel cold, and vice versa. It depends who lives there! You can tell a home that is one extreme of the other, either too perfect or too messy. Like most things, moderation is best and most comfortable.

OP, why are you asking? Certainly you can be happy for those whom you perceive who have more than you, as a grown adult. Right?

Yes I grew half my life in a ~6000sq ft house on 5 acres.
Yes its cold and expensive to heat. We never used foyer, foyer bathroom, formal dining room, formal living room, library,4 acres of the land but still cut the grass. It was the worst thing that ever happened to our family because it was making us house poor , everyone had their own wing that they stayed in the majority of the time. The only thing i loved was the time (years ) we spent searching for the perfect house (marble open foyer, hardwood, privacy, big kid bedrooms,3car garage,open family room,pond. It was ahuge jump from our rambler on 1 acre.Cleaning and maintaing was a nightmare $600/mo elctricity, hard water, FFX prop tax, HOA.

I will never live in anything over 2000sqft

I don't live in a large house by any stretch, but going from a studio to a condo when I got married and then a modest house makes a difference. I can never get the place fully clean even before I nad kids. I did more cleaning with a studio apartment because it was less daunting. Having more than one bathroom alone has been a pain to clean.