Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

I have clothes I don't wear every day, too. Hope that's OK with you.

Sick burn! I bet your 7th grade inner child is patting yourself on the back for that zinger.

Anonymous wrote:When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

I take your point about "off limits" formal rooms; we've all been in a house where the formal dining room is only used twice a year. But I can see the use in, for example, a dedicated guest bedroom, or a craft room, or a big laundry room. I am one of the PPs in a small townhouse and I never feel like I can entertain because our living-dining space is the only living area in the house, and it's just serving too many purposes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's see. What do I regret about having a house with a study, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen/family room, five bedrooms (one used as a workout room), five full bathrooms, a powder room, a media room, a finished basement, and a mud room? Nothing, really. It's a great house and is zoned for top schools, too.

Were you looking for a different answer?

Not the OP, but did you just look at the subject and post without reading the thread? Plenty of people have pointed out the cons of living in a larger home.

Glad your house is working for you, but we have no use for five full bathrooms, five bedrooms, and a media room. So your house would not fit our needs, and that is fine.

The question was whether those of us living in larger houses have regrets. The answer was not at all.

Perhaps you could work on those reading comprehension skills.

Anonymous wrote:When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

I have clothes I don't wear every day, too. Hope that's OK with you.

Anonymous wrote:Let's see. What do I regret about having a house with a study, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen/family room, five bedrooms (one used as a workout room), five full bathrooms, a powder room, a media room, a finished basement, and a mud room? Nothing, really. It's a great house and is zoned for top schools, too.

Were you looking for a different answer?

Not the OP, but did you just look at the subject and post without reading the thread? Plenty of people have pointed out the cons of living in a larger home.

Glad your house is working for you, but we have no use for five full bathrooms, five bedrooms, and a media room. So your house would not fit our needs, and that is fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

maybe you don't have friends

Oh, apologies. I suppose it would be more proper to receive our guests in the parlor and after dinner the lady folk will adjourn to the conservatory while the men talk about world events and smoke cigars in the study.

Anonymous wrote:When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

maybe you don't have friends

When I was growing up, we had a "living room" that no one was allowed to live in, let alone touch the furniture. Such a waste of space.

If you use the space, then by all means, get a behemoth, but otherwise, what's the point? Seems very old fashioned to me to have dedicated spaces that are rarely used.

Let's see. What do I regret about having a house with a study, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen/family room, five bedrooms (one used as a workout room), five full bathrooms, a powder room, a media room, a finished basement, and a mud room? Nothing, really. It's a great house and is zoned for top schools, too.

Were you looking for a different answer?

I find that in a big house (for me that means anything over 3000 sqft not including the basement), I feel surrounded by empty space. We have 2 kids, so we can only take up so much space. I don't like to be surrounded by just space/belongings. I like to be in some proximity to my people.

We just moved from a 2600 sqft house to a 2850 house and it feels a little big to me. I also don't like to keep adding to my belongings (furniture, art, nicknacks). When you move, you realize that you have way too much stuff and it kind of weighs you down. Less is more!

The key is that a house needs to be the right size in the right places. People today want med-big kitchens and family rooms and good sized baths. Our formal living room and dining rooms could disappear tomorrow and we wouldn't care. So, it's more about where the space is than how much space we have overall. I'd gladly trade my formal dining and living room for a bigger garage! Otherwise, we have more than enough space (perhaps too much) in a house with 2850 sq ft.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went from almost 6K to 2500 and wondered what the hell we did with all of that useless, wasteful space. So liberating. I will never again own a home over 2500sq.ft., the smaller the better.

Then again, we plan to move to CA where a lot of your living is outside so we won't need all that space anyhow.

The point about outdoor living space is a good one. I'm from CA and grew up in a house I would never buy here in the DC area (2 BR, 2BA, no basement) but considered it very large compared to my friends' homes. We had few, but large, rooms, and we spent a lot of time outside. My parents even store furniture outside, because it never rains.

My family (3 plus dog) currently lives in a 2300 sq ft townhouse and we feel slightly cramped. The rooms are small and the up-and-down of a townhouse means we don't use the basement much. 2500 sq ft on 2 levels, plus a garage and screen porch (neither of which we have now) would be ideal.

CA sounds wonderful especially in this oppressive heat

11:23 - that was our situation. Our previous townhouse technically had enough space and rooms for us, but I really wanted a first-floor family room AND living room. I like having one room for kid chaos and one room for adult calm, and I like having them on the same level, not spread out between the main floor and the basement.

So now we're in a 1,500 SF house with a great layout that is kind of open, with a living room and family room, and I'm happy with the space. The only upside I can see to more square footage is that the bedrooms could be a little bigger. And I won't lie, I would kill for some sort of mud room with cubbies for organizing all the sports/activity stuff.

Anonymous wrote:I honestly think between 2-3000 square feet is the perfect size home for most families. Of course ppl live in bigger and smaller but that's my personal assessment.

Same here.

I feel like "grow into" just mean "fill our home with more crap." I love that a smaller house makes us think about what we bring in.

Anonymous wrote:Great inputs everyone.

Definitely a con to bigger house is the cleaning.

Does anyone have a central vacuum system in the home? If so, please provide any thoughts / feedback.

I am about to build a new home under 3K Sq Ft above ground where contemplating central vacuum system ($5K).

My parents have one that I have used since they host a lot of family events and we try to help out. I would never bother with one and they aren't huge fans of it either. Lugging around the hose/ and or accessories you need to do a good job isn't much less of a hassle than just carrying a good vacuum, and the performance of the central vacuum system just isn't the same as a regular vacuum. Also, the central vacuum system technology is much harder to update since its part of your home, whereas vacuum technology is changing. My parents don't use theirs anymore. They keep a Meile on one floor and a Shark on the other.