Our house is right around 8,000 square feet. It's just bigger rooms and more of them. We have a separate playroom, formal dining room, breakfast room, 2 family rooms (one for entertaining -- it's by the pool), exercise room, 2 guest rooms, 2 offices. We're a family of 4. We had 15 people over for Christmas dinner last night and there was plenty of room for that. Then having 2 dishwashers made clean-up afterwards easy.

We have cleaners come every 3 weeks and it takes 2 people about 4 hours to clean it. As for maintenance, we're pretty good about preventive maintenance, then a handyman comes by for the larger tasks once every few months.

We are family of 4 in a 3500 sqft house. It is very comfortable for us with 4 br and 3.5 baths. We also have a finished basement with a 5th bedroom.

I don't mind a huge house if we can outsource the cleaning and maintenance. I am able to afford cleaning ladies twice a week in my small house and that is a blessing that I am not willing to forgo.

As for having a huge space to entertain huge groups of people? We have rented space when we had to throw huge parties...and in past 7 years that has only been thrice. Not worth the huge mortgage with me being a SAHM. YMMV.

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Anonymous wrote:Ours is about that size, just across the river from McLean. We're a family of 4.

It's not that difficult to fill. You end up with rooms for a specific purpose, like his and hers home offices; exercise room; children's playroom, and so on. Then we have 2 guest rooms since we have visitors from abroad who visit every few months.

I agree. We have 7200 feet with three elementary school aged kids and a dog. One working parent one SAH parent. Most of our friends are the same.

That's a big box you've got there.

You are jealous.

Not in the slightest

/ prefers urban living

Sure

NP. We live in small house in the city with two children. I do prefer urban living. Once our kids are gone, we won't have a huge house to maintain and we can walk or metro to stores, doctors and events. We've watched our elderly parents try to maintain homes and downsize and I don't want to spend our retirement years that way. When you live in a small home, you end up buying a lot less. It's definitely not for everyone but it works for us.

Why are you posting on this thread? Do you think every thread is about you?

Oh, sorry, are you the moderator? I was responding to the eyeroll poster who evidently has a hard time believing that anyone could be happy living in less than 8000 sf

Yeah well no one needs to live indoors moron