Sunday, June 24, 2018

Question for big families...

So apparently we really doing this moving thing and we went from "yeah, maybe. Let's make some calls" to "We'd like to show your house next week" really fucking fast. In the middle, we've looked at a few houses including one that I love an awful lot. EXCEPT, it only has three bedrooms. For those of you keeping score at home, that's one less than we have now, and the girls already share a room. I'd really love for them not to have to do that anymore. I'm willing to forgo a guest room and force one of my kids to keep their room semi-presentable (probably Syd if we're honest because I would never make a guest sleep in a teenage boy's bed and Averson has a lot of crap) but I don't know that I could do that PLUS have the girls bunked together. There is a possibility that we could build a fourth bedroom, but it would be smallish and would take away from the master.

Also, getting ready to show your house is a shit show. We want to move because we have too much crap and nowhere to put it. Now I have to put it somewhere so our house looks like we have not enough stuff and too many places to store it. Also, I have to scrub my tub and it's giving me anxiety already because I'm not actually a great housekeeper... 

So for those of you in the interwebs with more than two kids and what I consider to be a normal amount of "stuff": What's your set-up? Ideally we'd get a 5 bedroom, but there is a huge difference in price and style when you go from 4 bedroom (normal people houses in normal people price ranges) to 5 bedroom (I'd basically have to win the lottery and love marble a lot more than I do).

10 comments:

  1. We have 3 kids in a two bedroom apartment. It works well and forces us to purge possessions and avoid redundancy as all kids stuff is in one room. The kids are still young (6.5 years, 2.5 years and 5 mo) with 2 girls and one boy. My ideal would be 3 bedrooms with the two girls sharing and son in own room. There are other benefits like easy cleaning, low utilities, less furniture and other stuff to buy. Clearly not for everyone

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm a new reader but I would say do not downgrade in any way because then what's the point of moving. Make sure the new place has everything your current house does and then some.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We have 5 bedrooms (2 in the basement that we built finished and walks out, so they are not stereotypical basement bedrooms). Right now, 2 kids share one upstairs and one upstairs is a playroom and 2 kids share 1 downstairs and 1 downstairs is a playroom. I imagine as the kids get older, they will all want their own rooms, and we can accommodate that. No guest room, but don't really like people, so.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The right house is out there. If you are moving for more space, don't settle for less space. We had the same issue. Everything with 5 bedrooms was like the freaking Taj Mahal with ornamental columns and prom picture ready staircases. Also freaking expensive. Then we found a nice, normal looking house with a nice, normal price that happened to have a shit ton of bedrooms and bathrooms and an extra living area. You will find it. Also, we got a storage unit for the house showing period and it was a real sanity saver. Allowed us to get the crap out of the way and also get a jump on the packing without living in a war zone for an extended period. Just make sure to move everything out at the end so you don't have to rent an apartment for your Christmas lights, you know?

    ReplyDelete
  5. We thought about selling our house, and actually started staging it. But we aggressively tossed (or donated, or recycled) so much stuff during that process that it bought us another year or two, which was great.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm sure it's not what you want to hear if you found a place you're excited about, but I wouldn't move for anything less than 4 bedrooms. We have a 3 bedroom house with 3 kids and it's totally fine. The girls share and Landon has his own (previously the big kids shared and baby Cora had her own room until she was 2.5ish) and he moves into the girls' room anytime we have guests. It absolutely works and I feel no pressing need for more bedrooms. BUT if I was going to go through the enormous hassle and expense of moving? It would ABSOLUTELY require more bedrooms and I'm sure you'd be so glad every day you had them once you got them!

    ReplyDelete
  7. My three kids are 15, 12, and 8 (girl, girl, and boy). I would definitely go for a 4BR. Currently we have a finished basement that works great as a guest room, but in our last house we either just had two of the kids camp out together to free a bedroom for a guest, or guest(s) could camp out in the living room. Our only guests are family, so they totally understand.

    ReplyDelete
  8. So the 5th bedroom would be a dedicated guest bedroom? How many nights a year do you have guests? Unless you have folks staying a LOT or having guests stay in your home is a big priority for you, from a financial standpoint it would make more sense to stay with a 4 bedroom and have kids double up when someone visits or rent them a hotel room.

    I do understand not going down to 3 bedrooms if you have 4 currently but plenty of kids share bedrooms. What is your main objective with moving? Does the 3 BR house fulfill it?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Couldn't you incorporate the mother-in-law area into another family bedroom?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Just to help you relax, I've shown a lot of lived in houses that look very lived in, some lived in by many cats, buyers are willing to overlook most things. Also, I keep a rubbermaid tub for when my house gets shown last minute, I throw everything loose in it and snap the lid on and Voila!

    ReplyDelete