Extra Space Or Nicely Renovated?

[mrsmac]

I like extra space as long as the other place isn't actually falling down!

[Phteven]

FWIW I've just moved into a much smaller home. We did a massive declutter and put half of what was left in storage.
It is so much easier to clean and look after a smaller home.

[Astrid]

I would go small and well designed, over a larger home. We are now in our 3rd house in 2 years (first was a small house renovated in the last few months, 2nd was large lots of storage, now medium home that we will pull down).

Cleaning a larger home is a real pain, it becomes so easy to just ignore a space or room, as you can just live in another. I thought 2 living areas would be great, but I just hated it on the end. The hosue was long and I would get tired/bored before I got half way through vacuuming, sweeping or mopping. Lots of storage space, just means that you hang onto more. I really believed that once we had more storage in the house that I would use all those things that had been stuck in boxes, well I was wrong, the stuff was still not used.

We are currently looking as rebuilding and we will not being going for a large home, just one that is big enough to do what we need. There will be smart storage, so the things we need every day we will be able to access easily. Every thing else will be stored in the shed. We would much rather have a small well designed space, than large and useless.

[Phteven]

One more thing going for small is sutainability - a small house uses less power than a large house because it has less space to heat/cool and light, it uses less resources in construction and leaves more room for a garden/trees.
IMO most modern houses have too many bathrooms - are we really so full of **** that we need 1 loo per occupant?

[~Raven~]

ROFL we need more than one bathroom or it would be war! But then it's all relative to the number of bums in the house

A bigger house is more work to keep tidy but it's worth it if you don't like living in eachothers pockets. I'd consider a bigger house over a nicer finished smaller one if it only needed a few minor cosmetic procedures to spruce it up.

[christy]

I'd be happy with a smaller house. I think 3 bedrooms 1 1/2 bath for the 4 of us is perfect. Maybe a study would come in handy, but our girls share a room so we have a study and 2 bedrooms really. I don't think we need anymore room. When the girls are older, they may want to have their own bedroom but we can deal with that then.