Buying a 2 Bed House

Just wanting some advice from those that have 2 children. DH and I are currently looking fora place to buy on the NSW Central Coast. We really would like a 3 bed place but with only 300k to spend its not looking like we are going to get somethign with the competition for that size in our price range.

Is 2bed dooable with the option to extend the house when the kids are older? My DD is 10 months and the new baby is due in Feb and will be in our room for while anyway. How well does it work while they are little? They can eventually have their own rooms but its not going to kill them to share while tiny is it?

Thanks !

I have 2 kids in a small 3 bedroom, 2 would be fine for a few years but I think by the time they are sort of 5+ you'd have to seriously consider an extension. Best of luck with your house hunt

My boys are 6 & 7. They had the option of moving into separate bedrooms but they didn't want to so the bedroom that was meant to belong to DS2 is now a spare room. There is nothing wrong with sharing with a sibling. People all over the world do it without any kind of emotional damage. In fact I think that some people would argue that sleeping in a room all alone is less natural than sharing a room.
If you want to extend just make sure that you're buying a house that it won't be too troublesome to extend.

I have 3 kids sharing a room
They enjoy it. I think the eldest who is almost 9 is starting to think about a room of her own but so far they love sharing.

3 bedroom house here and the girls (7 & 4) share a room. If we had stayed in Melbourne, we would still be in a 2 bedder, so don't see any problem with it.

Thanks guys this really helped! Going to get DH to start looking at 2bed houses. I just figure at least we are up there, and yeah but 5 years old we will be already have built the extension, its really only for the first few years while we build up equity, it would be faster actually as 2 bed houses are quite a bit cheaper.

The extension we would be looking at would be 1 bedroom, living area and outdoor decking thing. So it would make the whole house bigger.

I just wanted to guage if it was difficult them not having their own rooms, but it seems while they are small it wouldnt be any issue.

I think the size of the house/property in general would be more important that the number of bedrooms. We currently live in a 3 bedroom house, but it's on a half block so the house is quite small. We're already worrying about it being too small once the baby is born, but it's because of the overall size, not the number of bedrooms itms?

Me and my sisters all took turns sharing rooms growing up and didn't get our own rooms until my parents renovated and added a 4th bedroom when we were 12, 9 and 7.

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I just wanted to guage if it was difficult them not having their own rooms, but it seems while they are small it wouldnt be any issue.

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Comes up from time to time. You might find these threads helpful or not (just searched quickly ;) ):
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...ring-a-bedroom
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...ring-a-bedroom
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...d-share-a-room
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...bedroom-or-not

We live in a small 3 bedroom with 4 kids (soon to be 5). Ours enjoy sharing so it's ok here.

My twins are in the same room and will be forever - or until they move out of home :)

From personal experience my sister & I always shared a bedroom and she is 8yrs older then me. This didn't change until my older brother joined the army and got posted away from home when I then got his bedroom - I would have been about 10 then. I don't see any issues with sharing a room and you might find that as they get older and you do an extension that the 3rd bedroom may not get used as a bedroom but a playroom as your kids will be so used to sharing a room :), of course though for resale value having that 3rd bedrrom option is a plus..

Dd1 is 6 and shares with dd 2 who is 3. They have bunks so they will be sharing for the foreseeable future. They love sharing so our 3rd bedroom is a playroom/spare room

Dd1, dd2 and ds share. Some times all in one room or two in one. I think tonight they are dd2and ds together :)

We have five bedrooms and a study... We use three bedrooms.

I just spend all day CLEANING the rest.

Two bedrooms would work. It would be great for you to just get in the market! Even different sexes love to share. It's special times.

We live in a two bed flat, the two bedrooms is no big deal but I would love more outside space (not enough to move though) DS was in with us till he was one and now they are in together (3 and 1) - he still wakes overnight but rarely wakes her, and she wont hear of moving him back in with us.
So two bed in your situation sounds fine.
When we have relatives over from UK sometimes for a month at a time we manage four adults and two kids just in the two beds.

We will have to move at some point when DD and DS get too big to share but if had had two DD might not - I always shared with my sister.

I would choose location over size of property / number of bedrooms every time.

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Dd is 19mths and DS is 12 weeks and we have a 3 bedroom house although the third is used for DH's office as he runs his own business. At the moment it's fine but the bedrooms are small so if kids had to share it would make it hard unless had bunks and they are to young for that now. If rooms were bigger I'd have no problem with kids sharing. DS is currently in our room/bed but he has no where to store his clothes which I find frustrating as rooms are ending up cluttered. Will be another year before we start building a new house so until then will have to find a way for it to work I guess. I shared a room as a kid with two other siblings (my older sis always got her own room) but room was large so was no problem.
So things to take into consideration is room size and if will fit beds and cupboard room storage for kids clothes etc.

It's worth considering that to extend, will likely be very expensive - as in half the price of the house for an extension - at least that's been my experience in country Qld.

we lived in a 2 bedroom house that we extended to a 4 bedroom- the problem wasnt the bedroom situation, it was the size of the living space that made the difference. Just make sure there is plenty of living space and storage space if you are getting a 2 bedroom place. They are more likely to need it if they are sharing a room as their bedroom is full of beds and clothes etc.
good luck with the house hunting!!!

we are about to have 3 in a 2 bedroom! i guess the key is the other living spaces...ie open living spaces, good light. do the rooms have good built-ins and storage. our 2 bedrooms are really quite large and have heaps of good BIRs with storage up the top. We are looking at bigger houses, but not for the idea of separating the kids: they love sharing a room so even if we get a place with more bedrooms, they will remain together for the foreseeable future (ie., until our eldest needs her own space)

We had 4 in a 3 bedroom house for ages. A couple of years ago we converted the study to a 4th bedroom but 2 of our kids will share until someone leaves home. It works well for us.

I have two boys in a 3 bedroom house, the baby is still in with us. We plan to move him into his brother's room at some point after he turns one. We really want to keep the third bedroom as their toyroom!

Good luck house hunting!

I grew up as one of three in a four bedroom house, and we all opted to share for ages.

About a year ago we bought a 2brm house, it let us get into the area we loved. We might extend later, but the 2nd bedroom is big enough that we don't have to. When it was built in 1896, it was heaps smaller than it is now, and I'm pretty sure people have still had kids here :D

I don't have 2 kids... I have 4 in a 3 brm house. 2 in each room.

Plenty of kids share right through their childhood & teenage years. I did. If you can extend before they are teenagers you'll be fine :)

Thanks so much for the advice guys, we have started looking at 2 bedders so we can at least get something. Still looking at 3 but the 2 bedders we have seen have much bigger living areas in our price range.

Yeah easily can extend before teenages. Thanks for all the different thoughts. Much apprecaited!

Totally do-able and good luck with the property hunting!

We have two (21 months apart) who share a room generally as there are only two bedrooms upstairs (ours and theirs). However, you might need to be a bit flexible depending on the phases that they go through. We had musical beds/bedrooms for a while. DS2 was in with us, then in with DS1 but then they were waking each other up and so we were moving DS2s cot into the loungeroom each night. And for a while DS1 was on a mattress in our room. My point is that you can totally make it work!

Now with No 3 on the way, I think we will be back to musical bedrooms for a while! We've even contemplated putting a cot in our large ensuite! LOL.