Anyone have 6+ children? How big is your house?

[slowcookerMasterRace]

Trying to decide if we really need a 3,000 sq ft home. Any thoughts?

[goatmom]

How old are your kids?  Are they in school?  What is the climate?  Gender?  If you homeschool, you might need that much space.  If you are in a warmer climate where you spend a great deal of time outdoors, you might be able to use less space.  Also depends on how the space is configured.  I like bigger common areas and less bedroom space.  Many of these bigger homes has tons of wasted space on things like master bath, giant foyer, etc. 

[FinallyAwake]

How old are your kids?  Are they in school?  What is the climate?  Gender?  If you homeschool, you might need that much space.  If you are in a warmer climate where you spend a great deal of time outdoors, you might be able to use less space.  Also depends on how the space is configured.  I like bigger common areas and less bedroom space.  Many of these bigger homes has tons of wasted space on things like master bath, giant foyer, etc.

+1

[dragoncar]

I think kids do need privacy, but I wonder if you could subdivide bedrooms into very small, private "bunk" type rooms and make use of the rest of your space as shared communal space.   My thinking is that, for privacy, you need a door you can close to be alone with your book/laptop/whatever, but it doesn't need to be much wider than a twin bed.

[RetirementDreaming]

I don't have 6 children but I grew up as 1 of 7 children, all within 10 years of each other.  6 girls, 1 boy.  My parents had a 1200 square foot house.  When I was 8 (I'm second oldest) they added on another 1200 square feet.  I can't imagine all of us trying to live in a 4 bedroom house.  It wasn't easy for my parents but I really appreciate the sacrifices they made to enable each child to have a small, quiet place of their own in the house.  When you are in a family of 6+ kids you rarely have anything that is yours and your alone. Sometimes you just need something that's all yours and private.    My parents weren't mustachians but they weren't far from it but I'm grateful they didn't believe you could stuff 9 people in 1200 square foot.  We had friends that did just that. 

[AMandM]

My husband is the oldest of 7 and grew up in a house that his parents added on to twice, ending with 8 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, an eat-in kitchen, a playroom, a den, a (little-used) formal dining room and living room, and a home office. I think in total it's about 3500sf, but I'm not sure.

We have 7 kids also, and lived in much less space even though we homeschooled.  The mostly grew up in an 1800sf house, with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, dining room, living room, and kitchen with attached play area (intended as the dining are, but too small for us).   The bedroom configurations varied over the years, but ended this way:  small bedroom #1 for parents, small bedroom #2 for the two boys, medium size bedroom used as playroom, and large bedroom (built as master) for the five girls to share at their request. They divided it up into individual cubicles using bookcases, and those and loft beds provided storage.

Shortly before the oldest two moved out, we moved to a smaller house, about 1500sf with less convenient rooms.  For the first six months it was crowded! With only 5 at home it was fine.  Now we're down to 3 at home and we have two rooms full of stuff that needs to be purged!

[mm1970]

I grew up in a small house, and Zillow thinks it was 672 square feet.  As it's a rural home, I'm going to guesstimate that they are looking at the footprint only, and it is actually 2x that size.

So, 3BR, 1 BA, 1300 sf.

I'm the 8th of 9 children.  We are pretty well spread out.  I'd say that max # of people in the house was 8, but most of my life growing up, I'd say we had 5-6.  One of my older sisters moved out when I was around 12, and my brother was 10-11, and one other sis was 18.  Before age 12: 6.  After age 12: 5.

I mean, it was fine.  My brother mostly had his own room after the age of 7 or so.  I shared the "big" bedroom with two sisters.  I don't remember it being any issue at all, really.  My sisters shared a double bed!

I don't see this attachment to having your own room.  I had a friend tell me once that I'd have to upgrade my 2BR house to a 3BR even if I had a second boy because they need their own room?

I got my own bedroom when I was 22.  (Rented a room in a house.)  For the rest of my life, I shared.  Oh, except for a year or two in HS when my parents divorced.

You don't need to give each kid their own room.  However, if it is laid out correctly, you can get private time.

4 people in a 2BR, 1BA, 1100 sf house can be hard for private time...but honestly, 2 bedrooms, a front porch, a back yard, a bathroom, and a living room.  Everyone can get away somewhere.  Even all at the same time.

Also it depends on where you live.  I live in CA.  I grew up in PA, so yeah, we lived in a tiny house where it got cold in the winter.  We went outside anyway.  My relatives back there have larger homes - if you've got active kids, it can be helpful to have a basement in the winter so you can kick them down there to play.

[hoping2retire35]

go for a medium sized house but look more for a large yard or even a few acres.

[MBot]

I was one of 6 kids. With 2 parents and often another relative staying with us, there were typically 9 people in the house.

We rarely lived in more than 1600 square feet or had more than 1.5 washrooms.

I found having ones own room is highly overrated, though it is really nice as one gets older to have the option. It's a lot more important to have actual space for kids to hang out together, bring friends over, do homework, etc. The times we lived in a home without a real living/Rec space due to space constraints were the worst.