You can answer either for yourself, or for your entire household. (For example, if you’ve got yourself, a spouse, and 6 kids, you might say that you’d be happy living by youself in a closet, but the whole group needs a McMansion.)
I’m a bit curious about this because I see such substantial variation in my own group of friends. I live by myself (well, with a cat) in a one-bedroom, 800-square-foot apartment, and I actually find it to be too big. I’d prefer to have everything (bed, desk, television, etc) all in one space. I’m moving to a 600-square-foot studio in a few weeks, and looking forward to it. On the other hand, an old law school friend bought a house. Large one, too - and she lives by herself, just like I do. That much space would drive me nuts, but she loves it.
So, Teeming Millions - how much space do you prefer?
I lived in a ~900 square foot rancher with no basement and no garage, now I’ve upgraded to a ~2500 square foot house with 2-car 2-story garage and basement. I think I have too much space now.
I guess as long as I have all my stuff the right answer is somewhere in between, maybe 1600 square feet with a garage and basement.
Interesting question. My gf and I have cohabited for a few years now. Our house is big. Three BR, 3 Bathrooms, 3 car integral garage, large barn, tool-shed, woodshed. Sometimes it seems too small.
My family (husband, 2 kids) and I currently live in an 1800 sq. ft. house, and we’re finding it a tad cramped these days. I suspect that is mostly due to the wack-a-doo layout of the place, but when we move in a year or two, we’ll be looking for something 2000 square feet or larger.
We have a 5000 square foot house now, for 2 people. It’s definitely too big, we have a lot of rooms that we rarely go into. We knew it was too big when we bought it, but everything else was perfect (price, location, etc) and seeing as we searched for a couple years for our perfect house, it seemed like we could make do with more space than needed.
That said, I do like to have space. Both Mr. Athena and I work from home, so that means two separate offices (we’d kill each other if we worked in the same room.) It’s also nice to have space for exercise equipment, a guest room, and all that.
Minimum space I think I’d need to be happy? Probably about 2500 square feet, if it was laid out in the right way. If it weren’t for the offices, even less.
I currently live in a house with one bedroom and an office and a large living room. This is almost right, but I would be much happier in a 2 bedroom house with a basement and 2 bathrooms.
I was very happy in my 1-bedroom apartment in Denver - It was 450 sq feet. I had 2 very nice closets (1 bedroom/1 hallway) and a minimal amount of stuff. It was a very open floor plan and it was perfect for my needs. It wouldn’t work with my current life though.
I now rent an 1100 sq ft townhome (2bd/1.5br). I could see myself living in a 1br again but probably need more like 600 or 800 sq ft with my furniture and entertaining (I like to have friends over).
That’s us, over 5100’ for 3 people but I really like having all the extra room. There’s a lot of open living room we use every day, enormous closets, a second kitchen and guest quarters off the pool, game room, media room, storage, yada yada. Despite all that it had so many energy effeciency measures built in that utilities and upkeep are remarkably low.
We’d do just fine with smaller but I really prefer the space, especially for entertaining family and friends comfortably. Plus, my kid’s friends all want to hang out here. That was very important to us.
My SO and I live in an two bedroom 825 sq. ft. house, it’s fine but we could easily live in 600 sq. ft. When we sell our house in a few years and move into a condo, we’ll buy a one bedroom unit (590-625 sq ft).
I’d like at least 3 times that to be comfortable (i.e. have a guest room, a decent home office, nice size dining room), but even this small house cost us equivalent to $280,000, so to get a decent size place it’d be at least $560,000-$600,000 (that would give us 3-4 bedrooms but nothing palatial).
I’d like a house like I grew up in (which my parents still live in), but those run over $1m now so no chance!
Yup. Less space to clean. I’ve been renting a room from homeowners or subletting a room from apartment-dwellers for a couple years now, and I’m used to having everything compact. I just don’t have enough stuff to fill up a larger space, and I don’t have the money to fill it up anyway. A larger space would look empty. And the more space you have, the more you pay. Wasted money imo. I could comfortably live in a 450SF studio.
Well put. Honestly, I’ve seen 300-foot studios that were nicely laid-out and that I’d probably be happy to live in - but I’d feel bad about making my cat live in less than 500 square feet. Once you go below that, it’s hard for her to have space to work up a proper run.
I think the layout is more important than the square footage, for me. Our last place had about 50% more square footage, but no freakin’ closets, which meant that our Stuff was always underfoot, making me a crankasaurus. This one, with less square footage and fewer rooms, actually fits us better.
We’re not sure of the square footage, but it’s about 1250 or so. There’s my SO and me, who share a bedroom, and two kids who each have their own bedroom. There’s a bath and a half, back to back in the small hallway, which struck me as weird at first, but living with it, we really love it - SO has a colostomy, and the half bath is perfectly set up for his colostomy care, and I love the big full bath, so it’s turned into a his-n-hers set up, except for showers. The kids use whichever one is open when they need it. It’s great for parties, too, since someone can be praying to the porcelain gods in one and there’s still somewhere for other guests to pee!
The living room is big enough for an “office” at one end without crowding the living room space, so that’s nice. We have an enclosed back porch perfect for sunset viewing, and it’s a nice place to escape to. The dining area is open to the kitchen, but big enough to fit an actual dining room table, chairs and sideboard in, so it’s not exactly an “eat in kitchen”. It’s nice, because I can futz in the kitchen and still see/talk to people sitting at the dining room table.
I would like a sewing/craft room, though. Not that I used it much in our last place, but it was nice to have when I did want it.
I definitely need space. My ex-wife and I started off in an 850 sq ft apartment that felt a bit small. Then we rented a house that was about 1,500 sq ft, which was good size, but the layout was less than ideal. Then we bought an 1,800 sq ft house that felt nice and roomy (although the layout a still funky and we’d discussed removing a wall to open things up).
When I got divorced, I moved into a studio by myself that was about 1,200 sq ft. and felt like a decent size. My fiancee and I are now living in a 1,150 sq ft. condo that is a good enough size, but because the place belongs to a buddy of mine and is fully furnished with his stuff AND with some of our stuff, it feels very cramped. We’re about to move into a 1,280 sq ft. townhome that I think will feel just about right. I wasn’t willing to really consider anything under 1,000 sq ft. for this move.
This is very much the case for me as well. I once had a house where the main floor included a formal living room, a dining room, kitchen, and family room. Kitchen/family room were open to each other, but the dining room and formal living room were semi-closed off. I rarely even stepped into those rooms, making almost 50% of the main floor of the house totally useless.
My house now has a great room - kitchen/dining/living all together. No formal living room. I’m not a formal living room kind of person. We use that space MUCH more than we ever used the other arrangement.
Office space also depends on layout. I could live in a small house where the offices were on either end of the house, no problem. But if the offices were right next to each other, even if the house was large? No way. I’d kill Mr. Athena, I know I would. Or we’d get a divorce. Or both. It’d be bad, trust me.
Our house is roughly 2400 square feet (above ground; there’s more space in the basement). 4 people (2 adults, 2 kids).
We could lose the 4th bedroom, and the living / dining rooms. It’s nice to have the “office” because that’s where the computer lives. So, let’s cut that down to 1800 square feet.
Our older place was 1920 square feet including the basement, and we felt really cramped; the rooms were small, the closets weren’t huge. The “living” areas were mostly OK, actually, but the kids had all their toys and stuff in the basement.
So interestingly, I think we could make do in less space, if it were better laid out. Our bedroom, for example, was very small and we didn’t even have room to store all our clothes.
Our first apartment was 700 square feet with 2 bedrooms. No kids. If it were just me alone, in a 1 bedroom, 700 square feet would have been plenty.
I need a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and one more room for storage. I suppose I could get used to a living room again even tough I stopped using it to save heating costs and leave the computer in the bedroom. I have very small square footage requirements. 500 sq. ft. is fine
Layout is indeed key. I hate that my kitchen has only one entrance - if it had one in to the living/dining area I would love it 50% more at least.
And, and this is something that took me a while to really grasp, but bathroom layout is also key to my happiness. My little 450sq ft place had a very happy bathroom - and an awesome bathtub.
I hate my bathtub now. It’s obviously been retrofitted and the resulting inches lost make it quite non-comfy for bathtaking.
These are things I will pay more attention to next time.
I have a 3 bedroom house that is starting to feel a tiny bit cramped though there is only my wife, my boy and I. It’s an older house - built in 1932 - and the closets are minute; plus, the kitchen is tiny - though it has a very nice dining room.
I’m thinking about an addition, at least to get a larger kitchen, and to put a two-piece bathroom on the ground floor (it’s a pain in the ass to run up or down stairs to pee - particularly for my elderly in-laws). Also, while I’m using the third bedroom as an office and library, I want a larger library, with a skylight.
