I’d like to hear more about this.
That’s the extravagance I’d have if I had much over 1000 sq feet and had a custom built home. Sometimes you don’t want to walk all the way to the full kitchen to get a snack or a drink, so I’d have a tiny sink, full-sized fridge, and microwave in one corner of the house.
Sadly, it was just a typo. He collects pretty things. They have some realistic enameled flowers, silk that’s been enbroidered on both sides, gorgeous blown glass animals, an ancient Tibetan book in an ornate box, inlayed stonework, and many other objects, mostly displayed in lighted glass cases, but some scattered around the room.
One of my siblings owns a house nearly that size. Just her, hubby, and two boys, but she’s hosted large family gatherings for our parents and other siblings. I’m the youngest of 10.
Their parlor is larger than our parents’ first house.
Likely one for each bedroom and an extra or two in the main living area.
Do you live in a giant house?
Yes, but I may be moving. This juvenile delinquent, Jack, has been harassing me and fee-fi-fo-fum, I’ve about had it.
I know a couple who live in a house that is about 6000 sq ft. They do have 2 kids though so all the bedrooms do get used in between being used as bedrooms, playrooms, theater rooms and offices.
However they have 5 bathrooms. Of those 5, I think only 2-3 actually get used regularly. The others mostly sit empty. This kind of mixes with what Qadgop says about how in his big house, only some of the bathrooms are used regularly.
My sister-in-law lives in an almighty great big house in Birmingham, Michigan. She has two stroppy teenage daughters and a husband she doesn’t get on with very well, so I think they manage to spend most days without seeing each other. I know her husband has an upper floor all to himself.
Oh, and obviously she has staff.
My wife and I have been through quite range of houses in our 12-year relationship. (FYI, I’m 66, she’s 61. We married in 2011.) I moved out of my 1,500-square-foot (460-square-meter) three-bedroom condo to live in her three-story, four-bedroom, 2,900-square-foot (885-square-meter) house in Baltimore.
After a few years there, we moved to Las Vegas, where my wife worked for a billionaire and had a salary that was much higher than anything she has earned before or since. We were able to buy an extremely modest (for the circles she moved in) 4,640-square-foot (430-square-meter) house with four bedrooms, three full baths, a large double-height formal living room with gas fireplace, a dining room, a sunken family room with gas fireplace, a large loft area with built-in bookshelves, a bonus room that became the TV room, a three-car garage, and unusually for Vegas, a finished basement with a storage room and a large room set up as a workshop. The small back yard had productive fruit trees (kumquat, nectarine, and apricot) and a hot tub.
The master bath had a shower and a large jacuzzi tub and was larger than the largest bedroom in the first apartment I had as an adult. The master bedroom had a see-through gas fireplace that partially separated the sleeping area from a large sitting area with French doors that opened out over the back yard. It had a huge walk-in closet. (All of the closets in the house were walk-in.)
The largest of the other bedrooms was 15x19 feet (4.6x5.8 meters) and was adjacent and open to the upstairs loft area. It became my home office, although I only actually used a fraction of that space. (But it made for a good tax deduction.) The two guest bedrooms were on their own hall nearby.
We used most of the space in the house, although my dreams of setting up a nice wood shop in the basement never came to pass. So that and the formal living room were the least used spaces. Most of the time that we weren’t sleeping, eating, or watching TV was spent in the family room, where we kept the grand piano.
We had cleaners in every two or three weeks.
Having moved to Las Vegas from the East Coast, we had a pretty much constant stream of visitors who put the guest rooms to good use. So much so that I created a spreadsheet to track which visitors we had taken to which of the dozens of local attractions.
Leaving Las Vegas, we moved to a house in the Atlanta area that had about 2,600 square feet (800 square meters) before we finished the basement, which added about 1,000 square feet (300 square meters). That space became the TV room, library, and open play space for grandkids.
To fit into this smaller space, we sold the piano, a sofa and coffee table set that had been in the loft, and a few other pieces of furniture. But there was plenty of storage space in the basement in Atlanta, so we didn’t have to get rid of much. We hired housecleaners in Atlanta, too, although not as often.
Earlier this year, we moved in with my mother-in-law in her seaside cottage on the North Shore of Boston that has been in my wife’s family since 1960. It has about 1,500 square feet (460 square meters) and when we arrived was already full of MIL’s furniture, books, etc. So before leaving Atlanta, we sold, donated, or threw out almost all of our furniture, and lots of dishes, clothes, and other assorted stuff, including about half of our 2,200-book library. The only furniture we brought was our bed, chest of drawers, and bedside tables, and a few chairs.
The first thing we did here was to empty out all the junk (and it was all junk) in the one-car garage, so we could move some of our junk into it. We also rented a storage space to keep the books, papers, artwork, clothes, heirloom dishes, etc., that don’t yet fit in this tiny house.
I’ve just closed down my business and retired, so my major projects now are organizing our stuff in the garage, and clearing out the accumulated junk of 70+ years in the small unfinished cellar. I hope we’ll be able to eliminate, or at least cut back on, the rented storage space. But that may not happen before we clear out the attic: a task for next year.
Although we are earning less now (I’ll start on Social Security next month), my wife is much happier in her work situation than she was in the last two places. We liked the big houses, but they didn’t make up for the terrible stress she was under. And without a mortgage, our standard of living has not significantly changed. The TV room here is smaller, so we had to downsize the TV from 65 inches to 50 inches.
A big bonus: we’re an hour away from the oldest two grandchildren, and much closer to the family and friends we left in the Baltimore area.
Now, in this much smaller space, and with slightly less disposable income, I’m doing the housecleaning.
Like many Dopers, I was a book lover for most of my life, but having lived in six homes in 12 years and moved 50+ boxes of books several times (always with professional movers doing the heavy lifting, but packing and unpacking them myself) I no longer feel the need to be surrounded by “real” books. If you know you’re going to stay in your house indefinitely, and you have the space, having lots of books is nice. But having given away about a quarter of my collection when I first got married, and half of our joint library in the past six months, I no longer have the strong attachment to them I once had. I’m just fine with reading books on my tablet. I haven’t read a paper book in years, and don’t expect to buy one for the rest of my life. And I hope no one gives me one. I just don’t need any more stuff. Of any kind.
But I’m getting off on a tangent.
We just bought a “big house” as a second home. Not as giant as the one the OP describes, but a lot bigger than our 1150 sq ft city condo.
We are still in the process of furnishing it and whatnot, but we basically have:
1 master suite (or whatever the woke term is) with bathroom (w hot tub) and an extra room I use as an office
2 bedrooms for the kids (1 with a bathroom)
spare bedroom (total of 4 to 5), my wife sometimes uses as an office
3 additional bathrooms (total of 5)
kitchen (island with adjacent dining area)
living room / den
dining room
extra room (with bath) that could be a bedroom but we use as a playroom for our 2 kids
extra “fancy room” off the main area which isn’t finished but I can envision putting in some leather chairs and mahogany book cases and whatnot so the men-folk can drink scotch, smoke cigars and talk about business shit or whatever
butler pantry (basically where booze is stored)
we also have a large unfinished attic space off the master suite above the garage and
a large unfinished basement divided into two sections we could finish and make into a rec room and/or hobby room or something.
One of these rooms we need to turn into a “Lego room” for the kids.
Right now we aren’t really maximizing space. But I could imagine if I threw 100 people parties, we would need some larger spaces and extra rooms. Maybe a big foyer. A small gym.
One of my cousins is married to a man who was a big shot executive with IBM, and they had a house commensurate with his position. I don’t know how big the house was, but I know the master bathroom occupied the entirety of the space over the 2-car garage, so I’m guessing it was around 600 sq ft. (My first studio apartment was about half that size!!) In the 40 years since then, they’ve moved at least 3 times, but I have no idea how big those houses were/are.
I don’t have what’s been described here as a giant house, but rather a big house (~4,000sq feet between all floors plus attached double car garage) built on a 3 acre lot backing onto the boreal forest (crown or govt land) which will never be developed due to the remoteness and terrain. 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, big living room with 25-foot vaulted ceiling, large office, plus typical smaller rooms and many closets.
It actually fit my family of 6 when we bought, but after the ex and I separated I now live in it by myself half the time, and with 3 daughters the other half of the time. So, half the time I am one person living in a house big enough for 6 people… this makes me think I can relate to others with much more space than they need and what to do with it.
As others have said, I really only occupy a fraction of the rooms, and the rest mostly sit idle… maybe storing things or awaiting a future hobby i might want to do some day. We use 2 of the bathrooms, the other 2 are simply not used. I flush the toilets now and then but not much maintenance to do. The showers and tubs never get used so the tiles and fixtures don’t get any wear. Unoccupied rooms just sit.
Because of the design of the house many of the unused rooms are around the exterior of the house. So, just close the doors and let them sit empty acting like insulating air spaces around the interior rooms I do use. The heating system is your typical central forced air system, with the thermostat right in the middle of the house. The outer walls were built decent with 2x6 and good insulation, meaning it doesn’t cost a huge amount to heat the place. Just shut down hot airflow to the empty rooms, let them get chilly, and only heat the main rooms where the thermostat is (plus keep the temp down a few degrees). Since I also have a wood burning stove, unlimited access to free firewood, and control over the thermostat and electric consumption for the most part, I can essentially heat and power the big house for the price of an average house, so it’s not as expensive as you might think.
It’s not part of the house, but the yard and driveway require extra attention that I can describe. About half the lot is treed, which I just leave to it’s own accord. A tree or two will fall down across the driveway or lawn every year, which I cut up and burn in the woodstove. It takes an hour or two a year and you need to know how to use a chainsaw and split wood, but not a huge burden.
The other half of the lot is cleared, levelled, and planted with grass. I basically have a small football field for both the front and back yards. When we first moved in the place had been vacant for almost 2 years, and having no equipment I needed to bring in a landscaping company to clear out the yard of the 10" of dead grass with a bumper crop of dandelions. In the end they spent 3 days and hauled away 2,200 lbs of dead grass and mouse nests. That got me back to a normal lawn. At first I just had a gas push mower, and it took me 6 hours to mow all the lawn area, repeat every couple of weeks. Had to buy a riding mower, which is much easier now. I may plant a vegetable garden, but really I have the space to grow more than I can eat. So, with the right equipment now I spend few hours per month mowing the lawn. If I were to hire that done it would be about $80/month for 6 months per year.
The driveway is 450 feet long, and the parking area is 1,500 square feet. Being in northern Canada, I need to keep this area clear of snow 6 months of the year. If I were a fitness buff and 10-20 years younger, I suppose I could do that by hand. Luckily though, I used to own farmland and brought my light industrial tractor along. So I can plow the snow and blade the gravel during the rest of the year. Still, that takes a few hours per month and the 200 pound tire chains are a joy to put on every year.
A wealthy person just writes a cheque for all the maintenance of a big house and property, and may not fully understand what it takes to get done. But I need to keep costs down so I do all this stuff myself. That’s how I know what it takes and thought it might be useful to describe along with what happens to extra living space in a big house.
I remember an episode of Entitlement Whores International [House Hunters International] where the youngish couple [looked around 25 maybe?] were interested in moving to somewhere in India. They were shown 2 apartments [one flat, one townhouse I seem to remember] and one walled ‘estate’ with a house and a smaller house in the garden. They asked what the smaller house was, a guest house? and were horrified to find it was for the family of servants that effectively came with the house. I guess they sort of considered it akin to slavery, where I think of it as ‘family retainers’ that simply came with the house because their family had always lived and worked in the house. Personally, for the minimal amount of money the family asked to be paid [she for inside he for the garden and heavy lifting stuff] I would have been thrilled to have a family of employees who were local and knew the house and grounds. They settled for this crappy flat which boggles my mind, personally.
When I was young, we had one of the family houses - an 18 room Queen Anne Victorian [it is online at a realty website, so I guess giving the address would be ok - 108 N Main St, Perry NY. I am not fond of the renovation of the kitchen, they destroyed the butler’s pantry to make a big eat in kitchen, despite having a small servant’s dining nook we used as a breakfast room] There are a full bathroom and a 3/4 bath attached to the master bedroom, a linen closet the size of a bathroom, and 5 other bathrooms. The attic was my great grandfathers personal office and dressing/bathing suite - lovely huge tub, marble sink, and there is an 8’x12’ cedar closet and a set of built in drawers, and the office part is the lovely cast iron woodstove. I know my parents in the 50s had 2 day maids who came in to clean, and the 3 large bedrooms were used for business guests visiting my Grandfather [no motel in town] My uncle would stay in the house with my mom when there were guests for propriety’s sake. My parents used the attic rooms for storage rather than bedroom space. The people who bought it from my dad rented the attic out to students [they were professors at SUNY Geneseo]
I know if we had a huge house, it would be small living quarters, a huge kitchen, a huge library and a huge workshop for arts and crafts =) We have around 5000 books, 3500 DVDs and 2500 CDs so we would probably also have a home theater/listening room.
Yep, I didn’t even mention the living quarters and separate kitchen that our Jakarta houses included for staff. They varied a lot in quality - from terrible to exceedingly nice. Interestingly, the main kitchen in a lot of houses had no oven or stove - just a fridge and a sink. The assumption was that the residents didn’t need a fully equipped kitchen as they wouldn’t be cooking.
A cousin of mine has a 5,000 sqare foot house - thank goodness. My grandparents had 12 kids and those kids averaged 5 children each, so family gatherings centered at my grandparent’s 3bd/1ba were cramped. A lot of my cousins are now grandparents and though the none of us reproduced like the previous generations, it’s still a sizeable group. We do everything family-related at my cousin’s big house, and my family pretty much has something going on every week or two so all the space sees a lot of use.
My cousin and I are in similar financial straits, and those gatherings are why I’ll never have a big house - they’d want to do that stuff there, and no - just no. There was a gorgeous old historic place I liked when I was house shopping, about 3500 sq-ft, and family gatherings were a large part of why I passed. It had no in-ground pool like my cousin, but was on a quiet 12 acres outside the city limits and we always deal with noise complaints at his place.
Wow, that is a room with a very specific purpose.
mmm
We moved from an 1100 sq ft cottage we built by hand in the 1980’s in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California to a 3500 sq ft 1790 farmhouse in New England, four years ago. It seems giant to us. The entire upstairs, three bedrooms, a bath, and a substantial store room, only gets used by guests. Which for the past two years have been non-existent, but at times, before that, was even full up on occasion. We’ve never had extra room for guests before, and it is quite pleasurable to have the luxury of rooms entirely dedicated to that purpose. We now have guests there again.
Most of it is little changed from 1790, if you don’t count the accretion of decades of misbegotten wiring, but 15 years ago the former owners added a roomy expanded kitchen, and a room with a cathedral ceiling and a bank of casement windows on one side and tall french doors on the other that we variously refer to as the Big Room, the Summer Room, or The Banquet Nook. This room we have sealed off from the rest of the house and just keep it above freezing in winter. In summer it’s lovely, and it is perfect for entertaining. We have an entire other living room and dining room (table seating for twelve) in there, only usable four or five months out of the year. We have had a couple Christmas parties in there though – if there’s 20 people, and the heat is cranked up for hours beforehand, it is quite comfortable.
We did not ever intend to buy a house this size, but it came with 25 acres, a nearly-new horse stable, five acres of cleared pasture, and backs on to state forest land with many miles of hiking and riding trails (along with a sugar house and various other outbuildings). Everything except the house itself was exactly what we were looking for, so we bought it.
It was a standard rural New England farm house for the time, and for its first hundred years or so, there were usually at least a dozen people living in it; families of eight to eleven children and often the oldest son and his wife and children as well. Both the two attics were once bedrooms for children; must have been hella cold up there. After it ceased to be a working farm (after WWII), it was mostly a summer or retirement home until the people we bought it from raised their family there for 30 years.
We afforded it easily, by the way, because our tiny 2 bed 1 bath cottage perched on the side of the mountain with a few miserable steep shaded unusable acres sold for $300,000 more than our now house was priced at. Location location location.
puff puff pass … =)
snicker. Though the place sounds like a lovely spot, I have a liking for older houses with character.
We have a small parcel of land, about 8000 acres, where we keep our collection of other people’s large houses.
Living in a “giant house” with ample room to conduct separate activities has undoubtedly saved many marriages.
Very true. Alone time is important.
Also helpful for similar success is a joint playroom accessible only to the couple.