By “playroom”, do you mean a sex dungeon with whips, chains, swings and lots of leather?
@Dewey_Finn Sorry, not into dungeons, whips, chains, leather. Not my kink. But you do you, and/or any consenting partner(s)!
A couple who are friends of mine, married long-term but childless, have a four-bedroom house. No, don’t ask me the square-footage, I’m hopeless at guesstimating such things. Anyway, besides their own boudoir, they have set the other three bedrooms up as workshops, for sewing/leatherwork, jewelry making, video production and so forth.
The two of them are that crafty kind of person that you both admire tremendously and quietly loathe because their industry makes you feel like a slug. Halloween is an event at their place. Nuff Said.
My father’s house in San Clemente was a four-bedroom affair built on a hill We spent weekends and summers there with him and my stepmother. Upstairs, where the main entrance was, was three bedrooms, the living room with white piano, fireplace and a view of Dana Point, dining room, adjoined kitchen with breakfast nook and a deck overlooking the pool and backyard. Downstairs was a family and master bedroom.
He worked out of the house a lot, and looking back I would have thought he would have set up an proper home office. Usually he conducted business at the table in the breakfast nook. Now that I think about it, none of the spare bedroom were easily situated to be a convenient office. The family room downstairs had adequate space, but the stairs led directly into it, and no door for privacy.
The house my husband and I bought this year is just under 1300 sq. ft., with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. We’re not having kids, but we still feel like we could use more space. We really wanted 2 bathrooms so we could each have our own, and wouldn’t have minded a fourth bedroom so that we could have a guest room separate from our offices. I have this fantasy now of building a studio apartment above the detached 2-car garage to use as a guest house, but my husband is reluctant to spend the money and also afraid one of our parents will try to move in if we do that.
I can imagine all kinds of fun stuff I’d do with a big house. My uncle had a finished basement I always coveted; I still love the idea of a big open space for parties, with a built-in bar, pool table, plenty of couches, a big TV, and shelves full of games. Extra bedrooms could be hobby rooms. I’ve kept my scuba gear acquisition in check while living in a 700 sq. ft. apartment, but now that I have a garage and an office (some things want to be kept in a climate-controlled space), my collection is starting to grow. Some folks I know easily fill an entire large bedroom. I play guitar and might play more if I had a soundproof music room. I learned to sew as a kid and might take that up again, if I had time and space for a machine and assortment of thread and fabric. My husband and I took dance lessons before our wedding but didn’t really have space to dance in our old apartment. We do have just enough space now to practice in our living room, especially if we push the coffee table against the fireplace. But how lovely it would be to have a big, empty room just for dancing! And of course, it would be fun to have parties and host guests overnight in spaces we didn’t use every day.
Anyway, there are plenty of practical reasons a big house wouldn’t be fun, but I suffer from no lack of imagination as to how I’d use all that space.
My house is just over 7,900 sq. ft. It’s a 3 story mid-century modern, with 5 bedrooms and 5 1/2 baths. There’s 4 of us that primarily live in the house. Each bedroom has an en-suite. 2 bedrooms on the lower level are for guests. In addition to the 4 of us, my son and daughter and law lived with us for about 9 months during COVID and used one of the bedrooms on the lower level as their living space. There is also a large game room and family den on the lower level.
We have a housekeeper that comes every Friday and spends most of the day there. It’s a great house for entertaining. We have had several large parties at the house.
It also has about 2500 sq. ft. of outdoor deck space on the various levels, and a deep 4 car garage.
What do we do with it? We live in it.
Ditto! And for my wife and me, it’s living good. Despite the heartbreaks and hard times, from which having property and money does not protect us.
Over the years, I lived in 16 other places, from tiny apartments, dorms, cockroach infested rowhouses, rented flats, isolated old rural homes, condos, suburbia. The Mrs. went from army brat housing dozens of places across the US and Europe, living with a great grandmother in rural Alabama, suburbia, dorms, flats before joining me in the cockroach infested rowhouses back in 1980. We’re appropriately grateful for what we have. We were glad to have our earlier places together, and both glad and sad to move on.
Gotta run. The seawall needs inspecting, the door on the safe room needs oiling, and the cat has apparently gotten into one of the non-euclidean areas of the house again and is pestering the dog by pouncing on him from L-space.
We live in a 2600 sq foot 2-story home with another 1100 square feet of developed space in a walkout basement, for a total of about 3700 sq ft of living space.
The top two floors are an ‘open’ design with the main floor having a great room, formal dining room and kitchen with dining area , plus a bathroom, a small home office with tons of natural light (glass block wall separating it from the great room, which has 2-story windows overlooking our yard and a small lake. We don’t do much entertaining, so we converted the formal dining room into a library of sorts with a couple of love seats and a chair along with the bookshelves.
The top floor is three bedrooms - one for our son, a master bedroom for us with an ensuite with jet tub, and a spare bedroom we currently use for storage. There’s also another bathroom with a tub that my son uses exclusively. Separating the rooms is a walkway overlooking the geat room.
I designed and built the basemnet after we moved in, to our specific desires. It has a home theater, a large home office, an open space with a pool table and bar, a bathroom with a sauna, a small electronics workroom with benches and equipment, and a large storage/mechanical area.
We use almost all the space. My wife can work and teleconference in her office on the main floor while I work in mine. We use the theater every day. I use the pool table sporadically these days, but it gets used. The only thing we really don’t use much is the sauna. I’m not sure why, as it’s pretty nice. We use it maybe once a year. I wish I had put in a steam bath instead.
The big advantage is privacy. My kid can study/work in his bedroom while my wife and I work in our offices and no one has to be distracted. The theater was designed to be very sound isolating. so I can watch a movie at reference levels without disturbing the bedroom level. It’s very quiet inside the theater when not watching a movie, so it’s also a great place to read or take a nap.
Also, my wife is extremely neat and tidy, and I am not. I always have some projects on the go and tend to have a lot of junk around. So we compromise - the upstairs stays neat and tidy, and I can make all the mess I want in the basement. Works for us.
We used to get Molly Maid in every two weeks for a cleaning, but since the oandemic started we split up the work they did, and it turned out to not be that bad since we keep the house pretty clean anyway. I’m semi-retired now, so I picked up more of the cleaning duties.
We’ve been here for 20 years, and still love the place. The mortgage will be paid off next year, so looking forward to that.
We lucked into a cheap 1200 sq ft house…but we can clean it in about 45 minutes!
If this is the house I think it is (does it have a chapel?) it had the distinction of being the most expensive house for sale in New Hampshire just pre-covid. It was still for sale last time I checked.
No, does not have a chapel.
Seriously doubt it would be the “most expensive” house for sale in New Hampshire - it’s actually dwarfed by some of the neighbor’s homes/compounds.
I work from home now due to COVID. I don’t have a man cave, I have a man loft that is over the master bedroom. It’s my work office.
As we see the sail of retirement on the horizon, we will be moving. Mostly due to weather and inaccessibility for EMS. We will not be downsizing I don’t think when we move. While my Wife and I get along great (we play chess or cribbage nearly every night), I think it’s important for each of us to have our own space. I think it’s unhealthy not to.
100% agree. I have my finished basement mancave where I spend a fair amount of time, now that I’m retired. However, my wife and I have regular contact over the course of the day. Many days we have errands, appointments, etc and for the most part we do those together.
I don’t exactly have a giant house by most standards. It’s a 3br/2br ranch house with a small yard in a nice neighborhood in Santa Barbara. I bought it when I was newly married in 1993 with the idea that we might have kids. I’ve been divorced for seventeen years and have had a couple of live-in girlfriends in that time. Mostly though, I have lived here alone since the divorce.
I am a minimalist. My garage is empty except for my car and bicycle. I have a couple of completely unused closets. The dining room, office, guest bathroom and guest room are rarely used. An even larger house would be ridiculous for me.
I’ve known four families who UPSIZED after they retired. One couple lived in a smallish townhouse with two kids (both girls who shared a room). When the girls grew up and went to college or whatever, they sold the townhouse and bought a ludicrously huge McMansion…another couple I worked with retired and did the same, a huge house with an in-ground swimming pool and 2-level deck…my daughter’s boyfriend’s family bought another monster in a brand new development. (the fourth family came into some money, and in their 50’s, traded in their drab old suburban split-level for a huge new one.). All I can imagine is that they planned to buy these to entertain the hordes of grandchildren and host the big jolly family reunions and dinners. Or upgraded to pass on ‘better’ houses to their kids…I am currently widowed, living in a 2 story house with finished basement. Crammed with my late husband’s STUFF. I really would like to clear it all out, sell it, and move into a senior living apartment. I have no relatives in the area except one grown daughter (not much help) and a couple of friends (also not much help). The stairs are truly a bitch to navigate.
Here’s a question: my best friends are lower-to-middle middle class, live modestly in an older little house, and when we went driving through McMansionville, they wondered aloud, what do you suppose those people who live there eat? … They had a typical American diet heavy on the hamburger, hot dogs, casseroles, and sub sandwiches. I laughed and said, they probably just ordered a lot of restaurant takeout. But now I’m curious … All of you living in huge houses with huge kitchens, you probably buy better, more expensive, healthier food? Do you cook it yourself and wash your own dishes? You can afford lobster and ribeye every night, do you buy a lot of expensive food? Is it easy to keep thin because then you can work it off in your home gyms?
We have a large (not huge) house which had a nice kitchen. (we’re three weeks away from finishing the new fantastic kitchen) We have a nice home gym with a Hydrow rower and Peloton bike. (which we both use). We are fortunate that the price of food is simply not an issue. Do we have “better, more expensive, healthier food?” To some extent, perhaps. I really don’t know what constitutes the typical American diet. My wife cooks a lot. It varies, as you might expect. Soup, salads, pasta, steaks, burgers, quesadillas, chicken, salmon, etc. Not too many people would want to have lobster and rib-eye every night. (I’d say in the last 20 years, we had lobster at home exactly one time).
We certainly wash our own dishes (who else is going to wash them?).
I wouldn’t say it’s “easier to keep thin.” At least not for us. Maybe it’s aging, (or the drinking) but we struggle to avoid being really fat and have leveled off at “a few extra pounds, plus a little more.”
We do host our grown children for meals pretty often, and have guestrooms (see other thread) ready for when they visit.
My parents built a 4500 Sq ft home late in life.
Master bedroom suite with walk in closet and full bath.
2 guest bedrooms and a office
Hall bathroom
Formal living room and dining room
Kitchen with eat in area
Den
Exercise & Whirlpool room with shower
It really didn’t feel that large. Everything was spread out on one floor. My parents were older and didn’t want to deal with stairs.
There was wasted space. The formal dining room was furnished and never used. My dad sat in the living room with the lit fireplace. Otherwise we used the den.
They used the whirlpool for a few years until getting into it became difficult. The whirlpool is wonderful for aging bodies and sore backs.
The office was used regularly until my mom completely retired.
It was nice. They worked their entire lives to afford it.
Why wouldn’t they cook for themselves and use a dishwasher just like people in a smaller house? Lots of people love to cook and that’s why they have nice appliances. I may be missing something but I really don’t understand why the size of the house would correlate to eating habits between a home owner with a modest house and a McMansion.
Well, this was what the family I referred to was wondering. I told them they could probably buy whatever they wanted, money no object, and cooked healthier more goor-may food than goulash, fish sticks, and hot dogs on all those expensive appliances. Copper pans, fine wine, costly silverware and china… Maybe they were thinking the rich are served pheasant under glass and caviar and champagne by servants every night, lol .
@Qadgop the Mercotan Are you zoned for livestock? Can I move my horse to your house and ride on the beach?