Average New Home Size data from the Census Bureau
Best Homes For Sale at www.zillow.com
What is the size of your ideal home? Take my poll at the bottom of the post. Do you want to live in a 5 bedroom McMansion or one of the eco-friendly tiny homes? The average NEW home size took a dive recently due to the recession, but it was steadily increasing before that. Is a bigger home necessary or is it just another facet of lifestyle inflation?
Currently, we live in a 1,000 sq feet two bedroom condo. This was perfect when it was just two of us, but with the addition of baby RB40, it’s a little tight. We make it work and do not have any plans to move at this time. I’ve lived in small spaces for most of my life, so it’s not a big deal for me.
My Home History
I lived in Thailand until I was about 12 years old and my parents moved quite often. Here are some interesting places we lived in.
- Rental home in a rural area near Chiang Mai. I was too small to remember this, but it was a two bedroom wooden home. We slept in one room and my dad kept the chickens in the other bedroom. My dad had some kind of chicken business going at the time. At least, that’s what my mom told me. How many chickens can you keep in a bedroom?
- Wooden log home in a rural area. I think this was a bigger two bedroom home on a larger property. Dad moved on to raising pigs and needed more land. I hated going to the outhouse at night because it was so dark and scary.
- Dad had a Xerox business similar to Kinko’s and we lived in a room in the back. It must have been some kind of storage room because the ceiling was pretty low and we had to take a flight of stairs to get there. By this time, I had two brothers and all five of us slept in one room.
- When we moved to the US, we stayed at my aunt’s home and the five of us slept in one bedroom for about a year.
After that, we lived in various two bedrooms apartments until my senior year in high school. At that time, my parent’s Thai restaurant business enabled them to purchase a 3 bedroom home, but even then they rented out one of the bedrooms most of the time. So you can see, my living quarters when I was growing up wasn’t spacious. That’s probably why I don’t mind living in a 2 bedroom condo now.
Our condo is centrally located and we can walk or take public transportation to many places. Now that the weather is nicer, we have been going to various parks nearby and baby RB40 always has a ton of fun exploring. When he gets older, we can go to museums, libraries, theaters, and many other activities nearby. We love our location and Mrs. RB40 is done with moving. She had a much more rooted childhood than I did.
Perhaps my small living space in the past influenced my ideal home size because I don’t want to live in a McMansion at all. It would take so much time to clean and we would have to spend a ton of money to fill the place up with furniture and toys. Our small condo is full at this point and this probably helps us avoid buying unnecessary stuff.
We also spend a lot less in utilities, transportation, and entertainment in our location. I hated the $200+ heating bill we had to pay when we lived in a bigger home. The easiest way to reduce the energy bill is to move to a smaller place, but you can also use an energy rate comparison site to make sure you are not overpaying.
If money was no object, I would probably opt for an additional bedroom in the same location. So my ideal home size is about 1,500 sq feet, but I’m pretty happy with 1,000 sq feet. What about you? What’s your ideal home size? How does your current home compare to your childhood home?
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I like around 700 square feet per person. Hence, 3 people, 2,100 sqft.
That’s pretty good. I think 500 sq feet per person is plenty.
It does vary over time as your family composition changes, including both number and age of the occupants. By the latter I mean e.g. that my daughter doesn’t know that she is living in a smallish bedroom, but when she is a teenager she may care. As for the former, her future sibling can’t speak for him- or herself yet. That’s assuming that her future sibling doesn’t turn into twins accidentally. All of this paragraph sure seems like an argument for renting!
According to Zillow I lived in a 2500 sq ft place most of my childhood, which I remember as being huge, perhaps because when I was in my early teens we moved to a 1700 square foot place (minus one parent though I don’t think that really changes the square foot requirements of the family all that much).
2,500 sq ft is pretty big. Thanks for telling me about Zillow. I checked and the house my parent purchased was about 1,900 sq ft. It seemed a lot bigger back then when we moved from the 2 bedrooms apartment.
I like how you defined it by people because that’s really a good measure of what you may need as your family grows. We have 2 kids and live in a 2300 sqrft home right now. It’s plenty of space and plenty big to clean. I picked 3000 as I think a little bigger would have more breathing room but I have no interest to move to achieve that since the kids will move out eventually … and I’d rather have a place in Hawaii too like others mentioned
ooooh, a tropical home – I agree! Now back to that episode of House Hunters International I was watching…
The Mrs. hates to move and said she’ll never move again.
A 2nd home in Hawaii would be nice.
My wife and I live in a small 1 br apt. Not sure the sq. footage, but I would rather not know. I think having one spare bedroom is a good rule of thumb (and not necessarily a br for each child if you have children).
I have to say that I was torn between the 2000 sq ft and 2500 sq ft option. Currently we live in a 1600 3 bed 2 bath home and it works great for the 2 of us and when we have guests. And for a while we wanted to move into something MUCH bigger once we had kids (4 bed 4 bath minimum…and you can get more for your money in Texas). But after visiting Hawaii last fall we decided that we would much rather have a small house here in the states and a small house in Hawaii.
We are working on paying our current home off and hope within the next few years we can utilize the space to its max potential and stay there until our family gets too big.
That’s interesting. So you want to buy a second home in Hawaii? I’m thinking along the same line.
My brother lived in Texas for a few years and the housing cost is so much more affordable than here on the West coast.
yeah Hawaii is AMAZING! I’m excited to hear about your trip to the Big Island, if you have any questions let me know! I would love to help!
And I noticed how I said “states”…I meant to say “main land”…silly me
I’m joking but I’m not – wanna buy part of a home in Hawaii? I keep trying to find a good way to do this (have moved but kept my house there – can’t really rent it out b/c in a residential area – looked into fractional ownership – hey that might be an interesting topic – but it started looking kind of cheesy, unsavory and timeshare-like) Right now I just suck up the costs since I live in a really low cost area now and, well, make enough to do so but it seems like a waste (like most vacation/2nd houses are…)
I am somewhat interested, but we’re not ready for it at this point. I’ll pm you.
LOVE that you have the poll up. I voted for 2,500 sq ft, which seems to be the most popular thus far. We currently live in an 1800 3bd/2.5ba home, but it’s on the market. We’re looking to move up to a 4bd/2.5ba home in the 2,200-2,700 sq ft range. I need extra space to accommodate my home office (I’m currently working in a corner of my bedroom, which isn’t conducive to my productivity), and I really want a dedicated playroom for my kids so that my living room doesn’t look like FAO Schwartz.
Alexa’s (above) comment made me think though – my house used to be perfect before we had kids! I almost think people – especially those who don’t think starting a family is that far off – shouldn’t even bother buying a home until they have children. You never really know what you need/want until you’ve got those kids underfoot! My housing preferences have changed dramatically.
A home office is a good investment if you’re working from home. Our living room is a mess too. Will a playroom really help? If you spend a lot of time in the living room, I’m sure a lot of toys will migrate out there. Our living room is also a big mess.
I agree – you can’t know what will work for your family until your family is here.
We bought a home 2 months before our first child was born for the 1/2 acre yard, primarily. Little did I know nearly 5 years later I’d be asking my husband to fence off the creek so little ones don’t toddle into it.
We have an office downstairs (instead of making a formal living room, the builder put french doors on the room and made it an office), and a fourth bedroom downstairs that we turned into a playroom. Serves our needs pretty well right now, although I feel like we’re sitting on top of each other most of the time.
Sorry to hear about the creek. Maybe you can take the fence down later.
I think ideal size for me is going to be one bedroom per kid + an in-home office. Square footage probably right around Financial Samurai’s suggestion of 700 sq. ft. per person. Don’t want anything too big because I don’t want the extra hassle that comes with it if the space isn’t going to be utilized.
I think kids (same sex) should be able to share a bedroom. I guess that come from sharing bedrooms with my brothers.
Our house is around 2,200 square feet, which is on the smaller end in our neighborhood where the average is around 2,500 or thereabouts. It actually works really well for us and I feel like we don’t have very much ‘wasted space’.
2,200 square feet seems like the current sweet spot. We lived in a 2,000 sq ft home earlier and it was too big for the 2 of us. It’s probably a better fit now that we have a kid.
It’s funny, I write about small and little houses all the time, but honestly I live in a 1,600 sq. foot apartment and it’s just about the right size – so I had to vote for 1,500 sq. ft.
I know I could live in a smaller space, but my other half really wants a larger one (even with all the cool little houses I find!) I really don’t see us living in anything larger than 2,000 sq. feet because I don’t want to clean it!
???? I’m disappointed! I thought you live in a small apartment.
Maybe you can get a larger home with some acreage. That way you can put a tiny house down and make it a home office or a place to get away.
About three years ago we downsized from about 2400 sq ft to about 1400. Two epic garage sales and lots of donations made this possible, and I don’t miss a thing! Every family member has their own space, and its working out great. As with many things personal finance related, a key is tightly controlling how much stuff you own. Not only does the ‘stuff’ cost money, so does the space to store it!
We downsized from 2,000 sq ft to 1,000. I like it a lot more because the location is 10x better. I don’t mind living in smaller spaces at all.
I’m personally fine with 1,000 sq feet, but I think my boyfriend would disagree because he likes having his own studio space. So I voted for 1,500 sq feet. My current living space is bigger than that (much closer to 2,000 sq feet) but I don’t use all the space. In the past I’ve rented out my spare bedrooms and I’m thinking of doing so with one of them again. Just on a part time basis, though, through Airbnb.
Good luck with Airbnb. I don’t know if my wife would go for that.
I want a bedroom for guests and a bedroom for hypothetical children (unless that number is hypothetically more than two). So, 2000?
I thought a guest bedroom would be nice too, but nobody ever come to stay with us when we had a house. It was a waste for us. Now, they can sleep in the living room or get a hotel.
A guest bedroom has always seemed like a waste to me, unless you get a LOT of guests (like, triple digit days of the year) or you get an excessive amount of economic utility from hosting.
I guess my ideal home is 5 bedrooms and 3700 square feet (aka McMansion)…at least, that is what we are having built for us right now. We honestly will use about 2500 square feet most of the time though. Since we do work from home, we are looking at 3 bedrooms being used up right off the bat for our bed and 2 offices (or one office and a hobby room). And we are renting out a room to friends for the next 2-3 years, so that’s 4 bedrooms used immediately with a spare for guests…yep, that’s me justifying my Mcmansion, lol.
Wow, that’s huge! It’s Texas though right? I would love to see your place someday. I don’t want to live in a big place, but it’s always a lot of fun to visit.
My house is 740 sq. ft., plus a finished man cave in the basement (and storage space in the basement and attic. My boyfriend and I are perfectly happy in that amount of space. I do sometimes dream of an extra half bath and maybe a dining room though, so I said 1,500 sq. ft.
Most houses here do not have a basement. It’s probably too wet. A man cave would be nice.
We currently live in a 3br, 2ba home that is 1500 sq ft. It’s perfect for my wife and I and our son. We plan on a few more kids (up to 4 or so), so our ideal size would be about 2500 sq ft with a good floor plan. I think that how the house is layed out makes a HUGE difference in livability and how much space you need.
We would like 4 br, 2.5+ ba and possible a small den for a home office. We love having guests over, so we’d do bunk beds for the kids and have 1 guest room.
It’s easy to be unsatisfied with your housing for sure. I find myself being bummed by our lack of storage, and my wife doens’t like the small kitchen, but in the end we’re just happy to have a home.
Wow, 4 kids. You will need a bigger house.
I love bunk beds and I’m sure all kids do too. Sometime, I want more storage too, but we’ll just buy more stuff and put them away.
I think the kitchen is the most important room in the house. We spend quite a bit of money remodeling our kitchen and it’s still small, but much more open now.
Agreed. I would love a more open kitchen. Every get together always ends up with 10+ people in our tiny kitchen! We are hoping to get another 7 years out of this place and then looking at a bigger house
(assuming my income grows along with our family!)
We’re currently living in 2500, about to downsize to 2000 and losing a living room and bedroom. The ceiling height in our new place is a at least a foot taller, making it feel roomy, open and airy, so I don’t think we’ll miss the reduced floor area.
It’s amazing how a higher ceiling changes the feel of a house.
We are in a 2000 square foot house, 4 bedrooms & 2 baths, and it feels just right for our family of 3 (we have a 7-year-old.) With 3 bedrooms up, we have the third bedroom as a den/sewing room for me, and the 4th bedroom in the basement is a perfect guest bedroom. Though we didn’t buy this house thinking about anything more than our family of 3, I think this size would accommodate 2 kids as well. The pokey bedroom that is my den would be a second child’s bedroom- the den being downsized into a nook or two in other parts of the house- or if two kids were close together, they could both have the larger second bedroom.
Although this house more than meets our needs, I simultaneously feel 1) that we could live with way less if need be- that the 1000 square foot main floor would be totally adequate (after a big garage sale, giving up my husband’s games room, and getting a hide-a-bed for the living room), and 2) that I would love to have a bit more space. Basically the same layout and number of bedrooms, but everything bigger. Like the dining room, for example- it’s not huge, or formal, and more space would be nice for entertaining.
Usually I’m snapped out of my more space daydream, however, by the thought of having to pay utilities on space that we don’t necessitate (especially the dining room- for what, the 2 times a year I’d like to host more than 4 extra people?), and the realization that more space= more stuff we don’t need.
Our previous house was similar to your. It was way too big for the 2 of us, but with one kid, it would be perfect. Oh well.
I like our current location much more so we’re going to stick it out. The kid won’t be here forever.
I hated paying so much for heating in our old home.
Thanks for sharing!
Neat that within one or two generations your family will have gone from living with chickens to retiring early.
My dad had a degree in education, but never went into teaching. I don’t know why he went into the chicken business. He was a sales guy before that. I think he had to work for himself because he can’t stand working for other people.
My wife and I and our two young boys live in a 1200 sf house and think it’s perfect. More space would be just that. We have 3 br’s and 1.5 baths. It may get a bit small when the boys are bigger, but by then I’m hoping we can have it paid off and added onto. Either that, or we’ll buy something a little bigger with a bigger yard. Regardless, we’re not doing anything until we get our mortgage paid off.
That’s great! 3 bedrooms is perfect for your family right? The boys can even share a room if they had to.
Yep, and we may move them into the same room to help foster a closer bond between them.
I voted for the 3000 sq. Its funny because I’ve lived in 400sq (just me-but too cramped) apartment in downtown Toronto and 5000sq out in the suburbs, and 3000 (for me and my family) is the sweet spot.
5000 sq ft? That’s huge.
I said 1,500 sq ft.
I currently live in a one-bedroom apartment that’s probably 700 sq ft. Ideally I’d like to own a 2 bedroom condo and if I ever marry & have children I feel a small home of 1,500 sq ft would be enough. I grew up in a house like that, it’s absolutely enough!
Sounds good.
I voted for 2500 but our ideal will actually be between 2500 and 3000. My wife and I want enough room for kids bedrooms, a guest bedroom and a den/office. That ends up being about 2600-2800 generally depending on layout and assuming decently sized rooms.
I’m pretty sure that plot for home sizes is actually for the size of NEW homes built and not the average size of all homes. Thats an important detail since the size of all homes would be considerably smaller when you add in all the older homes.
ref : http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
You’re right. I’ll fix it. In my experience, houses start to get more expensive around 2,500 sq ft.
I said about 2k sqft, but that’s me planning for additions to the family in the future (and it’s also how many sqft i’ve got) but i’d be fine with something smaller – i’ve been in a 750 sqft house for the last 3 years and didnt feel cramped at all.
You lived by yourself in the 750 sq ft house, right? You will definitely want a bit more room with a family. I think 2k sq ft is a sweet spot for most family too.
1000 sq feet is a little smaller than I’d like, but 1500 sq feet is bigger than I need. In between, around 1200 sq feet would be nice. Our new place is that size, although I wouldn’t mind the master being a little smaller and the laundry being a little bigger.
We live in a 2100 sqft house with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. I think it is the perfect size, which is why I voted for 2000 sqft. We could go smaller but we found the “perfect” house so to speak.
I think 500 sqft per person sounds about right.
That’s great! So no more plan to move? I thought you would like some acreage as well.
Enjoyed the article! I voted 2000 sq ft. This way you can have 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, LR and Kitchen. My house is about 1300 sq ft and I figured if I had a family I’d like to extend it to 2000.
2,000 sq ft is pretty good. It’s funny that we feel we need so much more space than in the old days.
Less is more.
My dream for “the rest of my life” is to live in a tiny house on the ocean with public transportation accessible so I won’t even to have a car. And then buy a Golden Retriever to walk the ocean shore with.
I can’t wait. It’s then I’ll be reminded of what really matters and be still enough with everything to really hear the messages.
That sounds great! That’s my goal someday too, but I probably would like a few tiny houses so families can visit.
Although a lot depends on layout, my ideal is a 3 bedroom3 bath, 1800 sq. ft.
That’s pretty big for two people, but I guess you have frequent guests when your kids visit.
2,000 square ft for me. Big enough to have plenty of room for a family of 4 (IMO) but not so small that you’re bumping into each other. And no useless spaces to heat, etc.
Great stuff.
I think it would be awesome to live in one of those tiny houses, but there’s no way my honey would ever let it happen. 1,000 square feet will most likely be the smallest we’ll be able to agree on. It would be nice to have lots of outdoor space though.
Acreage is what I’m shooting for if we ever move. I would love to have 5-10 acres in a tropical paradise. We’ll see if it’ll work out.
I wouldn’t mind more space. 4 of us in 750 sq feet is HUGE for New York standards but small everywhere else.
Wow, 750 sq ft sound so small for 4 people. I’m sure you guys are out and about all the time though.
The bigger the house, the more there is to clean. Give me 3 BR, 2 BA, a room for my computer and a finished basement for my man cave and I am all set.
I guess the answer depends on the nature of the square footage. Our current home is 1700 ft2, so just under 500/person and it’s fine, but we do have a basement, attic and garage that is used for storing off season stuff, tools, and sports equipment. So, I opt for less living space and more storage space. We only use our attic space for kid stuff that the older one grew out of but the little one has yet to use, but it’s handy to have that space.
Once my mom moves with us, I think it would be better to be ~2500ish. She only needs 3 rooms and is used to living in small spaces with lots of people. Her childhood home is probably 1000ft2 and 11 people lived there. Our apartment growing up was 850 and at the peak, we had 7 people living there (no chickens thankfully) .
We don’t have much storage space and that’s ok with me for now. I guess the kid will accumulate more stuff, but he can keep it in his room.
That will give him incentive to have less. Wow, 7 people in 850 sq ft. That’s tight. We had 10 people in my aunt’s 4 bedroom house, maybe 2,000 sq. Half of us were little kids though.
I need space! I like about 2500 sq ft, with at least 4 bedrooms.
mmmm…. 2500 sq ft would be nice and roomy.
I would say I probably need 1500-2000 square feet depending on how large my family ends up. If I end up working from home at any point I would probably want a dedicated office in addition to that. Right now it is just me and my girlfriend so my 1150ish square foot townhouse is just fine!
For just me, 900 sqft is perfect, so long as I can have a den nook. I’m planning on buying a 2 bedroom condo in the range of 850-1,200 sqft, which I think will be perfect. I am a huge fan of personal space. I’m really looking forward to having a second bedroom to use as an office and for it to have a window! So many den nooks don’t have windows and that drives me nuts.
My childhood home I believe was somewhere around 2,000-3,000 sqft. My parents have so many rooms closed off now that my sibling and I are gone!
I need windows too. Our current home has a great view and it really opens the place up. Our old house is larger, but we stayed inside all the time when it was raining and only see gray sky. It was a bit depressing.
Your parents do not want to move to a smaller home?
Windows definitely make a huge difference! I far prefer rectangular layouts that have a lot of windows – the long rectangle apartments are so much darker. I’ve also lived in places with terrible privacy, so you want to keep the blinds closed all day and with few windows, that just makes it even darker inside… Windows are key.
My parents have a great setup right now with my dad’s home office, so I don’t think they’re moving anywhere until my dad retires. He also really seems to enjoy having bonfires in the backyard and you couldn’t do that on a smaller lot
This was a tough one for me…to me it’s more about function than size, but then again you can only fit so much function and a 5-person family comfortably into a certain amount of square footage. I think I would need 3,000 square feet to fit in everything I ever wanted into a forever home. But realistically, I think 2-3k is plenty enough. More economical, too.
I hear you, but in the old days the houses were smaller and the family bigger. I guess our expectation is higher now.
I love my 1500 sq ft house. For a while it was too big for just the two of us, but with baby #1 on the way, we have begun to use up the space quite nicely. Even if/when we add baby #2 to the mix, I think we can make it work — but our guest bedroom *may become a thing of the past at that point (*depending on if both kids are girls — then they’ll room together).
In any case, I agree with others: I would love to stay in this home forever so that we can afford an income-vacation property!
That’s great! I don’t think we need a guest bedroom. There are plenty of nice hotels nearby.
I really don’t need much space but a whole family in one room may be a little small for me! However if that is what you are used to I guess it is easier.
Seems like your family worked hard to make a life for you and your siblings and that has to be commended.
I do wish people didn’t feel they needed so much space, we simply don’t! One room for lounging, one room to sleep, a kitchen, bathroom and maybe a spare room should be plenty for almost any couple.
We mostly just sleep in the bedroom and don’t do much recreation in there.
We are a family of 4 in a small 1,400 s.f. home, with no basement. Our same-gender young kids share a BR. They enjoy it now; but they may not when they get older. When I have playgroups in our house … it’s a MESS in the living room.
The third BR is a 10×10 office/very cluttered room. We would love to move to a bigger (2,000 s.f. home would be perfect), so the kids have more space, and I get a lightly bigger kitchen. However, with the economy, we cannot move right now, so we hope to renovate part of the single garage into an office, so our kids can have separate bedrooms.
Our living room is already a mess without the help of a playgroup.
While we could probably get by with less, we’d like to have about a 2500-3000 sq ft house as we grow our family. We currently live in a 2250 sq ft house with one child which is just about right.
That’s pretty roomy for one child, nice.
Our house is about 2000 sf and it feels TINY for 5 of us! We do have a finished basement with a play room and office, and we use the unfinished portion for storage, so that adds an additional 1000 sf, but it’s still not big enough. I really just think I watch too much Real Housewives shows or something, because this should be plenty big enough for us.
I agree with 1996 and the plurality – right around 2,000 square feet. We’re in 2,050 right now in the Bay Area (which is like a castle compared to some of these houses – 3/2 860 square feet? How!?). 2,000 is enough where I don’t feel cramped.
Oh, and a garage big enough to put my tools. The back yard is my workshop when I want to build something, haha.
Cool post; I voted for 3000 sq ft. Our current home is more like 2400 and we were looking to build/move last year. We ended up staying more bc the wife didn’t want to leave the school/neighborhood etc., but what we were looking at was a nice 4 BR like our current home but each room was just a bit bigger. Anything over in my mind starts to become more than is needed for a typical family of 4 or 5.
i was in between being kicked out of my partner’s home. he just got married and had been letting me live there rent free. and getting married myself.
i rented what essentially was a living room to sleep in for 400/month. just showed up to shower and sleep.
happy was i. then i got married….. love my wife, aint no way she would life that frugal like me.
Haha, I know what you mean. It’s funny how a woman can change our lives.
My house is 3221 sq. ft. We had it built in 1998 when our 3 children were young. Now they are (24, 19 & 13)…(yeah, my 24 year old is still home)…after graduating from college. My husband is retiring from the military (currently we live in Hawaii) and we will be returning to our house in Colorado. I want to renovate but hubbie wants to buy another bigger home…he wants a larger kitchen. I love the location my house is in…not the best school district but the location is ideal. I am so confused on what to do….stay in the 3221 sq.ft. house with the modest kitchen or buy another house with a larger kitchen…any advice?
Have you looked at remodeling the kitchen? That might be a more affordable solution.
Or perhaps you can set up an outdoor cooking area. You can install a nice grill, cook top, and an island. That will give your husband a lot of room to work with. I would love an outdoor brick oven.
Thanks for your reply!! I am thinking that a kitchen upgrade and an updated outdoor space would be the logical solution! We could take the money we would have used on the down payment ($60,000) and upgrade our house….after all, we only have about 8 years left on the mortgage!! Thanks!!
I recently bought a 1500 sq. ft. 3 bedroom townhome and I love it. It’s just the right size, and being a townhome with HOA, and having lived in apartments my whole adult life till now, it’s the right segway to learning about responsible home ownership without having to worry about “the big outside stuff” like exterior maintenance and roof maintenance, etc. Bonus is I hate doing yardwork, so yay!
The wife and I don’t have kids yet. We will start next year hopefully. So 3 bedrooms is plenty of space. One bedroom we use for the wife’s at home business / hobby. The other is strictly for storage and guest bedroom. Right now it’s “wasted space” but it won’t be for much longer. With two kids if they’re mixed sex, we’d move the wife’s desk and office space to the master bedroom and have the other kid use the other bedroom. Same sex we may have them share the bedroom; dunno, a bit early for that.
I see a lot of people living in 2500+ sq. ft. homes around me that all cost $600k or more, and they have 2-3 kids, and I’m thinking “do they REALLY need all that space?” The answer is “no” but Americans have been preconditioned to thinking that they deserve all this space. I personally would hate it because I hate to think what cleaning and maintenance is like. It’s not that I’m irresponsible; I just HATE maintenance; I have better things to do with my time. Like learning how to retire by 50 (40 is too early for me as I just got serious about it).
Congratulation on your new home! I think 1,500 sq ft is more than enough for most families. Thanks for reading!
Like you, my family moved a lot when I was a kid. I can’t say we ever had a bedroom full of chickens, but there was a lot of variety in our housing situation for me as well.
We lived in everything from a tiny upstairs apartment to a large 4 bedroom home on a corner lot in the suburbs. I’m not sure how that has influenced my ideal house size. For myself and my husband I think about 1,000 square feet would be ideal. We currently live in a 1,200 sq ft condo and I think it’s much larger than what we need. We will probably be moving in a year or two and I wouldn’t mind going smaller. I think moving a lot made me not want to keep a lot of possessions around (because they are a pain to move) so maybe that had more influence on my ideal home size. I think we still have too much clutter and we’re still working at reducing the amount of ‘stuff’ we have. We got married in our 30′s so we both already had acquired a lot of household goods, so when we combined them we ended up with a lot more than we needed. I don’t know why reducing clutter takes so long! 
It seems to take no time to acquire it!
We moved from a 2,000 sq ft house to a 1,000 sq ft condo. It was a huge pain to get rid of the clutters.
Our place is very full now and we can’t buy anything else. That’s the advantage of living in a small condo.
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