How big is your house?

[Denine]

Our house is approx 3000 sq ft. We have 4 berdooms, 2-1/2 baths and an office. There is me, DH and DD and 2 cats. I didn't want one this big, but to get everything we wanted, this is how it turned out. We do have a finished basement. Our last house was around 1800 with no basment. It was a ranch.

 

[Alice28]

Ours is just under 1500 sq feet and there are 5 of us. It's tight, but doable as long as I keep the clutter under control. We plan on finishing the basement in the next two years, so that will be another 300-350 square feet. We like our neighborhood too much to really consider moving. That, and the area we live in is getting really expensive! I like having a mortgage payment under $1,000.

 

[luvmyfam444]

1200 sq ft
lot is 100X160
3 bedrooms/2bath
2 kids & 1 more due in April--total of 5 of us!

 

[luckywife]

Family of 4 and 1 cat and our home is about 1800 sq ft. We have 3 bedrooms/2 full baths, a nice size laundry room, 2 car garage and basement.

 

[DLBDS]

We fall in the 3001-3500 sqft. range. I ordered a plan out of one of those house plan magazines then took it to an architect for some minor tweaking. We built our house ourselves. In other words, we were our own builder. We could NEVER afford it otherwise. We subbed out all the work. The only thing we had to leave off was a deck and landscaping (just grass). We built 6 years ago and we've had landscaping for 3 years...but still no deck. We were able to build a brick house w/ attached 2-car garage (2 VERY SMALL cars) and install solid surface counter tops and hardwood floors throughout the downstairs and upstairs (excpet the MB and 2 Baths). We don't have dining room furniture and only have one side table and two couches in the living room. We don't live beyond our means but it sure would be nice to have a furnished/decorated house. We have 3.5 acres with LOTS of windows on the house and I can see my girls and boys (chickens) from just about any room on the ground floor. I LOVE being at home. Just to put things into perspective....we lived in a single-wide trailer next to my in-laws for 10 years, saving our money during that time (and biting my lip). Trust me. I've paid my dues.

Family: DH, DW & DD8
3-4 bedrooms
3 full baths
2 bonus rooms
Diningroom
Breakfast room
Great room
Large Laundry room (I work out of)
Front porch
Side porch
Attached garage

 

[DVC Sadie]

We are in the process of building our house. I should say rebuilding (Katrina). When finished it will be 3600 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. One of the bathrooms is under the house so people can clean up after fishing, gardening or swimming before coming inside of the house. The bedrooms are huge with a master bath with separate large shower with multi directional shower heads. The main floor is all open with massive windows on the sides to overlook the water.All 3 sides will have 14 foot decks surrounding the house for optimal lounging and relaxation. Our house sits on one and a half acres that is waterfront. We chose to build this house this way to maximize our resale potential. There is only 2 of us plus 3 dogs but we love it here and hate the thought of having to move away someday. We are in the process of looking for 5 to 7 acres somewhere in the U. S. that has a stream or creek that runs through it so we can build our smaller ranch style house and not have to concern ourselves with stairs and upkeep.

 

[clm3]

2400SF with (2300 liveable and 100 porches) 4 bdrm / 2 bath for 5 of us. We have 1.5 acres. My only complaint is I wish we had a gameroom for the kids. We do have a large (1200 sf) garage/shop that we are thinking of building a gameroom/apartment over. Grew up on PA. and really wish we had the basement thing here in Houston, would be great for extra kids space!

I understand about living above the means .... my kids go to private school and its horrible how materialistic some people can be. The expensive cars and HUGE homes, its almost like a competition. My kids sometime get jealous of their friends "stuff", but I tell if we lived liked that we could never go to WDW or any vacations. They decided they like our house just fine.

 

[BeckyEsq]

Ours is around 3000 square feet, including the finished basement. We have four bedrooms, 2 full baths and 2 half, LR, DR, kitchen and family room, basement gameroom, first floor laundry, 2 car garage. I do not think that we are "house poor" since our mortgage + taxes are less than 25% of our after-tax take-home income. There are things we would like to do with the house (omnistone patio, big screen TVs) that we can't "afford" right now but that is really due to choices -- we choose to save for retirement, go on vacation etc. instead.

Right now it is just the two of us plus our dog. We built our home in 2001 with the intention of filling it with children. We are currently working on our adoption application so hopefully it will be a little more "crowded" in the near future.

I will add also that it did take us awhile to decorate and furnish our home, but I don't see that as a bad thing. It was fun to take our time doing one room at a time and painting, picking out color schemes, finding exactly what we wanted.

 

[DVCLiz]

When the addition is (finally!) finished, I'll have almost exactly 4000 square feet, plus a 2 car detached garage. (I'm adding a sunroom with a new laundry room and a half bath, and the 2 car garage.) There are three of us - me, DD17 and DD12. Our house has a traditional ranch floor plan downstairs with a second floor consisting of two bedrooms, a bonus room, a hallway and small storage room, and a full bath. Downstairs has two bedrooms as well, but I use one of them as a den for me.

A neighbor recently told me that houses in our neighborhood are currently selling for about $130.00 a square foot. Hard to believe that this house would sell for more than half a million dollars!!!!! It's a nice house, but nothing spectacular. It's considered a "transitional" neighborhood because it's where people move after they've outgrown the starter house but before they build the McMansion. It suits me beautifully - a downstairs master suite, and I'll be able to close off the upstairs after the children are on their own!!!

I'm slowly but surely finishing all the design and decoration I want to do. I just ordered some dining room chairs, and that was the last furniture purchase I needed. I'll have some sunroom furniture to reupholster and some wicker to paint, but otherwise I think I'm about finished. Unless my taste changes!!!