What is considered a "big" home?

[Jon84]

We have a visiting scientist from Greece here at work. very nice young lady and we were in the cafe just talking about snow. anyway conversation drifted and she mentioned how much space the houses here (East coast Delaware, PA area) have.

The house she's renting is about 2300 sq ft which I thought was pretty average, not big.

What do you consider a "big" home? lol, I got to tour a bilevel condo in NYC last year, that sucka was 4800 sq ft. now that's big.

Houses in the states are generally much bigger than what we tend to have in Europe, especially those in cities.

I guess the construction materials used in USA are much cheaper than here Europe houses which are big are very expensive to construct.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

I also hate to see people not using their garages for their cars! Whether in the north to escape the cold and snow or in the south the escape the blazing sun!
As for those tiny houses, I can see the appeal to a point and some of the space saving measures are pretty ingenious. If I were just one person and wanted to minimize the crap AND I lived in a relatively warm area where most of my time was outside on a patio or something, then that would be OK for a bit. But living in the north when it's damn cold and damp for more than 1/2 the year, there is no way I would want to be cooped up in 250 sqft.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

oh and a little off topic, whenever I am bored, I love to look at houses for sale. Realtor.com is probably my top internet hit. But I recently went to a similar site for England to see if I could look at some quaint old worlde homes and HOLY SMALL and VERY EXPENSIVE! haha. It's amazing the differences between homes in the states and homes in England. I had this mental image that all houses would look like Kate Winslet's house in "the Holiday" but ... not so much. Or maybe those types of homes are way out of my price range - lol.

 

[aprilchem]

I read somewhere a long time ago that 500 square feet/person was a good gauge for needed living space without being environmentally irresponsible. We've tried to stick to that - we're 5 people and my house is around 2700 square feet. My boss is an empty-nester and his house is 7800 square feet - I don't want to know what the carbon footprint of that house is!

 

[LisaR]

Really messes up my mind to see people in beautiful homes with garages, with their nice vehicles sitting out in all kinds of weather!
We take very good care of our vehicles that cost so much $$$'s - would never leave them to the elements.

We have a minimum of three drivers and three cars at all times living here. Half the year we have a fourth car/driver and sporadically we have a fifth person/car living here. Our two car garage can't handle five cars.

 

[FINFAN]

We have a minimum of three drivers and three cars at all times living here. Half the year we have a fourth car/driver and sporadically we have a fifth person/car living here. Our two car garage can't handle five cars.

same here...3 drivers currently and housing my DD's car while she lives in CA, total 4 vehicles. We have a 2 car garage and DD gets it along w/DS ~as I am too lazy to flip cars every morning,( even in in the winter )either way I have to scrape off a car so just deal with it being mine. I have the newest car tho(2007) so I think this will be the last winter I allow it to be subjected to the elements.

 

[DIS_MERI]

I recently moved from a 2850 sf home (1425 + 1425 finished walkout basement built into the side of a hill; 6BR, 3BA) into a 1418 sf 3/2 with a bonus room. I also downsized from 7 people and 2 dogs to 4 people and a fish. Neither is a large home, but *man* is it easier to clean the current house. I really prefer a smaller house, especially since my whole herd tends towards packrats. We lived in England for a couple of years, and the worst part was the lack of closets.

 

[soccerdad72]

Interesting that some include the basement and others don't. In our area, if the basement is finished it is included in the square footage. Garage is not included (not a finished living space). Our 1900 sqft includes the basement which has larger windows so you could get in and out in an emergency.

Now if you have separated rooms in the basement that do not have an appropriately sized ingress/egress window you cannot truly call it a bedroom. When we were looking at houses you can imagine how many people tried to convince us that the basement side room was a bedroom even though the little half window near the top of the wall was not good for getting out in a fire. No thanks.

That's part of the reason that we added a walkout basement at the same time we finished the space. While we wouldn't officially include the square footage in a listing, if we were to put our house on the market, we would list our house as a 5 BR / 3 1/2 BA because of the added rooms in our basement. Granted, right now, the 5th "bedroom" is being used as an exercise room, but we would change that up if we listed our house and turn it into an extra bedroom.

 

[North of Mouse]

It used to crack me up when it snowed & I was still working in STL. I would be driving my perfectly clean 10-year-old pickup truck. And there would be guys in Porches & 7 series BMW's with 6" of snow on their cars. Really? $100,000 car & no garage????

Little different down South where they can't HAVE basements due to ground conditions. But, I'm surprised they don't use a different floor plan to achieve more storage space rather than so many who just park outside while having a garage.

I agree! Guess I would just have to drive and old 'clunker' if I didn't have a garage to park it in! I was brought up to take very good care of my possessions.

But, I 'am' a deep south girl (no basements) but we always keep our vehicles in our garage.

We have a minimum of three drivers and three cars at all times living here. Half the year we have a fourth car/driver and sporadically we have a fifth person/car living here. Our two car garage can't handle five cars.

Well, obviously!!

Some things can't be helped, but I've noticed mainly the ones that have 2-3 car garage, and 'still' park no vehicles in them. Two near neighbors are prime examples - one has a 2 car garage, leaves one vehicle out - the other has a 3 car garage, yet parks all three outside!
Go figure! Neither are small houses so they're not that limited in space. Oh, well, whatever 'floats their boat'!!

To a pp, I've always heard that 'finished' basements/rooms (heated areas) are 'always' considered in the sq. ft. living space. Unfinished areas - no!

 

[powellrj]

We have a 1 1/2 car garage and our cars are parked outside because our garage is full of our kids stuff that they need to pick-up!

Our oldest DS is looking for a house to buy, since the condo they live in is too small for a family. I have been looking at realtor.com and other sites at houses for him to look at and was surprised most houses are under 2,000 sq ft and only have 1 and 1/2 bathrooms in our town. We really don't have any new builds since our town isn't doing well and most of the houses are small and old.

Our house is 1200 sq ft and we are the 2nd biggest house on our block. Most are under 1,000. We raised 3 kids in our house with 1 bathroom and it was tight sometimes!

 

[pooh4evr]

ours is a 2 story 2300 sq ft 4 bedroom, 2 car garage. Pretty normal and boring. That does not include the unfinished basement. My brother has a 3500 sq ft 2 story. I wish I had that much space!

 

[NotUrsula]

I personally LOVE small space design; I love the out-of-the-box innovative thinking that can eke out usefulness in space that most people waste. (I'm not that fond of Japanese design style, but I'm hugely impressed with the way they build housing to make the most of space. My favorite Japanese storage trick is in-the-floor storage: they lay the floor in sections that pull up to allow you to store items between the floor support beams. Storage that doubles as insulation!) I think that's what most of us can take away from the tiny house movement; how to get more out of what we have.

 

[tvguy]

Right. But if you look at the average square footage starting in 1999, you'll notice that the average new home is 2200 square feet and fluctuates throughout the 2000's up to 2500 square feet. So if you're living in a subdivision younger than 18 years old, 2200-2600 is roughly going to feel average.

The averages don't really matter anyways. Perception depends on what you're used to and where you live.

I agree about preception, but remember, most homes were built before 18 years ago, a lot of 900 to 1200 square foot homes.

 

[MomofKatie]

Really messes up my mind to see people in beautiful homes with garages, with their nice vehicles sitting out in all kinds of weather!
We take very good care of our vehicles that cost so much $$$'s - would never leave them to the elements.

We park both cars in our garage, and we are the only ones on our street that do so. Everyone has a 2 car garage, and most neighbors park both cars in the driveway. I personally don't understand how they can let their cars stay out in the elements (and be vulnerable to break-ins).

 

[mom2rtk]

Our oldest car is the only one parked in the garage. The house and detached garage are 85 years old and the older car is the only one that fits!

 

[Jeafl]

Our house is a little over 3000 square feet, plus another 1400 sq. ft of finished basement with a full bath. While my three kids were growing up, they always had friends over so the house seemed small. Now we are empty nesters and there are some rooms we rarely step into and it feels big.

However, over Christmas, all 3 kids came home with their boyfriends/girlfriend (and my son's 55 lb. Husky "puppy") and the house seemed way too small! I'm looking forward to grandchildren visiting someday, so I have no desire to downsize.

I do believe, however, that cleaning a big house is easier than a small one. Now everything has a place and there is zero clutter to clean around.

 

[Vicki926]

Really messes up my mind to see people in beautiful homes with garages, with their nice vehicles sitting out in all kinds of weather!
We take very good care of our vehicles that cost so much $$$'s - would never leave them to the elements.

We have a 2 car garage. One side has my FILs car(he moved to assisted living), the other side is either empty or sometimes we have stuff stored there.
Last week it was full of stuff that we just dumped there over the last few months, but we cleaned it up because we were expecting a blizzard, and I wanted to put my car in there so it would be easier to snowblow the driveway.
As soon as the driveway was cleared the next day, my car was back outside.

The reason being, my garage does not go directly into the main level of my house.
I'd have to open the basement door, go downstairs, through the basement, open the door into the old garage, through there, open the door to the regular garage, go up the steps there, and then get into the car.

(The house was built with a basement level 2 car garage, it was walled up and driveway was filled in, so we have a 2 car garage sized storage room that doesn't take away from any of our finished basement-it's my favorite thing about this old house. Lol)

Anyway, so, hands full, getting out to work in the morning, it's a pain to do all that when I could just walk out the front door, walk around the house and get in my car.
Which is warm, because since its outside, I can start it a couple minutes early with my remote start.

I figure it's outside all day, while I'm at work, what's the difference if it's out at night, too.

ETA, we don't have a beautiful home to go with our garages, and nice cars-just a regular old house built in 1958, whose last big update was a new bathroom in 2002. Our one and only bathroom, as it happens.

 

[NewRVLady]

We park both cars in our garage, and we are the only ones on our street that do so. Everyone has a 2 car garage, and most neighbors park both cars in the driveway. I personally don't understand how they can let their cars stay out in the elements (and be vulnerable to break-ins).

This is my biggest complaint about ALL my neighbors....4 cars in driveway-garage full of "stuff"
we are thinking of downsizing in about 5 years-DH is tired of keeping up our 1/2 acre

 

[LisaR]

When our kids were little, we could usually only fit one car in the garage because the other side had way too many outdoor "toys."

I think cars are pretty well built to withstand the outdoor elements, but I do understand it bothers some people to see cars in the driveway. When my sister is looking for a new home, she'll drive up and down the neighborhood and see how many cars are out. If there are too many out, she won't look at homes in that area. I think she's a nut! To each their own, though.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

IMO, anything over 2500 sq ft (not including finished basements, garages, enclosed sun rooms, etc.) starts to become large.

I have no idea how many sq ft my house is. I'm kind of amazed that people know right off the top of their heads. If I have to guess, probably between 1800 and 2000 sq ft.

We have a two car garage, but most of the time I park in the driveway. DW is about half and half. It's not that there's too much junk in there, it's just too much effort for me to push the garage door opener on the visor. We did tidy up a bit to fit both cars in before the snowstorm, however.