What is more important in a house, interior space or storage?

[ilovefh]

I've posted many times before about our house search. We'll probably wait until the summer, but we are looking, especially since our house is now under contract and should close within the month. If something great comes along we may go for it.

In the neighborhood we're looking in there are two types of houses. We're debating what is most important to us.

One type is 1600 square feet. A 3/2 house with a one car garage. The layout is decent but there is only one living space so the kids would have to play and watch tv in the living room. These are older and would need some new paint and some new carpet.

The other is 1900 square feet and brand new. It is a 3/2 house with no garage. It does have a living room and a family room so that kids could use that as their playroom. It would need nothing to move in.

The price difference is around 50k, with the larger home costing more. So, what is more important to you, storage space or interior space?

ETA: This would probably not be a forever home. Only 5 years or so. In 5 years if DS can go to regular public school then we can live anywhere. If he still needs the special needs school he is at we'd have to move because the middle/high school is 40 minutes away.

 

[wilkeliza]

That is rough. Storage is important but storage is so much easier to fix then interior space is. Is there a room in the 1600 foot that could work as a kids play room with out doing much work?

 

[Cantw8]

Interior space is more important to me. Storage problems can always be rectified...throw crap out!

 

[mnrose]

No garage would be a deal breaker for me, but I live in Minnesota. NO WAY am I parking outside. Enough said.

A garage is pretty important, no matter where you live. No garage equals tougher sell on the other end. Unless there is space in the "bigger home" to add a stand alone garage, I'd opt for a garage.

 

[indygirl99]

I've posted many times before about our house search. We'll probably wait until the summer, but we are looking, especially since our house is now under contract and should close within the month. If something great comes along we may go for it.

In the neighborhood we're looking in there are two types of houses. We're debating what is most important to us.

One type is 1600 square feet. A 3/2 house with a one car garage. The layout is decent but there is only one living space so the kids would have to play and watch tv in the living room. These are older and would need some new paint and some new carpet.

The other is 1900 square feet and brand new. It is a 3/2 house with no garage. It does have a living room and a family room so that kids could use that as their playroom. It would need nothing to move in.

The price difference is around 50k, with the larger home costing more. So, what is more important to you, storage space or interior space?

I must be missing something here. What storage does each house have? I don't see anywhere that you state what storage space is in each house. Only bed/bath and garage.

What do each house have for storage. 50K is a lot and I would have to know what storage is actually in each house.

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

I'd rather have a garage than a playroom.

 

[Disneychick75]

Interior space-we took the master bedroom and made it a large closet which is very convenient because it opens to the bathroom. My husband and I took the bedroom across the hall from the former master. We added a door at the end of the hall which opens to the keeping room/kitchen, so it's still private.

 

[ilovefh]

That is rough. Storage is important but storage is so much easier to fix then interior space is. Is there a room in the 1600 foot that could work as a kids play room with out doing much work?

Not really. It does have a nice sunroom/screened porch that could be a playroom if we found a way to put a/c in it.

I must be missing something here. What storage does each house have? I don't see anywhere that you state what storage space is in each house. Only bed/bath and garage.

What do each house have for storage. 50K is a lot and I would have to know what storage is actually in each house.

Storage inside each house is comparable. The only difference inside is that the bigger house has a big pantry while the smaller one doesn't have a pantry.

They're both one story homes in FL so no attic or basement. The garage would function as storage. The HOA fee covers lawn care so no need for a lawn mower.

There is no room to add a garage to the bigger house. We could add a stand alone shed though.

 

[RedAngie]

Storage space is important to me. Lack of basement or other adequate storage space would be a deal breaker.

 

[indygirl99]

With a growing family storage would be my number one priority. Pantry to hold staples, cabinets for dishes pots and pans. Closets for clothes etc.
Kids can play in their room so a playroom is not necessary.

Another deal breaker for me would be the HOA. They are a pain in the backside. Are you sure they will let you add a shed? Can you tell I've had bad experiences with HOA's?

I would probably keep looking.

 

[ilovefh]

With a growing family storage would be my number one priority. Pantry to hold staples, cabinets for dishes pots and pans. Closets for clothes etc.
Kids can play in their room so a playroom is not necessary.

Another deal breaker for me would be the HOA. They are a pain in the backside. Are you sure they will let you add a shed? Can you tell I've had bad experiences with HOA's?

I would probably keep looking.

Around here HOAs are the norm. There isn't much in the area that isn't an HOA and those that don't have an HOA fall into two categories; either they are homes with larger lots (> 1 acre) and thus very expensive or they are not in a safe area.

So, we'll definitely end up somewhere with an HOA.

And yes, we checked, we can put a shed in.

 

[tvguy]

How on earth can a new home not have a garage? I'd keep looking. The perfect family home to me is 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, 1,700 to 2,000 square feet with a family room and a living room. Oh, and garages are for cars, not storage.

It is interesting to see the differences in houses on my street,and the street my house backs up to, defending on what year they were built. Lots keep getting smaller, houses keep getting bigger. Houses were built in 1956....1976-1979, 1985 to 1986 and 2009 to 2011.

Comparison:
1956. .25 acre lot. 1,000 to 1,200 square foot 3 bedroom 1 bath house, 1 car garage.
1976 to 1979. .17 acre lot 1500 square to 2,000 square foot 3 and 4 bedroom, 2 to 3 bathroom house 2 car garage.
1985 to 1986 .15 acre lot, 1700 to 2200 square foot, 3 and 4 bedroom, 2 or 3 car garage.
2009 to 2011. .14 acre lot, 2,100 to 2300 square foot, 3 or 4 bedroom, 3 or 4 car garage.

 

[gotomu212]

It's such a personal choice. For me I'd go for interior space over storage space. I want more space for the people of the house and don't want to sacrifice that to just hold "things".

How do you live though? Would the garage be needed for a handful of things that would potentially be accommodated elsewhere (or purged) or would the garage be pretty full with essential things you want to hang on to?

 

[dotfurio]

Not really. It does have a nice sunroom/screened porch that could be a playroom if we found a way to put a/c in it.

We added on a sunroom with an ac/heater wall unit and that's what we use as our playroom for now until our youngest outgrows it.

I think I'd be ok without a garage, since we never park in ours anyway. Would it be terribly expensive to add a shed or rent a storage unit?

 

[xlxo]

Are these houses next to one another?

• Which house is closer to work for the family?
• which house offers better public transit?
• how is the crime in each neighborhood?
• I would love a garage.

 

[barkley]

How on earth can a new home not have a garage? I'd keep looking. The perfect family home to me is 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, 1,700 to 2,000 square feet with a family room and a living room. Oh, and garages are for cars, not storage.

It is interesting to see the differences in houses on my street,and the street my house backs up to, defending on what year they were built. Lots keep getting smaller, houses keep getting bigger. Houses were built in 1956....1976-1979, 1985 to 1986 and 2009 to 2011.

Comparison:
1956. .25 acre lot. 1,000 to 1,200 square foot 3 bedroom 1 bath house, 1 car garage.
1976 to 1979. .17 acre lot 1500 square to 2,000 square foot 3 and 4 bedroom, 2 to 3 bathroom house 2 car garage.
1985 to 1986 .15 acre lot, 1700 to 2200 square foot, 3 and 4 bedroom, 2 or 3 car garage.
2009 to 2011. .14 acre lot, 2,100 to 2300 square foot, 3 or 4 bedroom, 3 or 4 car garage.

it will be interesting to watch the trends over the next decade.

when we sold our former home in California back in '06 we discussed with our realtor (who had been around forever/still is) what desirable housing trends (size/design wise) he was seeing/anticipating. much to our surprise he was saying that he anticipated down the line (maybe 10 or so years) the first time homeowner market being much more enamored with height space than actual square footage. his reasoning was based on doing home showings w/people who brought along their tweens/teens, and those kids comments about how particular houses had 'so much more space' when they had high ceilings vs. larger square footage homes with lower ceilings. his reasoning was the proliferation over the recent years of homes that featured high ceilings, plant shelves, walls that didn't reach the ceilings such that it drew the eye away from actual individual room size (and those horrendous 'too small to even be considered a closet' kid's bedrooms)...that these kids were largely raised in. these kids equated spaciousness with lots of head room vs. their parents who equated it with physical square footage of the rooms/closets/garages. those kids would be nearing the age to become first time buyers-I think it would be fascinating to see what their existing home purchasing trends are like.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I use a garage for parking--not storage, but would not have a home without one.

Personally, I think we tend to accumulate a lot of stuff we really do not need, and most people seem to accumulate however much they have places to stick it--less storage means you accumulate less unneeded junk.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I'd take the house with the sunroom, but mostly because I'd love a sunroom!

Storage is becoming more and more important to me, though. How I would design a house if I had the money to start from scratch is very different from how I would have designed it several years ago. Clutter has been bothering me, and I'm working on eliminating stuff little by little.

 

[ilovefh]

How on earth can a new home not have a garage? I'd keep looking. The perfect family home to me is 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, 1,700 to 2,000 square feet with a family room and a living room. Oh, and garages are for cars, not storage.

Me too! But unfortunately our house is selling for less than we had hoped. Because of this we're pretty much priced out of our "ideal" homes in the area. We're not interested in having a mortgage while DD is in daycare, and she's only 3 weeks old so we have a few more years. So our bottom line is that this is what we can afford in the area we need to be in. The area is non negotiable because of DS's school.

We could move back to the area we used to live in and get all of what you described and a pool for the same price. We really loved it there. If our son did not have special needs we would be back there in a second, but his school needs trump my need to have a bigger house.

And no matter what we buy, our garage down here is always storage. We parked our cars in the garage in NH in the winter, but here in FL we have no need for them to be in the garage. Plus when you take away the option of a basement, things need to go somewhere!

It's such a personal choice. For me I'd go for interior space over storage space. I want more space for the people of the house and don't want to sacrifice that to just hold "things".

How do you live though? Would the garage be needed for a handful of things that would potentially be accommodated elsewhere (or purged) or would the garage be pretty full with essential things you want to hang on to?

I think I could go either way. We are getting rid of a lot of things we have stored in the basement at our old house. For example, I was saving DS's old clothes for when we had a second child. Well, we had a girl so now I can sell all of that stuff.

It would hold all of our seasonal decorations, but those are being downsized too. Plus, it would hold our freezer chest. And most importantly it would hold DH's RC cars and all of the stuff that goes with them! Plus it would give him a space to work on them.

In the house with no garage he would have to store his RC's outside (in some sort of shed) and work on them on the screened in porch.

We added on a sunroom with an ac/heater wall unit and that's what we use as our playroom for now until our youngest outgrows it.

I think I'd be ok without a garage, since we never park in ours anyway. Would it be terribly expensive to add a shed or rent a storage unit?

A storage unit would be terribly cost prohibitive. Here the cheapest one is $50/month. Multiply that by a few years and the stuff I would store isn't even worth that much!
We could get a shed which would be much cheaper.

Are these houses next to one another?

• Which house is closer to work for the family?
• which house offers better public transit?
• how is the crime in each neighborhood?
• I would love a garage.

They're in the same neighborhood so everything about the neighborhood is the same.

The only other difference is that the new homes come with a year free HOA dues.

 

[Christine]

I use a garage for parking--not storage, but would not have a home without one.

Personally, I think we tend to accumulate a lot of stuff we really do not need, and most people seem to accumulate however much they have places to stick it--less storage means you accumulate less unneeded junk.

Same here on the garage. We park both our cars in it and would never have a house without one now! Even with the cars, though, we have space for other things (tools, bikes, kayak, etc) and we have attic storage above our garage.

OP, I wouldn't get too hung up on not having a separate playroom. I have several areas that could have been separate playrooms and my kids still chose to be in the living room near where all the other action was. That said, I would be miserable in a house that had tiny closets or areas to put things away in. I buy stuff at Costco and thankfully I have a small pantry and areas where I can store my paper towels and bulk items.