How many square feet is considered big? (housing, construction, claim)
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I guess it depends on where you live. I live in Philadelphia and my home is 2276 sq ft and it is HUGE compared to others. Average is around 1200 sq ft or so. 5000? Seriously... Unheard of.
3000 sq ft. allows for a formal dining room (wrap Christmas presents, spread out garden seeds, work on projects) a formal living room (for chatting and reading), a family room/man cave/media room (for watching TV, hanging out), a decent size kitchen and eating area, an office, a mud room, a walk-in pantry/butler's closet, 3 or 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Makes for a comfortable house to raise kids, have company stay over, keep out of each other's hair.
IMO, 4000+ sq. ft. is big.
I've toured 4000 sq ft. homes and been disappointed at the dinky kitchens that open into the family rooms.
3000 sq ft. allows for a formal dining room (wrap Christmas presents, spread out garden seeds, work on projects) a formal living room (for chatting and reading), a family room/man cave/media room (for watching TV, hanging out), a decent size kitchen and eating area, an office, a mud room, a walk-in pantry/butler's closet, 3 or 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Makes for a comfortable house to raise kids, have company stay over, keep out of each other's hair.
I was raised in 2,500 square foot house with a formal dining room, a dinette in a room separate from the kitchen, a formal living room, a family room, 2.5 baths, a front foyer, a back mudroom, a walk-in pantry, three bedrooms, a den, and a laundry room. 2,500 square feet is a huge house if you make a plausible lay-out. There were six of us, four kids, and it was plenty of room. Nobody we knew had a bigger house except a few old-money people.
People are bankrupting themselves or scrimping on every other aspect of their lives to get absurdly big houses these days. I don't understand it at all.
I've lived in homes that were less than 1500 sq ft my whole life (I come from a family of 5, including parents), but I would say closer to the 1200 sq ft range. I think 1500 for us growing up would have been perfect.
I currently live in about 1000 sq ft with my husband and son. It works for us, though there are a good amount of times that we wish for more space. I think for our forever home, we'd want 2000-2500 sq ft (keeping in mind that we would like to have four kids). I feel like homes of that size give everybody space while providing a nice common area for everyone to be together, plus big enough to host large get-togethers (such as Thanksgiving for a couple dozen people). I don't get why people would go for 3000 sq ft homes. It almost seems obnoxiously big to me (unless you have a large family to fill it up).
I live in an area where they're constantly building up huge homes that are excessively big -- 5000+ sq ft. I've yet to see a family of more than 5 people move into these spaces -- I don't understand how they don't feel lonely after a while.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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At 3,000 sf our house seemed just right for a family of 5, I can't imagine how we managed on 1,400 sf before we bought this house. It's relative to the number of people, whether you do a lot of parties, have extended family
gatherings, and have a lot of hobbies that take up a lot of space. I would consider 4,000 to be big for 5 people. I do see couples living in 5,000 sf homes, that seems like too much but they must have a reason for it. Around here the typical new home is 3,500 sf on a 5,000 sf lot, our lot is 12,000 and I wish it were bigger.
I voted 3000+. My parents live in a 3300 square foot house currently, and it has way more space than I would ever use. Also, I grew up in a 6000+ square foot house, and to me, 6000 doesn't feel that much different than 3000. To me, that is the sign of a large house, when you can add/subtract a lot of square footage without the house feeling noticeably different in size.
I was raised in an average middle class home in the '50s and '60s. It was about 1200 SF. My mother considered it large. She considered her father's house REALLY large - it was maybe 1500 SF. Our house now is 2500 SF and much bigger than two people need but great when we had 3 kids at home. We will probably downsize to 1800-2000 SF soon.
We currently live in a two-story that is about 1440 sq ft. We have three kids, two dogs and two cats. We aren't comfortable here, only because it's only a 2-bed, 1-bath (only had two of the kids when we bought, and they were babies. It was to be our starter home, moving before they started school. It's been 11 1/2 years...) We are leaving tomorrow for our new home, a one story, 3-bed (plus a study we will use as a 4th bedroom), 2-bath home at 1480 sq ft, and I can't wait! Everyone will have their own space, but with a nice open floor plan for the main area of the house for us still all to be together. It's the perfect amount of space for us, and not too big to be a pain for me to clean! :-) For us, anything over 3k would be way too much. 2k would be big, but not terribly big.
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