Bedroom sizes

lincroft1710

chirp wrote: »

By "common middle class man" I meant someone who has a reasonable job and a reasonable salary and not a rich man. I meant that the common man with a reasonable salary should be able to afford a property with 3 decent sized bedrooms. And it should not be only for the rich people.

Well, certainly in southern England salaries and house prices are too far apart for this to happen.

SternMusik

Running_Horse wrote: »

If you can get a 6X3 bed in for a child then that is sufficient.

I completely disagree. The average house in this country is too small for a good quality family life, and the bedrooms are often tiny. A child of school age should have enough space in their room for a bed, a wardrobe, a desk (for homework) and some empty floorspace to play on. Small properties with tiny rooms deprive people of pursuing hobbies, entertaining guests, learning to play an instrument, doing crafts etc.

All of this is confounded by the the way properties are being advertised and sold - with the number of bedrooms being the most important feature when it should be the net internal floor area. Also, architects' drawings are very rarely available, even with newer properties. I just measured (with a laser measure) the house I bought recently. It has around 80 sqm of net internal floor area, which I consider too small for a family to live in. 100 sqm would be OK, which I believe used to be some sort of standard in social housing once upon a time.

It is unclear to me why there are no industry standards with regards to minimum property size at least for new builds - be it social housing or not.

smileytiger

chirp wrote: »

By "common middle class man" I meant someone who has a reasonable job and a reasonable salary and not a rich man. I meant that the common man with a reasonable salary should be able to afford a property with 3 decent sized bedrooms. And it should not be only for the rich people.

We would all like to have a decent house with the space we want - but depending on where you live or want to live is surely a more prominent factor when deciding how much space you can afford - than what class you are?

I'm typing this from my 3rd bedroom ( yes it's a home office), but i successfully brought up a child from the age of 5 to 17 in it without any major problems - it's not huge but he only slept/played in it. It had a single bed/wardrobe/chest of drawers & desk in at the time.
Personally i have better things to do with my time than sit in a bedroom admiring how large it is - i'd rather have smaller bedrooms and a decent amount of living space downstairs (which i have)
Life is all about compromise when it comes to property - or is it the fact that i'm just common working class that i'm not offended by small bedrooms?:rotfl:

Salz

I believe there is some sort of standard. A house we rented was advertised as a 4 bed house, but the 4th room just fitted a single bed and bookcase in - nothing else. They have continued to build them, but now have to advertise them as 3 beds plus study, so either there were complaints or some new legislation was brought in

LeafGreen

Just checked and my childhood bedroom was 8'11" x 5'8" plus a tiny bit extra where the door is. In fact I lived there until age 24!

Small yes, but enough for a carefully positioned single bed, desk/chair, wardrobe and additional wall mounted cupboards.

michelle2008

chirp wrote: »

By "common middle class man" I meant someone who has a reasonable job and a reasonable salary and not a rich man. I meant that the common man with a reasonable salary should be able to afford a property with 3 decent sized bedrooms. And it should not be only for the rich people.

Can women have decent jobs too? :-)

toby3000

SternMusik wrote: »

I completely disagree. The average house in this country is too small for a good quality family life, and the bedrooms are often tiny. A child of school age should have enough space in their room for a bed, a wardrobe, a desk (for homework) and some empty floorspace to play on. Small properties with tiny rooms deprive people of pursuing hobbies, entertaining guests, learning to play an instrument, doing crafts etc.

.

I completely agree. In my opinion children should be playing with creative toys - bricks, Lego, Playmobil, toy farm, doing paintings and drawings and that require space. Sure, if you're happy to sit you're kid in front of a DVD or a Playstation then they don't need space.

Adults, on the other hand, have far less need of space in bedrooms.

pinkshoes

Bedrooms are for sleeping, so I don't really care how big/small they are, so long as there's enough room for a double bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers in an adult room, and a single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and a desk in a child's bedroom.

It's downstairs "family" space that matters to me, and this I will NOT compromise on. Other than doing (home)work, families shouldn't be hidden away in bedrooms; they should be doing stuff together, learning to share space, compromise etc...

I really don't get the point of requiring a "big" bedroom. Ours is 10' x 12' and perfectly adequate.

Mumto3cheekymonkeys

SternMusik wrote: »

I completely disagree. The average house in this country is too small for a good quality family life, and the bedrooms are often tiny. A child of school age should have enough space in their room for a bed, a wardrobe, a desk (for homework) and some empty floorspace to play on. Small properties with tiny rooms deprive people of pursuing hobbies, entertaining guests, learning to play an instrument, doing crafts etc.

All of this is confounded by the the way properties are being advertised and sold - with the number of bedrooms being the most important feature when it should be the net internal floor area. Also, architects' drawings are very rarely available, even with newer properties. I just measured (with a laser measure) the house I bought recently. It has around 80 sqm of net internal floor area, which I consider too small for a family to live in. 100 sqm would be OK, which I believe used to be some sort of standard in social housing once upon a time.

It is unclear to me why there are no industry standards with regards to minimum property size at least for new builds - be it social housing or not.

I disagree. I live in east anglia and my property is what I would consider an average house for the area. I have 3 bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room, shower room (an extension built in the old brick house and old outside toilet) and a "conservatory" too small as one but serves as a playroom. as for the rest of the house 3 bedrooms and a bathroom which is a little on the small side but im used to much bigger. it is an ex council house and at one point there were 6 children and 2 adults living here the smallest room of which could fit a double bed and bedside table wardrobe and has a box over the stairs for say books or a tv.
we got all this for £130000. the area is quiet and we have so far (touch wood) had no problems neighbours are also very nice.

smileytiger

pinkshoes wrote: »

Bedrooms are for sleeping, so I don't really care how big/small they are, so long as there's enough room for a double bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers in an adult room, and a single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and a desk in a child's bedroom.

It's downstairs "family" space that matters to me, and this I will NOT compromise on. Other than doing (home)work, families shouldn't be hidden away in bedrooms; they should be doing stuff together, learning to share space, compromise etc...

I really don't get the point of requiring a "big" bedroom. Ours is 10' x 12' and perfectly adequate.

Well said - downstairs should be the heart of every family home :T:T