Can a house be too big/make you feel lost?

theoretica

elsien said:

Chickereeeee said:

Judging by the state of some the houses with older people living in them - yes, a house can feel too big. Lots of rooms crammed with ancient 'valued possessions' but covered with dust and fluff. Rooms they seldom go into. Expensive to heat, and maintenance problems can go unnoticed, until substantial  damage has occurred. They would much rather be in a smaller, easily cleaned and maintained home, but can't bare the thought of leaving the area and neighbours.

I don't know how old you are, but worth bearing in mind.

(Also, I personally would feel guilty of depriving a family of a suitable home, if I was one person moving to a 4 bed house)

Well, if that’s the line of argument, presumably people like the OP and myself should be moving out of our three bedroom homes and into one bedroom flats? Ridiculous comment. 

No, I don't think it is ridiculous.  Pointing out the country has finite amount of housing and if some people have a lot other people can't get much is true.  Look at any discussion of housing shortage and so much focusses on 'must build more' with very limited discussion (mainly 2nd homes and holiday rentals) of making a different distribution of what exists.  No, I am not saying anyone who doesn't unilaterally move into a property without spare rooms is selfish, that isn't how the country works at present.

CSI_Yorkshire

theoretica said:

elsien said:

Chickereeeee said:

Judging by the state of some the houses with older people living in them - yes, a house can feel too big. Lots of rooms crammed with ancient 'valued possessions' but covered with dust and fluff. Rooms they seldom go into. Expensive to heat, and maintenance problems can go unnoticed, until substantial  damage has occurred. They would much rather be in a smaller, easily cleaned and maintained home, but can't bare the thought of leaving the area and neighbours.

I don't know how old you are, but worth bearing in mind.

(Also, I personally would feel guilty of depriving a family of a suitable home, if I was one person moving to a 4 bed house)

Well, if that’s the line of argument, presumably people like the OP and myself should be moving out of our three bedroom homes and into one bedroom flats? Ridiculous comment. 

No, I don't think it is ridiculous.  Pointing out the country has finite amount of housing and if some people have a lot other people can't get much is true.  Look at any discussion of housing shortage and so much focusses on 'must build more' with very limited discussion (mainly 2nd homes and holiday rentals) of making a different distribution of what exists.  No, I am not saying anyone who doesn't unilaterally move into a property without spare rooms is selfish, that isn't how the country works at present.

"at present"? - interesting clarification.

Chickereeeee

elsien said:

Chickereeeee said:

Judging by the state of some the houses with older people living in them - yes, a house can feel too big. Lots of rooms crammed with ancient 'valued possessions' but covered with dust and fluff. Rooms they seldom go into. Expensive to heat, and maintenance problems can go unnoticed, until substantial  damage has occurred. They would much rather be in a smaller, easily cleaned and maintained home, but can't bare the thought of leaving the area and neighbours.

I don't know how old you are, but worth bearing in mind.

(Also, I personally would feel guilty of depriving a family of a suitable home, if I was one person moving to a 4 bed house)

Well, if that’s the line of argument, presumably people like the OP and myself should be moving out of our three bedroom homes and into one bedroom flats? Ridiculous comment. 

As it is my own feeling, you cannot really say its a ridiculous comment.  From the strength of your reaction, I sense a little guilt being suppressed.

Also, 2 people in an already-owned 3 bedroom house is somewhat different to a single person buying a 4 bedroom house.

CSI_Yorkshire

Chickereeeee said:

elsien said:

Chickereeeee said:

Judging by the state of some the houses with older people living in them - yes, a house can feel too big. Lots of rooms crammed with ancient 'valued possessions' but covered with dust and fluff. Rooms they seldom go into. Expensive to heat, and maintenance problems can go unnoticed, until substantial  damage has occurred. They would much rather be in a smaller, easily cleaned and maintained home, but can't bare the thought of leaving the area and neighbours.

I don't know how old you are, but worth bearing in mind.

(Also, I personally would feel guilty of depriving a family of a suitable home, if I was one person moving to a 4 bed house)

Well, if that’s the line of argument, presumably people like the OP and myself should be moving out of our three bedroom homes and into one bedroom flats? Ridiculous comment. 

As it is my own feeling, you cannot really say its a ridiculous comment.  From the strength of your reaction, I sense a little guilt being suppressed.

Also, 2 people in an already-owned 3 bedroom house is somewhat different to a single person buying a 4 bedroom house.

Your first comment wasn't too far off, because (as you said) it was your own feeling - even if it was worded extremely emotively.

Now you are being ridiculous though, accusing others of "suppressed guilt" because they don't agree with your unusual perspective.

elsien

I can assure you there is no suppressed guilt whatsoever.  

twopenny

I used to live in a large house and loved it but it was the family home so lots of memories.
I did what was a temporary move pre covid to a tiny one. Here is quiet with bird song, sound of the sea, owls, stars, great neighbours and 10 mins from town or the beach with views of the hills.
It's tiny but the perfect location. Also highly popular so a good investment.

Pointless moving unless you hope to make a profit or it's in a location you love.
Presumably you're not in love with the house you are in. So perhaps think about what it is you want from the move.

[Deleted User]

A larger house doesn't mean it can't be cosy, that depends on how you furnish it and the layout. If you have hobbies that would be served by having a dedicated room for them then why not. I wouldn't say 3 bathrooms was an essential, but if one is downstairs and one upstairs it is very useful when /if your health changes. heating costs might be an issue if there's just one person but it's personal choice. I would if by myself have a bigger garden and better view in preference  to extra rooms. Your money, your choice. 

Gavin83

theoretica said:

elsien said:

Chickereeeee said:

Judging by the state of some the houses with older people living in them - yes, a house can feel too big. Lots of rooms crammed with ancient 'valued possessions' but covered with dust and fluff. Rooms they seldom go into. Expensive to heat, and maintenance problems can go unnoticed, until substantial  damage has occurred. They would much rather be in a smaller, easily cleaned and maintained home, but can't bare the thought of leaving the area and neighbours.

I don't know how old you are, but worth bearing in mind.

(Also, I personally would feel guilty of depriving a family of a suitable home, if I was one person moving to a 4 bed house)

Well, if that’s the line of argument, presumably people like the OP and myself should be moving out of our three bedroom homes and into one bedroom flats? Ridiculous comment. 

No, I don't think it is ridiculous.  Pointing out the country has finite amount of housing and if some people have a lot other people can't get much is true.  Look at any discussion of housing shortage and so much focusses on 'must build more' with very limited discussion (mainly 2nd homes and holiday rentals) of making a different distribution of what exists.  No, I am not saying anyone who doesn't unilaterally move into a property without spare rooms is selfish, that isn't how the country works at present.

I do see the argument but ultimately I can’t really see a way to change this.

For most people their biggest asset/expense is their home. Therefore the quality of home you have is largely dictated by your wealth. Rich people generally have better houses than poorer people.

If you were to assign houses based on need how would that even work? Would you steal bigger houses off those that don’t need them and make them swap with someone who owns a smaller house? I don’t expect anyone is genuinely suggesting that.

Therefore the only way to implement this would be via policy. How would that look? I expect if you taxed people via excess space, something akin to the bedroom tax those rich people would just pay it and nothing would change. They are effectively already taxed more via larger council tax bills and it doesn’t affect anything. Would you physically ban people from buying houses with more room than they need? I’m not sure that would work either and would make family planning extremely costly and difficult.

It also raises the question of what you’d spend your excess money on that you saved with a smaller house.

We do actually use our space though. If we had rooms we never used I’d consider moving.

[Deleted User] said:

I wouldn't say 3 bathrooms was an essential, but if one is downstairs and one upstairs it is very useful when /if your health changes. 

Everyone is of course free to have whatever they wish in their house. For the two of us we really don’t have need for 3 bathrooms. I take the point about a downstairs bathroom but given we’re in our 30s I’m not really concerned about this yet. Given the layout and furniture when we moved in I got the impression the extra bathroom was designed with an elderly parent in mind.

Since moving in we’ve yet to have 3 working bathrooms though. The en-suite shower was broken when we moved in. We ripped both the en-suite and upstairs bathrooms out at the same time so we could have them plastered. The main bathroom is a few months from completion but once it’s finished I expect we won’t use the downstairs bathroom at all. I don’t like wasted space so it’s got to go.

theoretica

Gavin83 said:

Purbeck14 said:

I wouldn't say 3 bathrooms was an essential, but if one is downstairs and one upstairs it is very useful when /if your health changes.

Everyone is of course free to have whatever they wish in their house. For the two of us we really don’t have need for 3 bathrooms. I take the point about a downstairs bathroom but given we’re in our 30s I’m not really concerned about this yet. Given the layout and furniture when we moved in I got the impression the extra bathroom was designed with an elderly parent in mind.

Since moving in we’ve yet to have 3 working bathrooms though. The en-suite shower was broken when we moved in. We ripped both the en-suite and upstairs bathrooms out at the same time so we could have them plastered. The main bathroom is a few months from completion but once it’s finished I expect we won’t use the downstairs bathroom at all. I don’t like wasted space so it’s got to go.

You might want to check up on that before finalising your plans - building regulations now call for an accessible toilet and either a bathroom or space where one can easily be plumbed in.  I believe they both insist on this in new builds, and object to the removal in older properties - but maybe your plans meet the requirement for keeping the toilet and being easy to convert back to bath/shower.

silvercar

Rattling around as empty nesters in 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. I think there is a difference between having had the home fairly full and the kids growing up and leaving and choosing to buy something too big.

There are are 3 things stopping us downsizing:
1. Costs of moving, particularly the high stamp duty (we are very near to London).
2. The hope that we will have grandchildren who will regularly stay
3. we have the house how we like it, are comfortable with the location etc