We currently live in a 2800 sq ft 2 story home in a suburban neighborhood. We are a homeschooling family with 4 kids - ages almost 6, almost 4, almost 2, and 3 months. The oldest is our daughter, then we have 3 boys. In our current house we have dd in one room and had planned on the other 3 boys sharing another (the youngest is cosleeping). We do have the room to eventually put them in the daylight basement when they are older if the current setup didn't work. We don't even really use the daylight basement, except for storing nonsense (which we are slowly trying to get rid of) and for the washer/dryer.
We have the opportunity to move to an adorable Craftsman style farmhouse on 5 acres - absolutely our DREAM. We've been looking for 4 years and really wanting to downsize and live simply. This place is literally everything we've been looking for. We've made a huge amount of lifestyle changes in the past few years, so we really feel like we could easily live at this place for the rest of our lives and would be a great place to raise our kids. But now that this dream is right in front of us, we've had family members telling us we are totally nuts for it because this house is way too small for 4 kids.
Even DH's parents think we need literally double the space so the kids can all have their own bedrooms. We do have the option to add on to it during the renovation which will be starting soon, but I'm not sure if we'd be able to add on in the future (a long story). In the farmhouse, the attic/loft has a great big open bedroom (which we'd use for the boys) and then a tiny little bedroom that has a door (for dd). So the kids would all be on the upper floor, but dd would have her own space. There is a master bedroom on the main floor and then a basement which we plan on finishing that could technically be set up for bedrooms. We thought it was perfect for our family until we've had so many naysayers. We are totally willing to part with any of our possessions as we downsize. We've already gotten rid of probably half of our "stuff" so far.
Everyone is telling us that with a smaller house and with that bedroom set up that we will go nuts when the kids are teenagers. If we get this place, it is unlikely we would want to move when they are teenagers because of how incredibly hard it is to find something like this in this specific area that we want to live in and how much work it is to set up all the things we want to do. DH and I were totally opposed to adding on to the house to add more bedrooms when we first heard that idea because we don't want a huge big house. I'm just making sure we aren't totally crazy for purposely choosing a small, cozy home for a family with 4 kids. I suppose our family would have thought we were really insane if we had built a tiny cob house or bought an RV to travel in, huh?
Constructive criticism to our plan welcome. We'd actually hoped to have a small, well laid out home instead of something bigger. Now I'm wondering if this is a short sighted plan. Is dd going to hate us for making her have a tiny bedroom? Its an adorable room, just small, but I don't think I as a teenager would have cared. And will the boys hate having to share the big room? I never shared a room so I have no clue. Are we going to hate having a smaller home when they are older?
We have the opportunity to move to an adorable Craftsman style farmhouse on 5 acres - absolutely our DREAM. We've been looking for 4 years and really wanting to downsize and live simply. This place is literally everything we've been looking for. We've made a huge amount of lifestyle changes in the past few years, so we really feel like we could easily live at this place for the rest of our lives and would be a great place to raise our kids. But now that this dream is right in front of us, we've had family members telling us we are totally nuts for it because this house is way too small for 4 kids.
Even DH's parents think we need literally double the space so the kids can all have their own bedrooms. We do have the option to add on to it during the renovation which will be starting soon, but I'm not sure if we'd be able to add on in the future (a long story). In the farmhouse, the attic/loft has a great big open bedroom (which we'd use for the boys) and then a tiny little bedroom that has a door (for dd). So the kids would all be on the upper floor, but dd would have her own space. There is a master bedroom on the main floor and then a basement which we plan on finishing that could technically be set up for bedrooms. We thought it was perfect for our family until we've had so many naysayers. We are totally willing to part with any of our possessions as we downsize. We've already gotten rid of probably half of our "stuff" so far.
Everyone is telling us that with a smaller house and with that bedroom set up that we will go nuts when the kids are teenagers. If we get this place, it is unlikely we would want to move when they are teenagers because of how incredibly hard it is to find something like this in this specific area that we want to live in and how much work it is to set up all the things we want to do. DH and I were totally opposed to adding on to the house to add more bedrooms when we first heard that idea because we don't want a huge big house. I'm just making sure we aren't totally crazy for purposely choosing a small, cozy home for a family with 4 kids. I suppose our family would have thought we were really insane if we had built a tiny cob house or bought an RV to travel in, huh?
Constructive criticism to our plan welcome. We'd actually hoped to have a small, well laid out home instead of something bigger. Now I'm wondering if this is a short sighted plan. Is dd going to hate us for making her have a tiny bedroom? Its an adorable room, just small, but I don't think I as a teenager would have cared. And will the boys hate having to share the big room? I never shared a room so I have no clue. Are we going to hate having a smaller home when they are older?
.
But then again, I love cooking and spend too much time in our kitchen I'm sure... 
I actually like the idea of having the small bedroom be a separate lounge space some day, I never thought of that! We will definitely be finishing off the basement with a second bathroom and one bedroom (not sure what we'd use it for at first). We could probably add a second bedroom down there eventually too. My MIL hates that idea because she thinks basements are gross, but this one is a nice dry basement and we would finish it nicely.
Follow Mothering