One-bedroom for a family? - Page 2

[lexmas]

I'm sure it would be fine...we have more bedrooms in this house, but none are available as a bedroom at any time in the near future (we're decluttering 30 years of stuff that my parents saved...my mom is willing to get rid of some of it, which is more than my dad would have been willing to do, but it's a painful process!) so the 4 of us are sharing one bedroom for the forseeable future. I love it, and it's not a problem at all. Honestly, we have some things downstairs, but the majority of our possessions are in 2 connected rooms upstairs (bedroom size...one is our "living room"), and it's not a problem at all. In fact, we have tons of stuff in these rooms left to decluter!

[zoebird]

i don't know what "seems just silly" about consciously choosing to have a family bed, a family bed room, for children over the age of 2 years, 11 months, and 29/30 days.

obviously, families all of the world do it, and many MDC mamas consciously choose to share their rooms with their children for as long as they, and their children, like. and often, that is with children aged under 10.

i don't know why that would be "seem silly."

perhaps you can explain to me what is "silly" about choosing that?

[BarefootScientist]

zoe, I think she was referring more to choosing to share a one-bedroom apartment, not the act of co-sleeping itself.

But I agree. Another aspect here...I was recently looking at the book Material World, and according to it, in most places in the world people live in a third to a half as much space as what we in the developed world consider to be absolutely bare minimum essential - and they have bigger families. They don't even have a bedroom. I've been thinking a lot lately about how much we (I'm talking about my family now) have vs. how much we would be entitled to if everyone on this earth was actually equal. I think it is a big difference. If so many people can get by with 6 people or more in 400 square feet or less, I just don't feel quite right in 1000 sf for my family of three, ya know? Especially if we don't use all the space.

[zebra15]

Actually the persons per room is a fire code thing, not an apartment manager rule. The 2 persons per bedroom is standard anywhere I've been. 1br with 3 people is very tight, you can use the 2n bedroom for toys, an office, a 'study' or library, sewing room etc. I would so love to have an extra room right now. You probably can just not use the 2nd bathroom if you dont want to clean it.

[wombatclay]

I'm just having trouble finding anyone other than Delight, IRL or online, who lives in less than 800 sq ft, one bedroom, with one or more kids and loves it. Anyone out there?

I'm not a minimalist (more a magpie with a serious addiction to literature) and we're a family of 5 in ~850sq/ft one bedroom cabin. So dh, myself, a 5yo, a 2yo, and an 8mo in one bedroom. Right now ds (5mo) cosleeps and the girls share a sibling bed. We have a queen sized bed for dh/ds/myself (2yo dd2 often climbs in around 4am) and a queen sized air mattress that spends the day on top of the "regular" bed. I toss a comforter over the whole thing and it looks like a normal bed.

This cabin isn't well laid out, so we are building an addition. The final sq/ft will be around 1100. The kiddos will share a room (10x12) with a loft bed over a twin sized bed with trundle. We are thinking about a 4th child which would probably mean two bunk beds at some point.

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2nd bathroom.... my parents live in senior housing and for some reason their apt has two bathrooms. My mom turned the smaller bathroom into a pantry since the kitchen is tiny. So maybe you can get out of cleaning a second bath?

[BarefootScientist]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

2nd bathroom.... my parents live in senior housing and for some reason their apt has two bathrooms. My mom turned the smaller bathroom into a pantry since the kitchen is tiny. So maybe you can get out of cleaning a second bath?

Hmmm a pantry?? Very interesting.

[zoebird]

i still fail to understand the silliness of choosing a one bedroom apartment with a three year old? in another year, we will be there, and we plan on being in this place for at least another year, and perhaps even more. we are purposefully and actively choosing it. so, what is silyl about it?

[Logan]

Originally Posted by zoebird

i still fail to understand the silliness of choosing a one bedroom apartment with a three year old? in another year, we will be there, and we plan on being in this place for at least another year, and perhaps even more. we are purposefully and actively choosing it. so, what is silyl about it?

I totally agree. We technically have a 2 bedroom, but the layout we currently have means we only have one usable bedroom. Its an older style house with a big open bedroom and it is the 'family bedroom'. My 3 year old has a toddler bed in addition to the family bed in the same room. But he creeps in at some point every night to the family bed. I have no plans to force him off to a lonely dark corner of the house somewhere all alone while we all share the family bed. Seems cruel actually . This way we only heat one room in winter and only need one space taken up by beds rather than the whole house. I can forsee that as our family grows/ages we may need to have two large bedrooms or build a unique open plan home. But I will never do the traditional one room per child thing, I just don't believe in it. When/if we need to move from this place I will be renting a simple, well-maintained, small apartment. So much easier to care for then a big house!

Why are people so quick to judge anyone who goes against the norm? I see a lot of it in this forum, people posting on minimalism threads who think true minimalists are on the edge of insanity. Perhaps they only like minimalism in terms of nice simple modern furniture for their 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom homes?

[jewellz]

Ok we live in a 6 bedroom 4 bath house and there are 8 of us but guess how many we have in one room. 7 (my fil has his own room). There are 5 kids and DH and I in one room. Granted our master bedroom is huge but we like it that way. We can fit a California king, a queen and a full in there with room to spare. We have our 6yr old in her own bed, our 5 and 3 yr old in the queen bed and Dh and I and our 17month old and 1 week old in the king. Now our six year old will eventually want to go in her room-when we finish painting it, but right now it all works for us. We love it.