The bigification of our houses....

.....what do you think?

Just read an interesting article about the 'bigification' of our homes over the last 60 years or so....without an increase in the size of our families!

The (American) article stated that the average house size there had gone from 983 square feet in the 1950's, and recently (2004) the houses are an *average* of 2,349 square feet!

I'm not sure of NZ figures but would imagine them to be following the same trend....

Do we need these increases do you think? Is it vital for our children to each have a room to themselves or is sharing the way to go? Does having a big house need to = status?

Hmmm big questions lol but I just wondered as our home is a small 3 bedroom +study house (98 square metres) and our babies will definately be sharing a bedroom as they get older, as will our stepchildren when they come to stay. We wouldn't give it up for the world though as its quiet and peaceful and has a HUGE section full of places for children to play...(and a lot of fruit tress and garden for me hehe). I couldn't imagine living in a MASSIVE house or being able to afford it actually even if I wanted to.

?

Our house is old built by the original owner in the 60's its about 140 sq's on a 1500 sq section its 3 bedroom but the rooms are all of a very generous size and really open plan, amazing really for such an old home, I would not want any bigger but it would be the section I would find hard to give up I love there is space to play and run and have vege gardens and build huts (for myself as much as DD ) Our kids will possibly share a room unless we have a boy next then possibly not, but I loved sharing a room (most of the time) when I was little, its part of the fun of growing up isn't it?

I cannot stand the large monstrosities your see in the new subdivisions that have 2 or 3 stories and look like they must have 5-6 bedrooms and goodness knows how many bathrooms, I just think of all the cleaning

I definitely think its a status thing, I don't think its necessary unless of course you have a large or extended family living in one house, but then look at the huge cars people drive these days, half of them don't need those!

we have just extended our house! It was about 94m2 and is now about 160m2, it will be 4 brms once we finish. We are on about 800m2 section

For us it wasn't a status thing but a sanity thing for me, plus DH is doing a building apprenticeship so he did all the work. I went insane in our house last winter before the extension as I felt so crammed in. It is definately the biggest I would go though, definately don't want more house to clean!

I don't mind big houses, what I don't like the look of is the HUGE houses on postage stamp sized sections. They look horrid

Added to say this is one of the joys of living in NZ is there is plenty of space to build the home of your dreams. I can't stand the huge monstrosities on tiny sections either.
We have awesome views of the ranges from our house and we only paid 285k for it .

The house we own is 92m2 and 2.5 bedrooms...I find it small and cramped, but it's possibly the way that it is set out, rather than the actual size. The house I now rent though, is only 80m2, but 3 bedrooms....yet it's far more spacious than the house we own!! Even the bedrooms are bigger, as is the bathroom...the kitchen is tiny, but it's big enough. The girls will always share a room I think, at least until teenage years...

I would LOVE a 4 bedroom with a big lounge and a playroom, and enough yard to be able to play in, in a rural area...

Our rental is a typical schoolhouse, about 120 square metres, with 3 bedrooms, kitchen dining and a laundry. Its got a great sized kitchen and a laundry next to it, which i love (I had to go downstairs & thru a basement in our old house). Dining area, and biggish lounge. It's the warmest house we have lived in. There's a 800 sq m section, which is fully fenced. The school has just built a massive deck on the north side to replace the dangerous old rotting one, so all good.   The poxy bits are the way every internal bedroom wall is in the line of a door or next to the lounge, or in DD's case, the toilet grggh...

If I were to build, I'm not sure if i'd want to too much bigger, maybe an extra small/study bedroom and some kind of playroom? Would like a walk in wardrobe as our clothes everywhere drive nuts. There's house in New Plymouth that we know of that has 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and takes up the whole section, my Mum physically shudders everytime she drives past it. I'd hate to clean it. I have also heard of someone who built a $250,000 kitchen... WTF!

I think these big new home are so ugly, and a waste of precious resources. Give, me small, green, warm and enegry efficent any day. I don't know if these big homes promote family's playing together either. We used to own 5000 sq of garden and bush. TBH it was a nightmare to look after, heaps of possums, neighbours dumping rubbish, jasmine taking over the bush - never ending work. I'd rather spend time playing with my kid.

I do think that particularly in Auckland, that modern houses are being built bigger and bigger. Our first house (which we built) was huge, approximately 300 square metres and it was beautiful, but at the time it was just DH and I, and we ended up feeling a bit lost in the place. (we had spent the previous 4 years living in our garage while we built, so were use to being together in a small space) We sold that house and bought a delapitated old bach near the water and did a full renovation. This place was 120 square metres. We then rented that house out and bought 25 acres and our house on this land is only 95 square metres! We now have a 3 year old Daughter and find particularly in the winter that this house feels a little too small. Ideally I would like another bathroom and at least one more bedroom that could be used as a playroom/spare bedroom. In the Summer it doesn't really matter as the majority of our time is spent outside.
I think my ideal would be a house of around 200 square metres.

Our current home has 5 bedrooms, 2 lounges, 2 bathrooms (one an ensuite) double garage. There's 4 adults, 2 teenagers and one 3 year old. The place is 2 years old and has some space outside for our son to play not as much as I would deem as ideal.... but enough for the time being until we build our own house next year. Definitely want a decent section for the kids to play on...and I don't mind kids sharing rooms...I shared with my sister for years

I have one of those monstrocities on a tiny section My house is 210sqm on a 300sqm section! Its two stories and 5 bedrooms (or 4 plus a rumpus). Not new though, it was built in the 1960s and a developer before us carved the rest of the section off and built a new house behind ours. We brought it because my husband at the time had a band and he had band practice at our place, plus we had a boarder to help pay for the place, plus I had an office because I work from home. The house never felt too big to be honest, I loved the feeling of space. The backyard isn't big but there is enough space for a climbing frame and trampoline plus a table and chairs so not to bad. DD & I don't live there at the moment becuase my husband and I are separated but I miss it. The house is big and sunny and I loved it.

We have an average size 3 bedder, 120m2, small section. We're about to sell and move, I want min 180m2, preferably over 200m2, 3 or 4 beds, 2 living areas, flat area of lawn enough room for a trampoline/swings etc. Our house doesn't have enough living area for two small kids and I am sick of the toys taking over the lounge!

I think kids need their own personal space, sharing might be ok when they are really young but once they start school it's important for me that they have their own rooms with decent space for a desk etc. And since we have 2 girls, a bathroom for them to share and a separate one for DH and I is important too! (in an ideal world, I'd have my own bathroom without DH using it, but that's not going to fly! )

Our next house will (hopefully) be our 'forever' house so it needs to suit us now as a young family until the girls grow up and leave home. I don't see the trend towards bigger houses necessarily being about status, in urban areas infill housing and land use restrictions mean a smaller section size but people still want space for leisure so the focus has moved to providing that indoors. We choose to live in an urban area within walking distance to amenities like shops, community facilities, schools, libraries etc and the trade off for a smaller section is worth it to me. I would never live somewhere where I had to get in the car to drive to get to basic services like a supermarket, doctor, school etc.

Someone mentioned energy efficiency - there is an argument that building larger houses on smaller sections with a diversity of land use (not just residential) within close proximity is a much more sustainable use of resources than the kiwi traditional quarter acre.


Edited by Febgirl