Anyone else have a bigger family but a small house?

[Ky-Momma]

We srated telling friends and such this week that we have another little one coming. I'm 17wks tomorrow (#5) and the reaction were about what I'd expect... except a couple people brought up the size of our house. Wr have a small, 3 bed 2bath 1100 sq ft house. No basement. Right now I have 2 boys sharing a room and 2 girls sharing a room. Our friends were concerned about where the new one will go and even brought up the fact that we could get in trouble for having so many people in such a "small" place. Is that true? Anyone else have a bigger family squished into a small place?

[twinpossible]

I do not see how you could get in trouble. My husband and I are CA foster parents and the rule is no more then 3 of the same gender in each room. So technically you could have one more after this and CA would still see your house as big enough.

Our house is the same size, we have a sibling who lives with us so he has one room and my girls share the other room. The baby will be with us in our room for at least the first year. Personally I do not see a problem with even 4 in one room (2 bunk beds) in our home the bedroom is where you sleep, our living room is a playroom and we have a play area in our backyard. Honestly, it is no one's business and your house sounds big enough to me!

[jesajane]

i have four kids, plus me and my husband, in a 2 bedroom single wide trailer. it's probably about 800 square feet. when i was pregnant with the twins, that was the first question we'd get. where will you put them?! we had friends sending us real estate ads. we would love to move, but for now, this is what we can afford. it's cramped sometimes, but it puts in perspective what's important in life - family, not stuff. in 4 years, my husband will be done with school and be a doctor. then we will move to a lovely little cottage somewhere.

my understanding is that if you are a renter, there is a limit of how many people can live in a house/apartment. but if you own it, i don't think people can say anything about it. we own our trailer but rent the land. i was a little nervous to tell the landlord, but they needed to know how many people lived there in case of emergencies, like fire. they didn't give us any trouble at all.

congrats on the baby!

[Ky-Momma]

Thank you! We rent and I'm a little afraid of that, though I would think five kids in a house would be a little different than five grown people... I hope...

[Mags462]

I think it depends on the state TBH - but my neighbors have a 850sq ft 2bd/1bath house with 8 people (mom/dad and six kids)..... Personal opinion aside - they make it work.

[babycat42]

We have all three of our kids sharing one bedroom.

[newmommy13]

Better to be financially responsible in close quarters imo! Bedrooms are for sleeping...that doesn't take much space!

[twinpossible]

Originally Posted by Ky-Momma Thank you! We rent and I'm a little afraid of that, though I would think five kids in a house would be a little different than five grown people... I hope...

Depends on your state. Like I said earlier in CA it is 3 people per bedroom or you can face eviction. I like small houses, less to clean!

[holly6737]

We have a small house and there are soon to be 6 of us. We have a 3 br/1ba, but one of the bedrooms is DH's study so not really a bedroom. The three boys share a bedroom and the baby will go in our room for the first year or so. I like smaller houses. Less maintenance and we all see each other a lot. I feel like in big houses everyone can kind of hide in their own spaces and there isn't a lot of community.

[812ajack]

Originally Posted by Ky-Momma We srated telling friends and such this week that we have another little one coming. I'm 17wks tomorrow (#5) and the reaction were about what I'd expect... except a couple people brought up the size of our house. Wr have a small, 3 bed 2bath 1100 sq ft house. No basement. Right now I have 2 boys sharing a room and 2 girls sharing a room. Our friends were concerned about where the new one will go and even brought up the fact that we could get in trouble for having so many people in such a "small" place. Is that true? Anyone else have a bigger family squished into a small place?

We were renting an 800 sq ft house when we had #4, it was DEFINATELY squished but it worked for a few months til we bought our current 4 BR/2 BA house now. When we did move in here though we gave the girls the Master BR since it was bigger- we have 4 girls so right now my son has his own room (when they were little it didn't bother me them sharing a room but now that they're older we don't do that) the 3 older girls have a double loft/bunkbed and the baby has her own room. Having said that we want more! And we always get comments like "aren't you out of room" or "you've got a full house" all the time. At this point I've learned not to care what people think or say. They aren't paying my bills so it's none of their business. I say do what you can afford. Kids adjust and do fine as long as they are in a safe/loving environment. It's better to do that then have to worry about money for things you can't afford every month or you/DH having to work more to afford some high payment for a bigger house. I can't imagine there is any state that would allow someone to be kicked out for having 3 kids in one room renting or not.