Home Buying Doubts

[purplepenguin7]

I know a lot of people here have bought houses lately so I’m hoping someone can talk me down.

My H and I have been house hunting forever (since before Covid essentially). I’ve always said our current house is too small (just under 1,100 sq ft) but even when we look at houses almost double in the 2,000 range, I have panic attacks of where we are going to put all of our stuff. Is this normal? Does everything find its place? This will be our first real move as a settled married family with a kid.

[Susie]

Are your doubts centered on the actual space/stuff issue?  Or is it more than that?

Every family has different "stuff" depending on family size, hobbies, etc., so my experience won't be the same as yours or anyone else's.  If you're a family of 3 though, I would think unless the new house is really weirdly and poorly laid out, doubling your current space should be plenty.  We moved this year from the house we bought in 2008, when it was just 2 of us.  Now we're a family of 4, with the very tangible prospect of my dad moving in someday making us 5.  Our old house was about 1900 sf, 4 beds, 1.5 bath, 1 car garage.  Now we have about 2200 sf, 4 beds, 2.5 bath, 2 car garage plus a shed, a bigger basement, and a bigger yard.  Definitely more space, but not like an order of magnitude change.  We moved in June, and we're still working on boxes.  Not everything has found its place yet.  But it is getting there, slowly.  Stuff doesn't go in the exactly analogous place to where it went in the old house.  There are some places that require different storage solutions/furniture than in the old house, but it definitely all fits.

[purplepenguin7]

Susie, probably deep down more than just the “stuff” but we are putting an offer in on another house and my current worries are is the kitchen big enough for all our dishes, pots/pans, food, etc. which is probably silly because we don’t even have a large kitchen now. And, the living room as some objects blocking flat walls, making it somewhat hard to furnish. We’ll need all new furniture and have to get rid of some storage-y type pieces.

It only has a single car detached garage, which I always said wasn’t a deal breaker but now I kind of wish it was attached (single is fine) after seeing other houses with attached garages.

A little rambly sorry, but stuff like that.

[mrsukyankee]

We made a list of non-negotiables: We knew we needed a space that would fit our new couch because we WEREN'T going to get rid of it - and it barely works in our current living room but it does. We also knew we needed a larger kitchen or the ability to add on to the house to make one. Either off-street or safe parking (we live in London so a garage is almost non-existent). And finally, we had to have a separate space for ourselves from my MIL.


We also figured out how much cabinetry we actually needed (based on what we were using in our last home). Most people will fill a space (we're no different) and will make smaller spaces work for them.

There were a few houses we loved but knew would not work, so we dismissed them. We had houses that would work with extensive renovation (we lost one such house in a bidding war). And we had the house that we eventually purchased which filled most of our desires. It took a VERY long time to find the house but it was worth waiting for one that definitely would work for us.

[aprilsails]

I’m sure you’ve been shopping this entire time in an overheated and limited market, which seems to be the case pretty well everywhere for single family homes. It sounds to me as though you are shopping based on a very big need (more space), but haven’t really been in love with or found a house that ticks all of your boxes.

I think a lot of people are struggling with the same issue in this market, since there is so much competition and rush to make the decision and bid.

I think you need to redefine your dealbreakers and really be certain the houses meet all of your needs. Look through the listing photos and count the cabinets. A single car garage is fine, as long as there is enough space to fit xxx beside the car or to the back, etc.

[lilac05]

Not all square footage is created equal. There are definitely 1200 sq ft homes that are less efficient than 2000+sq ft homes. So it could be that the bigger home doesn’t actually have more usable space especially if you’re looking for storage. Your new kitchen may be smaller than your current kitchen, even if the house is bigger. You might need to get creative with storage (I have some kitchen stuff stored in the basement.)

It’s tough in a hot market! You need to be a little flexible, but don’t want to just jump at anything you can get an offer in on if the home won’t serve you well.

Good luck!

[purplepenguin7]

thanks all! Very good points. lilac05, what you said is exactly why I am doubting. We don't have measurements on the potential new house, but that is kind of how I am feeling with more sq ft but not more usable sq ft. Also a lot of the "added" sq ft comes from the basement, which don't have now (but is very high on our list of wants). This market is so tough and it made our budget stretch so thin, we will never find the "perfect" house in our price range.

[froggy76]

Other storage space is really important to me - attic, basement, shed/garage. I think those matter a lot in terms of finding space to put all this "stuff". I also think space for everyday coats/shoes/bags is super important, but the rest you can figure out.

We just added on to our house and went from 2100sf to 2600sf. I'm pulling all our kitchen stuff out of boxes now and realizing it's going to be tough to fit everything in the cabinets. That's just always the case, I think. But I can put a few, seldom-used things in the basement, and I can get a good storage piece for the dining room, and I can purge a few items, and it will all work. You always find a way to make it work. More space is not necessarily going to solve everything, and good organization is more important than lots of space.

If you're looking at houses with a finished basement, that will make a world of difference. So easy to find places to store stuff in a basement!

[macmars45]

H, DS and I went from a 1394sq ft TH to a 2388sq ft SFH. Our house is definitely lacking closets though so we've gotten creative with storage. Eventually we'll add more closets; it's in the 10 year plan. Thankfully the kitchen is huge compared to our TH! It's my dream kitchen in a lot of ways. For me the kitchen space was super important. We toured so many 1600-2200 sq ft houses with tiny galley kitchens.

Everything will find it's place. You'll figure out what works for your family in your house.

[ellipses84]

For “stuff” I would focus on an efficient layout with lots of closet and cabinet space. You can always buy more shelves / cabinets. We moved from a tiny kitchen to a medium size but there’s no pantry cabinet like our old place so I got a tall freestanding pantry cabinet and a sideboard / buffet for the adjacent area with our dining table. I keep things like fancy dishes / cooking gear / paper towels / bulk food in those. In our old place, I Ikea hacked a whole wall of shelves in our living area because we’d had similar built-in in an older a house that we loved.

If there are stairs, they takes up a decent amount of SF for circulation. I personally would prioritize a 2 car garage - we only park one car but we have a workbench on one wall and bins of things like holiday decorations on the other. If you can’t find that, you could always add a shed to the backyard for a tools / garden / yard supplies. If you have a basement, a 1 car garage may be ok. If the basement isn’t finished or can’t be finished, I wouldn’t love it if the main floor was smaller than what you have now. It takes some time to get settled in a new place. I also like smaller bedrooms and larger living space because we only sleep and store clothes in our rooms. You can purge before you move but then you may not need some stuff and may need to buy more, particularly for storage and organization supplies.

[sandandsea]

I think you have to be somewhat strategic and find systems that work. Does the house have storage? Are there useable closets? A coat closet? A pantry? A garage? If so these are all great place to get organized and store all the stuff.

Our kids don’t have dressers in their rooms, we have a built in in the closet that holds all their clothes.

We have a shelving unit in the coat closet to store extra stuff in there like toilet paper, paper towels, coats, and the vacuum.

Our pantry is Deep so things in the back get lost so we added a lazy Susan.

You can use furniture for storage too. Our tv console store games and art supplies. Our dining room buffet stores extra cleaning supplies and party supplies.

Also everything finds a home and purge things you don’t need/want/use.

[Roc A Bee]

Do you have too much stuff? Packing up and moving will cause you to evaluate the stuff you do have.

I’m building a new house and things like coat entry closets aren’t a thing anymore here. But there’s a larger hallway closet. So it’s about reimagining where things live and what you really need.

[purplepenguin7]

thanks for the thoughts everyone. We did put in an offer on the house mentioned and it was accepted (under asking!) so weeee here we go.

also Roc A Bee, we do have WAY too much stuff. It will probably be good for us to clear out since we've been living here for nearly 13 years just accumulating stuff. I am hoping to really downsize by taking our time and packing meaningfully as well as making sure everything does have a place (ie not shoved in the attic) when we unpack.

[winecat]

I keep reading this as “home buying donuts.” Doubts aren’t as much fun.

[jlt19]

We bought our 2300 sq ft house with a finished basement (so over 3,000 sq ft living space) in 2007 pre kids. We have two (11&9) and just moved to a 1900 sq ft house with and unfinished basement. But the layout is perfect for us and we have more utilized space now. I did want to downsize a lot and we got rid of a lot but I’ve also bought a lot more already.

My biggest concern was that DH and I had separate walk in closets before and went down to one that is smaller than both. But it came with a full Elfa system and we’ve fit more into it than we did ours combined.

We also just put in 6 floating Besta cabinets on our TV wall and they hold a ton of stuff we had stored in the “formal” living room/toy room/office.

For our smaller kitchen I’ve found all sorts of “hacks” online to maximize storage space. My newest favorite is an over the door dish towel holder that has a basket on the back to put your kitchen spray/rags (or really whatever you want). Purging and organizing are my new favorite hobbies!