What do you do with a big house?

[ExFlyBoy5]

When I was 45, I ruptured two discs in my back and I was almost paralyzed for a week - and it took another month to get a decent range of motion back. Good thing we lived in an apartment building with the rooms all on one level.

More recently, I broke both my arms and although that didn't impair the ability of my feet to take me from one floor of the house to another, having one arm in a sling and the other not functioning well left me quite uncomfortable navigating stairs for a couple of weeks. So I know from personal experience that one of us could experience periods of time when going up or downstairs frequently would be problematic. Currently, we've also got parents who visit and have some difficulty with stairs.

It is easy to imagine scenarios where someone could experience temporary or long-term limitations on their ability to manage stairs - and yet still have many years left until their "ultimate" retirement from this plane of existence: e.g. knee or hip replacement surgery, a serious illness impairs their cardio capacity, balance or energy levels (e.g. cancer treatment, COVID etc).

That said, I don't feel the need to have a master bedroom on the main floor - just a room that could serve as a bedroom and at least a powder room that could be converted to a full bath if physical limitations were going to require a long-term solution.

This x1000. My DW is barely in her 40s but has had 3 spinal surgeries in the last 10 years so stairs are really a no go for her. Plus, you never know when something might happen to make getting to the second floor nearly impossible and that condition could be chronic and last many, MANY years. Nothing wrong with a second floor, but I certainly wouldn't want it to be where my primary sleeping/bathing area could be inaccessible.

 

[KarlH]

Our house is around 2600 SF, with 4 bedrooms and two full baths on the top floor. We still have both kids in their own rooms, and DW uses the extra bedroom as a hobby/home office room. Our first floor is laid out with a large sitting/dining room (not really used for much other than reading) and a kitchen/family room on the other side where we cook, eat, watch TV. Our basement is semi finished with exercise equipment, our son's computer/gaming area, and aquariums. I also have a room in which I have installed a sauna (Swede/Finn thing). Overall, we could probably gone without the 4th bedroom, but I was planning the extra basement space for the sauna when we purchased. Not sure what we will do when the kids move out. Its a lot of house, but I like to imagine kids and grandkids coming to visit in the future.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I am surprised at how many here still have big homes. My parents had a small house and we stayed overnight when visiting and it held many big family dinners as did my in-laws. I am not a fan of cleaning, heating, etc all that space.

 

[aja8888]

The biggest house we ever had was about 2,600 sq. feet in size and that was plenty big for raising two daughters. Now we are down to just under 2,000 sq. feet with no kids and it seems like we still have too much room. We did give the dog his own bedroom too!

I just wish the garage was bigger. Oh well, in my next life maybe.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I just wish the garage was bigger. Oh well, in my next life maybe.

Well, there is always the Mitt Romney solution -

https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politi...55000-phantom-park-car-elevator-designer-says

 

[finnski1]

Our house is around 2600 SF, with 4 bedrooms and two full baths on the top floor. We still have both kids in their own rooms, and DW uses the extra bedroom as a hobby/home office room. Our first floor is laid out with a large sitting/dining room (not really used for much other than reading) and a kitchen/family room on the other side where we cook, eat, watch TV. Our basement is semi finished with exercise equipment, our son's computer/gaming area, and aquariums. I also have a room in which I have installed a sauna (Swede/Finn thing). Overall, we could probably gone without the 4th bedroom, but I was planning the extra basement space for the sauna when we purchased. Not sure what we will do when the kids move out. Its a lot of house, but I like to imagine kids and grandkids coming to visit in the future.

Ah a sauna. That is one of the items I am scheming for the "what we're making " forum. Mine will be an outside fully self supporting structure

 

[KarlH]

Ah a sauna. That is one of the items I am scheming for the "what we're making " forum. Mine will be an outside fully self supporting structure

As I would expect from someone named Finnski... my DW doesn't quite understand past the fact that we always had one growing up, but the house had to have a space where we could put the sauna. It was critical.

 

[aja8888]

Well, there is always the Mitt Romney solution -

https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politi...55000-phantom-park-car-elevator-designer-says

That would be very cool! Especially if they threw in the Corvette!

 

[finnski1]

As I would expect from someone named Finnski... my DW doesn't quite understand past the fact that we always had one growing up, but the house had to have a space where we could put the sauna. It was critical.

 

[jollystomper]

We have an upper floor master. We’re still young enough that it’s not an issue, but we did talk about the stairs and ‘what if.’ And concerns about hauling laundry up and down as we got older. The upside of a too big house is there’s plenty of room for a laundry chute and an elevator. We looked into the costs and adding an elevator would be cheaper than the commission to sell the house.

This is what friends of ours did when they built a 10000+ square foot home on multiple acres of land in preparation for retirement. They added a lot of entertainment options that are not normally found in homes (bowling alley, 12 seat home theater, game room, etc.). However, they also built an elevator for them to use as they age. Having it installed during construction was surprisingly inexpensive (their words).

 

[aja8888]

This is what friends of ours did when they built a 10000+ square foot home on multiple acres of land in preparation for retirement. They added a lot of entertainment options that are not normally found in homes (bowling alley, 12 seat home theater, game room, etc.). However, they also built an elevator for them to use as they age. Having it installed during construction was surprisingly inexpensive (their words).

Wow, 10K sq.ft.! I'll bet your friends are not posting here! LOL!!

 

[Andromeda]

This x1000. My DW is barely in her 40s but has had 3 spinal surgeries in the last 10 years so stairs are really a no go for her. Plus, you never know when something might happen to make getting to the second floor nearly impossible and that condition could be chronic and last many, MANY years. Nothing wrong with a second floor, but I certainly wouldn't want it to be where my primary sleeping/bathing area could be inaccessible.

Actually, the one big strike against our current house (which I otherwise quite like) is that even though the house has five bathrooms (!), we don't even have a powder room on the main floor. There are three bathrooms (master ensuite, guest ensuite and general bathroom) on the second floor, a powder room on a landing that is ten steps down from the main floor (and two steps down from the entrance from our garage), and a full bathroom in the basement.

If we wanted to do a major renovation to stay in this house, there is space to fit a small powder room on the main floor. Or, we might be able to insert an elevator that runs from the main floor to our second floor.

 

[RobbieB]

My mom died 4 months after falling down the stairs. My father in law fell down his stairs and broke a hip. Now has one of those "stair chair" things installed.

Not doing stairs. Stairs are geezer death just waiting to happen.

 

[bluelight]

DH and I bought our current home 4 years ago. It's a 60's 4/2 ranch on a little over 1/2 acre. We back to a 500 acre state park/preserve. We are 2nd timers (married 7 years), my previous home was a 1100 sq ft 2 bedroom colonial, he owned a small 4 bedroom cape.

Our current home has 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths, though the master bath is the size of a closet. 2300 sq ft on the main level and another 1200 sq ft of finished basement. It's larger than we each had and at first seemed huge. The rooms are all much larger than we had at our previous homes.

While we really don't use the formal living and dining rooms, I'm still of an age and mindset that I wanted them. One of the bedrooms is set aside as my office as I was still working when we moved here. Another was used by the grandchilden for sleepovers and toy storage pre-pandemic. Hopefully we get through the other side of this and grand child visits will happen again.

While smaller by most current standards, it's still a big house to us. DH would have larger if he could.

 

[ckelly78z]

We have an upper floor master. We’re still young enough that it’s not an issue, but we did talk about the stairs and ‘what if.’ And concerns about hauling laundry up and down as we got older. The upside of a too big house is there’s plenty of room for a laundry chute and an elevator. We looked into the costs and adding an elevator would be cheaper than the commission to sell the house.

We may feel differently about maintenance, etc... by that point, but it won’t be the stairs alone that do us in!

One of the best things we ever did was move our laundry area from the musty basement, up two flights of stairs to the corner of our bedroom. Our master bedroom is the same size as the small 2 car garage underneath it, so plenty of room for it, and no laundry baskets on stairs anymore.

By the time the stairs become an issue, the yard work will be too. I currently mow about 4 acres with a big 4x4 utilty tractor that has a 72" belly mower, which will become difficult to mount.