Too-Small House for Growing Family

That is a great question. We're in a similar situation. The three of us are in a 1,000 square foot home that isn't well laid out for maximizing living space, and with 1 preschooler it's already crowded. But we live in a wonderful neighborhood and our mortgage is very manageable. I really look forward to the responses.

We have a small Berkeley house and decided to remodel and add on when my youngest was in 1st grade. My two kids could no longer really share a room (boy/girl) and one small bathroom was making us nuts. We remodeled and added an upstairs with a laundry room, bathroom, and kids rooms in 2014. We went from 900 sq ft to almost 1500. No regrets! 

I don't have an answer to this question, but we're in the same exact position (one child family, kid in preschool, living in an 800 sq ft. 2 bedroom), so I'd like to follow what others respond to. We've also considered doing an addition on our house, but even that seems so expensive and I'm unclear on whether the stress and cost of it would equate to that much more ease and joy with the bigger space. Following!

We are in the same situation, except with two kids. I always assumed we'd move by this point, but we keep looking and to get a significant amount of increased space, we either have to pay an arm and a leg (which we don't have, even with the equity in our current home) or sacrifice on location, housing quality, or both. We ultimately gave up and decided instead to renovate our existing home to add a bathroom and expand our usable outdoor space. (We looked into adding another bedroom as well, but it was going to cost as much as moving, so skipped that.) Our house does feel small to me--it's certainly much smaller than the houses my partner and I grew up in--but we have had several candid discussions about it as a family and our kids (now upper elementary) are adamant that they want to stay in the house if the alternative is to move to a larger home somewhere where they'd have to change schools. We feel far more limited by the bathroom than by the bedrooms/square footage, but I think this would be manageable with one bathroom if we had just one child. We'll see if they change their tune by middle/high school (and if they do, we'll revisit a move at that point). With a preschooler, the major thing I'd be thinking about is where you plan to send your child to school and how that might be affected (positively or negatively) by a move.

We are having the same (if slightly different) issues here. After exhaustedly running the numbers, we decided on a major remodel/addition. It boggles the mind, but it makes more sense financially for us to spend a LOT of money to add to our home then to move. The thing that really gets in the way of us moving is the huge jump in our property taxes. Our house is big enough for right now (5yo and 2yo), but we're expecting that in a few more years additional space is going to be important for our sanity. Barring unforeseen financial windfall, moving is not going to be in the cards until the kids are out of the house and we're ready to downsize. So we're going big. If you like your neighborhood then I think you should research cost of adding a bathroom. We added a bathroom and it was a total gamechanger. And so much more manageable than buying and selling. If it's in your budget, think about adding a third bedroom or small office. Or updating your garage if you have one. 

We were in a similar spot.  We bought a small 2/1 (about 975 SF) before our son was even born.  By the time he turned 12, we felt like we needed a bigger space with a second bathroom.  What really sealed the deal was the onset of COVID; being in that small space with a tween every day made it clear that for us, the right decision was selling and buying a bigger house. 

It's worth also exploring investigating adding or converting space in your existing house would make sense, though it's often fairly expensive unless it's something like finishing a garage or basement. People have often raised a small house to add a floor below it. There are often property tax benefits to doing an addition instead of selling and buying.

I am a single parent of one child, in 1000 sq ft with one bathroom. I would have liked a family room with a full bathroom, with the option to have turned that space into something like a studio apartment for my child when she was an older teen/young adult, so she would have a separate place to have friends over and keep her own hours, which are about 3 hours off from mine. However, truthfully, for two people we have enough space, it is just very communal. And now that she is a young adult and almost on her own, I don't need any more space for just me so I am glad I never moved. During the lock in phase of the pandemic and she was home, I was considering renting out my house and renting another with a better division of space. That may be the solution when your child gets older, renting a bigger place and renting out yours for a couple of years until your child goes to college.

No, not really. We have lived in the same 3 Bed 2 bath condo since my son was born. He is now in middle school. His stuff takes up a lot less space than when he was a toddler so if you can manage pre 5 it only gets easier. We got a dog last year and still fit nicely. The thing that changed was we feel the need for more outside space as he grows. I would suggest focusing on your needs and what you can afford and not worrying too much about what the housing market is doing or may do. 

I raised two kids in a 1600 sq foot house, which some people consider small! I loved it and recommend it! I really liked having a sense of where everyone was and what was going on. The one tiny bathroom you mentioned seems like it may get to be an issue as your child gets older. Of course manageable if necessary but maybe you could add on a half bath?

As your child gets to be a teenager, they are going to want to hang out with their friends. With prior arrangement, we just went and hid in our bedroom, leaving the "great room" for the kids from time to time.

I think 2 bedroom is fine for a family of 3, especially if there's a nook or a flex space that can serve as a small office. We are a family of 3 and were quite happy in a 2 bedroom house (about 1300 sq ft). We had 1 tiny bathroom, which was always an issue.  We did move to a slightly larger house (about 1500 sq ft). We didn't move because of the space but we moved because of schools and ended up being lucky to find a place that was a little bigger.  The house still has 2 bedrooms but has a little sun room that we can use as an office and has a usable basement space, although it's not up to code or permitted. It had only 1 small bathroom but we spent every penny we had left over and added another bathroom. I'm not sure about your child's personality but we are finding that as our child grows older, space is less of an issue. Unlike toddler years, our child does not require a lot space to run around and move about and does not have million little toys that are spread all over the place. The child often spends hours in a reading nook or plays video games. But, I cannot imagine living with a daughter hitting puberty with only 1 bathroom.  I think it's generally cheaper to add a bathroom. If you have an existing structure, maybe converting it to an ADU can add valuable space. Or is basement or attic conversion an option? We have friends who have kids in high school. They have wanted more space but are now realizing that in a year or 2, kids will leave and the house will feel quite spacious. 

We lived in a 1000 sq ft house when our children were young. I liked it because I could always know where my children were. It worked through elementary school for us. As our children got older, there was a little more desire for privacy among both the children and the adults. We began to try to figure out how to create more space in a small house. Where could we create another room? The garage? A shed?  It all seemed too expensive with limited results. We moved. I can’t tell you when to move. There was a financial crisis and the prices all dropped in a timely manner for us. 

I'm anxiously awaiting other responses, because I'm also curious about this.  Our family is in a similar situation.  We have 2 kids in a 3-bedroom house in Oakland.  With a tiny bathroom.  Probably even tinier than your bathroom!  Currently I'm using the smallest bedroom as my work-from-home office, which I really need for my profession.  But that means the 2 kids are sharing one bedroom.  Currently they are ages 8 (girl) and 5 (boy).  They're using bunk beds, which we don't like, but it's the only way to make the space work for 2 kids to sleep there.  It seems like the two of them sharing a bedroom can't last forever.  I don't think we should ask my daughter to go through puberty while sharing a room with her little brother.  And the tiny bathroom is already a source of stress, when multiple people need to use it at the same time.  So we're thinking we're gonna have to move to a larger place, with at least 4 bedroom and 2 bathrooms.  But I'm curious to hear from other parents, who have gone through this with older kids, what they think about this issue.

This may not be the answer you're hoping for, but: Our family of four was living in a neighborhood we really liked, in a 1929 house that we enjoyed but that felt quite tight (long before the pandemic). We wanted more living space and knew we could expand the home's footprint into our sizable backyard, but would then a) have to live through a remodel and b) would still be living in small bedrooms with small 1929 closets, with no money left over to overhaul a kitchen and bathrooms that literally hadn't been updated since the 1970s.

My spouse and I both switched jobs specifically in pursuit of more $$ (the work was also an improvement) and we found a larger home in our neighborhood, five blocks from our too-tight home. EVERYONE in the family was delighted with the change. Kids stayed in the same neighborhood schools, saw their friends, had more space to hang out with friends at home. Husband and I each had a private workspace in the home during the pandemic. 

For years after the move, I said, "I know money can't buy happiness, but...sometimes having more space means more happiness." 

We have struggled with the same issue. We have a two bedroom one bath home about 1200 square feet and we have been torn for years whether to move or expand. We like, but don't love our neighborhood, but we also really like not being house poor, because we've owned our home for so long. We have one kid at home, but not additional family space outside of the living room, and would like a third bedroom for guests and when ommy bonus daughter visits. Ideally we would like to build a second story and add two bedrooms and a bath and then add space for a family room downstairs. We're also not sure what to do. 

A good friend of mine bought a small 2br/1ba house in Berkeley with his wife and two kids. They anticipated moving to a bigger house when the kids got bigger. Over time their income and investments didn't keep up with the RE market so they decided to stay in their house. They also loved their neighborhood. They did a renovation within the envelope of the house. They actually carved out a second tiny bathroom out of one of the bedrooms for their kids to use. That divided bedroom now just held a bunk bed and closets. It basically became a place to sleep. They added a tiny building in their very small backyard. It consisted of a finished room (electricity but no water or heat), maybe 6'x8', that they used as an office and occasional guest room. It also included significant storage. It works for them because the kids are super active and rarely home. One parent uses the backyard office, the other works outside the home.

We on the other hand we looked initially for a 2000 sqft house for our family of four, mindfull of the experience our friends had. After biding on many, many houses, we wound up buying a much larger house. During the shut down we realized that despite the large amount of square footage, our house didn't have many doors (and the doors it did have had large gaps between the bottom of the door and floor). This meant you could hear everything everywhere. Which was good when you have very young children but not so good when working from home or doing zoom school.