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nodito
Guest
Question for those who have big families (however you define it), how many bedrooms do you have in your house? Is it enough?
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Xantippe
Guest
I don’t have a family (only three kids), but I’ll throw in that we have always, no matter what our family size or the size of the house, been short by exactly one room.
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Hoosier_Daddy
Guest
3 girls in one room. 1 boy in another. Baby girl in another.
Plenty of room
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pensmama87
Guest
We have three bedrooms. We figure we can stay here until we hit five (six if we move before six moves out of our room, or if the spacing is such that one has already moved out.) Our third bedroom is very small and definitely can’t fit three.
My parents live in a four bedroom house, but each bedroom is enormous (I feel like each could be split into two small but comfortable rooms.) If I had a house like that the only limit would be my sanity.
My parents live in a four bedroom house, but each bedroom is enormous (I feel like each could be split into two small but comfortable rooms.) If I had a house like that the only limit would be my sanity.
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Rico_S
Guest
We have 4 girls…not “big” by most CAF standards, but not small imo. We have a smallish 4 bedroom house…where 2 of the girls were doubled up in one room. Sleeping arrangements worked well, but a couple of things that are a struggle.
- Closet space gets cramped very quickly with multiple girls in same room
- One not-so-big bathroom for 4 girls doable, but essentially a nightmare
- Having only one living area in the house is probably the biggest issue.
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Xantippe
Guest
Yeah, I wanted to mention this. You know how the HGTV people are always raving about “open floor plan”? It may be nice for entertaining, but there are issues. There’s a big age spread between our two oldest and our youngest and we got a lot of mileage out of having a separate playroom for Baby Girl. It opens onto both the living room and kitchen and has gates (I almost forgot to mention that it’s a former dining room–we have so little need for a separate dining room that detail totally slipped my mind). Baby Girl is kind of over the gates, but it’s nice to have a separate space that can be messy and not a big deal, while the living room is kept neater and for more grownup entertainment (like board games or whatever).
Also, an extra powder room in the main living area is handy.
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Xantippe
Guest
I know a lot of families with children love their basements.
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pensmama87
Guest
For us, bedrooms are sleeping space and clothes storage only; they don’t get used as play areas or toy storage. Our basement is the playroom, which is great in the winter months.
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AClaire11
Guest
It does partially depend on the size of the rooms. I looked at a local townhouse recently and the bedrooms were the size of my apartment’s walk-in closet. Fitting two children in one would have been a stretch, even with bunk beds.
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Usige
Guest
We have 4 bedrooms with 2 boys each in 2 rooms and 2 (soon to be 3) girls in the largest bedroom. Our youngest is currently in the master bedroom but is moving into her older sisters room. All 3 of the kids rooms have bunk beds (my wife nixed bunks in the master bedroom 
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As AClaire11 says, it will really depend on the size of the rooms. Our current house can easily fit two kids in each. The bedrooms in our last house were perhaps half the size. It also will depends on where windows and doors are since it can limit where beds are placed.
Having come from a family of 5 and having 7 kids, bedrooms was not the biggest issue. It was bathrooms. It is not a huge deal when they are all little, but as they get older having only 1 bathroom between 4, 5, 8+ kids can get difficult. I like that our boys have a jack and jill bath between their rooms with the sinks seperated from the tub and toilet. Having an extra powder room on the main floor helps too.
).As AClaire11 says, it will really depend on the size of the rooms. Our current house can easily fit two kids in each. The bedrooms in our last house were perhaps half the size. It also will depends on where windows and doors are since it can limit where beds are placed.
Having come from a family of 5 and having 7 kids, bedrooms was not the biggest issue. It was bathrooms. It is not a huge deal when they are all little, but as they get older having only 1 bathroom between 4, 5, 8+ kids can get difficult. I like that our boys have a jack and jill bath between their rooms with the sinks seperated from the tub and toilet. Having an extra powder room on the main floor helps too.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Yes! I come from a big family with a huge playroom that was located over the living room. It sometimes sounded like the ceiling was going to come down. The water table was too high for my parents to have built a home with a basement, but Mom often wished we could have had one. If you don’t, a playroom over the garage would accomplish the same thing. A house needs a place where the kids can make some noise when the weather is bad.
Yes. I would also say to pack them into single-gender bedrooms as tight as you like (using bunk beds), but you have to provide a place for studying that allows the older kids to stay up working after the younger ones (or the ones who don’t happen to have homework that night or the ones who get their work done earlier) are in bed. These days, it would be better to have four boys of very different ages sleeping in one room with their other bedroom dedicated to desks, the printer, and so on than to have two separate bedrooms.We have 4 bedrooms with 2 boys each in 2 rooms and 2 (soon to be 3) girls in the largest bedroom. Our youngest is currently in the master bedroom but is moving into her older sisters room. All 3 of the kids rooms have bunk beds (my wife nixed bunks in the master bedroom
As AClaire11 says, it will really depend on the size of the rooms. Our current house can easily fit two kids in each. The bedrooms in our last house were perhaps half the size. It also will depends on where windows and doors are since it can limit where beds are placed.
Having come from a family of 5 and having 7 kids, bedrooms was not the biggest issue. It was bathrooms. It is not a huge deal when they are all little, but as they get older having only 1 bathroom between 4, 5, 8+ kids can get difficult. I like that our boys have a jack and jill bath between their rooms with the sinks seperated from the tub and toilet. Having an extra powder room on the main floor helps too.
This is particularly true if you have an “open concept” kitchen that has no sound-proofing between the kitchen table and the TV room–and I would definitely recommend that you have a way of knowing what your kids are watching on TV while you are busy with cooking and whatnot. That is a big change from when my brothers and I were young, but I’d say that is the reality of getting ready for college in the 21st century. (Staying on top of technology is a big task that my parents never had to worry about.)
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SGTTOM
Guest
9 kids.
Oldest girl sleeps in her own room.
all the rest sleep in a big room upstairs.
Parents have their own room.
6 girls 4 boys. I am the 3rd oldest boy
Oldest girl sleeps in her own room.
all the rest sleep in a big room upstairs.
Parents have their own room.
6 girls 4 boys. I am the 3rd oldest boy
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Xantippe
Guest
We also had that configuration a couple houses ago, and it was very practical.We have 4 bedrooms with 2 boys each in 2 rooms and 2 (soon to be 3) girls in the largest bedroom. Our youngest is currently in the master bedroom but is moving into her older sisters room. All 3 of the kids rooms have bunk beds (my wife nixed bunks in the master bedroom
As AClaire11 says, it will really depend on the size of the rooms. Our current house can easily fit two kids in each. The bedrooms in our last house were perhaps half the size. It also will depends on where windows and doors are since it can limit where beds are placed.
Having come from a family of 5 and having 7 kids, bedrooms was not the biggest issue. It was bathrooms. It is not a huge deal when they are all little, but as they get older having only 1 bathroom between 4, 5, 8+ kids can get difficult.** I like that our boys have a jack and jill bath between their rooms with the sinks seperated from the tub and toilet. **Having an extra powder room on the main floor helps too.
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bitterhope
Guest
My husband and I have the smallest bedroom. Five boys in the master bedroom, soon to be four girls in the other good sized room. We’ve had more bedrooms in previous houses but they all split into the same room configuration and only used three bedrooms anyway. My oldest son is now away at school so the four remaining boys keep his bed set up and ready for whatever visits he’s able to make.
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EasterJoy
Guest
My parents also did this…that is, they took a small room and put the boys in a much larger room. The walk-in closet in the biggest bedroom doubled as off-season storage.
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bitterhope
Guest
Yes, that’s what we do. Added bonus is the boys have their own bathroom that only they use and clean. Boys are notoriously messy in bathrooms and it helps keep the other clean for when guests come. The girls don’t make even half the mess in the bathroom but their bedrooms are the opposite. Three bathrooms would be nice, even just a half bath, but I grew up in a one bathroom house with many more people so having two bathrooms is good enough for me. It was my one real request when searching for a home. The boys needed their own bathroom
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ndsolt
Guest
We have 3 kids. Our house has 5 bedrooms and three bathrooms.It’s DH’s grandparents’ house. My sons have their own bathroom. DD has her own bathroom. And the other is ours.
I was the baby of four and was raised in a three bedroom house. My two oldest brothers shared a room. I shared a room with my youngest brother until I was six and my parents moved their bedroom downstairs.
DH and his sister were raised in this house.
I was the baby of four and was raised in a three bedroom house. My two oldest brothers shared a room. I shared a room with my youngest brother until I was six and my parents moved their bedroom downstairs.
DH and his sister were raised in this house.
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Rosebud77
Guest
This was the way in Ireland a couple of generations ago … I visit the Traditional Farms here a lot and in the smallest farm there is one bedroom, complete with crib.
In the kitchen, ie the main and only other room, there is a large settle that pulls unfolded at night and all the children sleep together in that,
The next farm up has two bedrooms, parents and crib, and in the other, one bed for the girl, one for the boys, Top to tail.
You do what you can.
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gardenswithkids
Guest
We have four bedrooms. We’ve had as many as four children sharing a room, (using bunks and trundles) but right now we have two people per room with six children living at home. When our adult children come home, they sleep on either a pull-out couch or a daybed.
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pensmama87
Guest
As far as gates go, ones that are wider than a conventional doorway can get really, really pricey, too (though they can last a long time, which they’ll probably need to for multiple kids.)
My mom got around this in their house by using zipties to string a bunch of the cheap wood ones together, but that was to keep out their incredibly lazy 10 lb chihuahua so she wouldn’t have accidents on the carpet - a bit different than a determined baby or toddler.
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