Hi ranch - for what size family?

amother

Lawngreen

Wed, Jun 08 2022, 4:54 pm

Is the 2000 sq ft in addition to finished basement or attic space that's no officially counted?

If you feel likes it's going to be enough that's all that matters.

We've been a family of 8 in a 1200 square ft home (plus 600 sq ft finished in the basement) and it's been rough. We moved to a 4000 sq ft home, again not counting the basement, plus 2 car garage, and I love it but it doesn't feel particularly spacious.

I sold my original home to a family of 9 that was formerly living in an apartment and they think it's huuuge. It's all about perspective, our opinions shouldn't matter.

amother

Brickred

Wed, Jun 08 2022, 10:59 pm

amother [ Lime ] wrote:

Curious if the people who find them spacious are people who moved from the city where the apartments are really small.

Very few people I know consider the standard size ranches to be spacious.

Back when they were built they were considered great houses. It's only the last number of years that those developments with huge houses were built on the cheap that larger became standard. It may not be sustainable in the long term unfortunately.
I grew up in a 2000 Sq ft private home with 2 bathrooms ( doubled digit family) & it felt generous.

(For reference I'm in my low 30's .)

amother

Sunflower

Wed, Jun 08 2022, 11:37 pm

amother [ Candycane ] wrote:

To me it’s a gloried apartment with a basement. I don’t think it has enough room. Also 2,000 sq feet is small for that many kids.

it's so interesting for me to see this comment and so many other similar comments.
I have 7 kids and live in 1550sq feet. and I use my basement for my home business.
It's only slightly squishy. If you are organized and don't own too much stuff, then it's definitely doable. I am pretty sure my kids don't feel deprived of space. OOT USA by the way, and my kids are age 3-23...

amother

Hotpink

Thu, Jun 09 2022, 12:14 am

amother [ Sunflower ] wrote:

Is it a high ranch though? I find the layout contributed to the squishy feeling.

amother

Seablue

Thu, Jun 09 2022, 10:46 am

I bought a 48 ft hi ranch 6 years ago. (The square footage is unclear.) We moved in with 4 kids, now we have 5 and hope to have more iyh. Here are my thoughts:
1) It's decent size living quarters. Not generous, but not tiny. Kitchen is small, same size as I had in my 2 bedroom apartment. Like I said, decent but not huge. My bedroom is beautiful size, kids bedrooms ok.
2) The layout is terrible. If we'd have the same amount and same size rooms but laid out differently, it would feel way more spacious. Some problems with the layout:
a] bedrooms too close to living area so sleeping while anyone else is still awake in the house, whether kids at bedtime or adults mid-day Shabbos nap, is very challenging
b] laundry room not on the same floor as all bedrooms. Since some bedrooms are upstairs and some are downstairs, regardless of which floor my laundry room is, I'm constantly shlepping laundry up and down.
c] openness of dr/lr. It's great to have open living room, but the dining room is too open for Jewish life. My dr table is the happening place since it's the first stop when one walks into the house, it shares the space with the living room, there's no door to close it off, to keep a table set nicely overnight. My sons' hats and tefillin lie there, kids arts and crafts and homework, online orders that await returns, etc.
d] The entryway is too small. Kids come in and everything happens right there on the small landing, removing shoes, in the winter the wet outergear, briefcases often land there even though they shouldn't. I have no place to park a stroller indoors if I'm coming from outside with a baby sleeping in the stroller. Orders that arrive clutter up the space there.
3) Right now we have 3 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. My big kids sleep downstairs, my little ones upstairs in one bedroom and my baby in the smallest room. We will definitely need more space once I have more kids and iyh when I start marrying off. We have one garage we can finish off to create another bedroom, and/or we can extend upstairs. Right now neither of these options is happening, and I don't know if/when it will, but there is that option.
4) We looked at many houses before we bought. At the end of the day, most houses in Rockland county are hi ranches, and those are more affordable than the few colonials. We did also look at colonials a bit out of the area where there were very few yidden, and although those were affordable, the taxes on those were way more. (Like an additional 2-3k per year) In the end with both options being similar financially, we opted for location (frum growing neighborhood) rather than beauty/size of house and for larger mortgage and lower taxes rather than the opposite.