For the most part, I love living in a small house. It keeps our life more simple, and our family closer. And it certainly affects how we raise our kids. From the things I love to the things I loathe, here’s what it’s really like raising kids in a small house.
Our Situation
My husband and I have known each other a really long time, and we’re currently living in our sixth place together. We’ve bought houses before and even built one, but knew we needed to downsize if I was going to stay at home once our second child was born. Our homes have ranged from one to two story, 1400 to 3000 square feet. Now we live in south Texas in a home that’s about 1700 square feet.
There are four of us: Real Simple Daddy and I, our five year old who attends kindergarten, and our three year old who stays home with me. We’ve been in this house for about 2.5 years as of the publication of this article, and plan to be here for at least another few. (Once the three year old goes to kindergarten I will go back to work, and more income means we can possibly upgrade our place.)
This post is not meant to knock anyone who lives in a big house, but it’s to help give some perspective to parents or parents-to-be who are home shopping or thinking of downgrading their place.
What I Love About Raising Kids in a Small House
Originally I thought about just writing an article titled “Why I Love Raising Kids in a Small House” because there are honestly a lot of great things about it.
The greatest thing about a small house is saving money! Hooray! I gotta tell you, for a four-person-family on one teacher income, the only way we can afford to own a home instead of just rent is to be conservative. That doesn’t only mean the mortgage, but also taxes, utilities (less to heat and cool), water bills, etc. It does really all add up, and I’m so grateful to this little house.
The second reason may sound a bit dated, but in the day-to-day insanity of being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) a smaller house is a hell of a lot easier to keep clean. My little one story, 1660 square foot place can be completely vacuumed in 30 minutes. I only have two bathrooms to keep clean. Fewer windows means fewer blinds to dust (which does anyone know how to do this, anyway?). While I’ll admit that I hate my tiny kitchen, and it’ll be interesting letting my boy and girl share a bathroom as they get older, it’s a lot quicker to keep a small house tidy.
This also goes for disinfecting when your kids have been sick. Get all my suggestions here.
When you’re preparing for a child, or when you have babies, a smaller home is a lot easier to baby proof. You don’t need to necessarily worry about lots of extra rooms or stairs to block off. It’s a lot less work when you’re crawling around and deciding where the potential hazards are!
Along those same lines, it’s a lot easier to watch your kids in general. Raising kids in a small house means you always know where they are, and they’re probably always close to you. I can hear my children no matter where they are in the house, and they can easily find me if they need something.
Finally, I feel like raising kids in a small house encourages the family to, well, get along. While each person does have a little zone in case they need privacy, I don’t feel the need to have hallways and walls in between us all the time. We like each other, and we like to be around each other! No need to give us great distances in our home in which to spread way out.
If you’d like to see how we help encourage sibling love at our place, check that article out here.
What I Hate About Raising Kids in a Small House
The first thing which comes to mind is that it’s a judgment thing. Most of our friends have houses much larger than ours, and more than one friend’s kid has come over to play and basically said “This is it? This is the whole house? Where are the stairs?” While I know my friends aren’t judgey, and they totally get our perspective, it’s still a matter of feeling embarrassed that this is all we can afford.
Additionally, I know that our kids don’t crave their own space right now – they refuse to sleep in separate beds! – but as they get older, having a tiny house might be more of a problem. They’ll have to share a bathroom, for example, and while we can ensure they each get their own bedroom it still may feel like they’re cramped.
I actually am a huge fan of cosleeping, which is one reason why a small house doesn’t bother me, and you can read more about that here.
And speaking of privacy, you can usually hear a lot more of the house’s goings-on if it’s a little place. This can mean that your family hears you during a particularly noisy bathroom trip, and that the adults need to be aware of how loud they are during “grown-up time.” (In my humble and often unpopular opinion, this can spark some healthy discussions with your kids, and isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I digress.)
In general, raising kids in a small house just means that you’ll hear more and see more than you would if you were all more spread out. My husband watching TV late at night, me trying to do dishes after bedtime, the kids stirring in the early morning, the garage door opening and closing, letting the dogs out… A lot of that is inescapable.
In a small house, it’s quite possible that you’ll notice dirt and dust and clutter a lot faster. Our dogs shed constantly and it doesn’t take long for us to notice little fuzzy tumbleweeds blowing along the baseboards. Yes, there’s less to clean, but it gets noticeably dirty more quickly.
I think that raising kids in a small house can also be a challenge if the house isn’t designed well. An older home with less windows or small rooms, for example, might feel dark and claustrophobic. Luckily our little home has high ceilings and lots of natural light. Just something to think about as you look around.
Finally, and maybe the most obvious thing: It’s interesting when you want to have a lot of people over! For our kids’ birthday parties and for other family celebrations, we literally have to play a game of Tetris with our furniture to figure out how in the hell we will have enough seats for everyone, space for the food and drinks, etc. We always make it work, and like I said our friends and family are amazingly helpful and understanding,
I hope this has helped shine some light on what it’s like to raise kids in a small house. We have challenges and some things downright piss me off, but for the money – and the closeness and simplicity it gives us (or requires), it’s working well for our little family! Let me know in the comments what you think about your house!
If you want to get my suggestions on buying a home when you have kids, click here.
And if you’d like to see why we’re in love with our Ring security cams, read our honest review here.
Interesting how the way you described your house seems like Way bigger house than the house we’ll be considering to upgrade to. We live in 1000 sq ft and have one kid and it feels really big. We don’t have a garage or basement!
Yes it’s interesting that there is a totally different concept of “small” – we continue to live on about 1500 sq ft with four people and two dogs, and we continue to minimize and declutter!
You think 1700 sq. ft. is small? This used to be considered a quite large home where people would raise 6 or 7 children. We have three kids and live in a 950 sq. ft. cottage.
That’s true. And some of it has to do with how a home is laid out, if you practice cosleeping, etc. It’s all about perspective.