Big home vs small home

[FlutteryPixie]

In a previous thread I said how we're able to look around a bit for a house now, though we're not really sure we want to do this yet.

My boyfriend thinks buying a house is a big step when I have trouble keeping from making our tiny two-room apartment a complete mess. Some days I'm like a tornado so he's mostly given up on the kitchen, leaving that to me, while he keeps the living room and bedroom "normal person" neat...

I have to agree with him, though I really want to move on and make a "real" home together.

So I was wondering if you guys could share your experiences with us, is it easier, or harder, to keep a big house neat/liveable than a small apartment?

I've heard from some, including Spunkysmum *nod* that a big house could turn out to be easier because it's less daunting and more rewarding since the amount of space means it doesn't get cluttered as fast and thus you can enjoy the fruits of your tidying-and-cleaning labours for longer.

Others say that the smaller the place, the easier it is to keep it neat and clean.

Both seem logical to me, and I guess it's somewhat down to personality, but when it comes to housework, I'm going to assume many of us have much in common

Also, are there any tips and tricks that make keeping a big house easier? In our apartment, we've found that keeping the amount of textiles down means less dust, and that the newer and more insulated the apartment is, the faster it gets dusty and greasy. But I think living in a small space with many things accumulates dust and clutter quicker in general.

One house we've looked at has a huge kitchen. That means more bench space so the "clutter" is more evenly spread out. But do ADHD'ers tend to just end up cluttering the whole bench before tidying or does it mean better overview?

What do you guys do with guest bedrooms, cleaning routine wise?

And how about gardens? I was thinking if we grow strawberries and potatoes, it will be more fun doing garden work, but it could also just backfire and mean that it becomes too daunting a task.

Hope you can help with some input! It's a really confusing thing to figure out on our own.

[Raye]

I'm having a similiar problem. My ADHD boyfriend would like a big house with an upstairs and a garage, while I want a one story small ranch style house.

It's easy for him to want this, because he doesn't clean a darn thing. I'm ADD and my strengths compliment his weaknessess and vice versa- I'm alot better at cleaning than him, and keeping up with the huge house we are in now is a big struggle for me, especially since he makes makes messes and doesn't clean up after himself. I love him to death, he treats me like a queen but he is a total pig!

In the end I won

when we move, it's either gonna be a 2 bedroom apartment or ranch style home.

So short story long, lol, I think a smaller place is easier to keep clean, lol..

[Luvmybully]

I think we tend to fill our spaces with stuff, and it doesn't matter if it's a big space or a small space.

Cleaning styles/mindsets seem to be one of things that just depend on the individual. You either wait til the spaces are all filled up to tidy them or you do it on an ongoing basis.

We do the minimal textiles thing too, few curtains or area rugs. To me curtains are just dust collectors. We do have one room in our house with curtains, and yes right now they are dusty.

We have always had a family, so for us bedrooms for the kids was not optional, but I never had any desire for a huge house. I don't want to have to pay the taxes on it, or pay to heat and cool space that is only occasionally used.

I gave up on gardening. I was so excited to move to a nice warm place with an extended growing season, only to realize the bugs fight to WIN and the heat takes the rest. I lost the desire to fight nature to get some plants to grow.

[sarek]

Luvmybully is right. Nature abhors a vacuum. Every house, no matter how large will get filled up and then you'll have much more to clean out.

Not to mention the financial burdens and risks involved with a bigger house.

The KISS principle always applies.

[spunkysmum]

Another thing about living in a larger space is that there should be room for a lot more storage options, enough for everything to have its place where it can be stacked or stowed away neatly. That's one of the worst things about living in a small space for me - there isn't enough storage to put things that I should reasonably be allowed to have. It's very limiting.

I'd never assume that having trouble keeping a two-room flat clean would logically translate into trouble on a larger scale keeping a larger place clean.

Trying to keep a small place clean reminds me of that Peanuts character, Pig Pen. Every once in a while he would get all scrubbed and clean, and then as soon as he stepped outside his house POOF! he became magically dirty again. In a small place, you can get it all neat and tidy and under control, then all you have to do is drop a sock or set your stuff down when you come home and POOF! it's messy again. I find it quite discouraging. I can and have for quite some time survived in a small place, but if I could have what I want and need, I wouldn't choose it.

[RedHairedWitch]

I'm in a large-ish three bedroom now. We have a nice big basement. That's where the mess lives, as according to the rules.

That's where laundry gets sorted (sort of) and where the work table is for making messes, the cat box, the garden stuff, the sewing pile, the arts and crafts stuff, the random boxes of things, the recycling, the tool box, the junk drawer etc

Things don't come out of the basement until they are ready to go where they belong.

Everywhere else is minimal stuff, and we clean it in a regular basis. Since we don't allow stuff to get piled up in the rest of the house and we don't work on projects up there, it's easier to keep clean.

The basement is where stuff gets stored and tossed when we don't want to deal with it right now. It gets a little tidy about once a month.

When people come over, we just close the basement door. If we have to, we can hide stuff down there until after they leave.

[crystal8080]

I think the secret is to find the *right* size. Sometimes its just that your living space is too small. If you spend all your time in the same space, its going to be hard to keep clean. Is it better for you to have lots of little spaces you use for different parts of the day? Or one general larger space.

I cannot live in a place too small. If there is nowhere to put stuff, its not going to get clean never mind stay clean.

Right now I live in a pretty big house. All the bedrooms are upstairs and are generally left unused except for sleeping. Its nice. I can get it clean in one go. And the bathroom up there. Downstairs there are two livingrooms separated by the fireplace. They are the rooms that get used the most. This is where I spend my time telling the kids to clean up I also have a large kitchen, so its spread out.

When it comes to actual cleaning, I try to do a room a day. I don't reach my goals as much as I should, but tackling it one room at a time makes in manageable.

[FlutteryPixie]

I do believe our current apartment is terrible for my ahem, needs.

• The bathroom has zero ventilation and is also our laundry room. Every time we take a shower, a "film" of little airborne textile hairs from towels and laundry builds up everywhere, making the place look grey when it's really white
• The kitchen has extremely little counter space and is on one wall of the living room. This means that we always see the kitchen, and I only need to take the plates off the table without putting them straight in the dishwasher to make it cluttered
• Our computer gear takes up another wall of our living room, contributing to the amount of dust, I'm sure, but since it's a top floor apartment with angled walls/ceilings, this also leaving us with very little flexibility for furnishing
• There's almost no "temporary" storage space so our tables (we only have two plus a large computer table) are always cluttered
• It's pretty small

The bedroom is easy to keep, but the livingroom/kitchen is a constant headache, I can clean it in the morning and it looks like someone bombed it in the evening. I think it contributes to a "whatever" kind of attitude. The apartment is really new and very neatly designed, but it's just so very unforgiving and inflexible.



So I FEEL like a bigger home, with a separate laundry room, separate kitchen, a room for computers, a little toolshop and separate guest rooms and guest toilet would help. But I've never been responsible for an actual house, so I don't know how hard it really is and if I'm just feeding myself positive hopes but not seeing the issues.



I like the idea of one room a day, perhaps make it one room per week day (free weekends) for me though

[crystal8080]

It sounds to me you would do well in a house. Just don't go buying a whole bunch of stuff to fill it up, and get rid of stuff you don't need or that aren't working for you.

[synoptic]

In my experience, having a house has been better.

For example, in my house I have room to organize my kitchen the way I want. This includes NOT nesting my mixing bowls. Each size mixing bowl has its own spot in the cabinet, making putting them away and keeping them organized a simple task that I am more likely to complete. This same concept holds true for the organization of all the cabinets in my kitchen.

I am able to have separate areas for separate projects. My wife has her craft room, I have my gun room. Our projects aren't competing for space with each other, with the laundry, or with the dinner table. If I want to start a project and then walk away from it for 3 weeks, it's my room and I'm allowed to do that.

I have the stability of knowing I won't be looking for a new apartment in a year or two. Thus, it is easier to justify obtaining storage devices (shelves, cabinets, etc...) that fit specific areas of the house. When I lived in apartments, it was hard for me to do that knowing the shelves I bought may not have a place in the next apartment.

However, ALL the surface areas still get cluttered. My desk is a mess. My coffee table is cluttered. My kitchen bar is cluttered. My dinner table is cluttered. My couch often gets cluttered. But, somehow, cleaning it up is a little easier as I can at least move the items to the room/area they belong in, even if they don't get completely put away right then.

Finally, I have found that because it is MY house, I care about it more. It's not enough motivation to keep it spotless, but it does give me a little extra motivation to pick things up, force myself to vaccuum occasionally, etc...

The place I live is going to become cluttered. I have learned to accept that. From my first efficiency apartment to my 5 bedroom house, everywhere I have lived has become cluttered. You just have to figure out what works best for you as far as keeping things clean. For me, it is having the space to make it easier to clean or to maintain organization (i.e. not nesting the mixing bowls). For others, it is not having enough room and being forced to clean up in order to move on to the next project.

[holmracing]

I think if you can keep yourself to a cleaning schedule then you would do ok in a large house.

Have you thought about doing a small house and getting out of the apartment. Maybe a 2 bed, 1 or 1 1/2 bath, little place.

If i didn't have four kids that is what i would do again. When i was a single mom with only one kid i could fly through my little house in about 10 minutes and get everything clean.

Now we have a big house and 4 kids... Takes me forever to get everything clean! I always thought a bigger house would be easier... But i was so very very wrong!! Now i have a big house and it gets just as dirty, just as fast... Just takes longer to clean up!!!

[FlutteryPixie]

Originally Posted by holmracing

I think if you can keep yourself to a cleaning schedule then you would do ok in a large house.

Have you thought about doing a small house and getting out of the apartment. Maybe a 2 bed, 1 or 1 1/2 bath, little place.

If i didn't have four kids that is what i would do again. When i was a single mom with only one kid i could fly through my little house in about 10 minutes and get everything clean.

Now we have a big house and 4 kids... Takes me forever to get everything clean! I always thought a bigger house would be easier... But i was so very very wrong!! Now i have a big house and it gets just as dirty, just as fast... Just takes longer to clean up!!!

The house we're looking at is kind of different, it's quite large, but it has a section with two "sun rooms" (lots of windows and doors, like a cross between a glass covered porch and a room) that can be sealed off from the rest of the house for winter, and a core house that isn't so big, two connected, small living rooms, a very large kitchen, a very large bathroom, a master bedroom and two guest rooms.

It's a 1 1/2 bath house like you said, and like Crystal suggested it has two small "flexible use" rooms that can be made into whatever we need. We really like the layout, but it's quite big. It is quite old, but luckily has two floors, so it's not very heat effective but what needs to be heated during our quite short winters is mostly just the first floor of the core part of the house, so 4 rooms. The rest is upstairs bedrooms and we like them cold, as well as the two "summer rooms" I mentioned. An old house means more draft but also less dust since the house can "breathe", but it still means a lot to clean of course.

What I see in this house is the option to live there "forever", we wouldn't have to trade up even if we got kids or one of us became ill, but I would hate to push for a house if it turns out I can't handle it. It would be very sad to find a home and then have to give it up.

[crystal8080]

Think of it this way.

Little apartment= More clutter cleaning, less "deep" cleaning.
Big house= Less clutter cleaning, more "deep" cleaning.

By deep cleaning I mean washing things, dusting, vacuuming etc
What kind of cleaning fits you?

I would take a house any day. You can always confine yourself to certain parts of the house to keep it clean. You can't do that with a small place.

[holmracing]

Originally Posted by FlutteryPixie

The house we're looking at is kind of different, it's quite large, but it has a section with two "sun rooms" (lots of windows and doors, like a cross between a glass covered porch and a room) that can be sealed off from the rest of the house for winter, and a core house that isn't so big, two connected, small living rooms, a very large kitchen, a very large bathroom, a master bedroom and two guest rooms.

It's a 1 1/2 bath house like you said, and like Crystal suggested it has two small "flexible use" rooms that can be made into whatever we need. We really like the layout, but it's quite big. It is quite old, but luckily has two floors, so it's not very heat effective but what needs to be heated during our quite short winters is mostly just the first floor of the core part of the house, so 4 rooms. The rest is upstairs bedrooms and we like them cold, as well as the two "summer rooms" I mentioned. An old house means more draft but also less dust since the house can "breathe", but it still means a lot to clean of course.

What I see in this house is the option to live there "forever", we wouldn't have to trade up even if we got kids or one of us became ill, but I would hate to push for a house if it turns out I can't handle it. It would be very sad to find a home and then have to give it up.

Then my best advice is to try to get into a cleaning routine... and stick to it. ( i know easier said than done... I've been trying for years and have yet to accomplish it) The office and playroom are downstairs and since nobody except us go down there it is always a mess! LOL!

Today is my cleaning day.. And i will spend the next few days trying really hard to keep it clean.. But by next weekend it will be a disaster again! LOL!

Although i think if i got rid of a bunch of stuff we really don't use or need then it would be alot easier to keep up! My problem is i am a bit of a pack rat and want to keep everything! LOL! And that makes it very difficult to keep clean.. And i have totally given up dusting!!

And with 4 boys, 5 if you include the hubby, 2 inside cats, and 2 rats. Things get overwhelming in a hurry. And i have a hard time keeping the kids doing chores! For the most part i just send them outside and do it myself! It's much easier that way and then it is done how i want it done.

If i can get the kitchen clean today then i get to make myself raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes.. that is my motivation!

Anyway.. This is just my experience with a big house. For me its a major pain in the neck! Of course the fact that i am on the computer instead of cleaning could also be part of the problem!!

[artymom]

Oh, to just have two people messing up the house! My husband and I used to have a tiny house - 800 sq feet. It wasn't big enough for all of our stuff, but with only two of us it wasn't so hard to keep relatively neat.

Then we bought a house and had kids.
OMG - nothing messes up a house faster than kids.

Words of advice:
Closets will be your best friend. Make sure you have a lot of them. I have one closet on the main floor dedicated to all the crap that you have to have. We outfitted it with shelves from container store, just so we have a place to look for something and have a 90% chance of that being where it will be. Other than the junk drawer in the kitchen, this is the catch all. boxes and baskets clearly labeled to make it easier to put stuff away.

Don't over decorate. Minimal and easy is calmer. Especially at the holidays. If I have too many Xmas decorations to put away it will be February before I get embarrassed enough to get it done. I can not be a whole-house-decorator. It isn't possible for me.

I recommend neutral colored, non carpeted floors. They hide the dirt, and are WAY faster to clean. Hello Swiffer!

Lots of windows. Natural light makes everything seem bigger and cleaner.

also, next time I move? I want a professional organizer to come in while I'm unpacking and help me set up an easier to maintain house. Nothing complicated. I have no natural ability to organize, and would appreciate something that actually makes some sense. I try and try, but it doesn't every really work.