Also house size

[missy8005]

We live in a resonable sized 4 apartment(3 beds) house. We have a small garden, not big enough to extend in any way.

House prices are shocking now and we would have to spend at least £130,000 for a decent 3/4 bed house but we dont have that sort of cash at the moment.
How many kids can we fit in a 3 bed house and be legal ?

 

[sparassidae]

I would think as long as they are healthy there wouldn't be any legal issue.

If the issue is you not wanting to be cramped, I guess that's an individual thing. We live in a four bedroom house, one bedroom has room for 2 beds side by side. We won't even be facing bunks until we have another child.

But..... we are renting with no chance to buy for at least the next 5 years (assuming house prices don't skyrocket in that time, otherwise it will be never)

Renting means no extending, no moving to a bigger house, and if we wanted to put in bunks we would have to get the landlord's permission to remove ceiling fans in the children's bedrooms.

So, I know where you're coming from. To me, remembering God's faithfulness in all things is enough. If he wants us to have more children he will make it happen in every way, including sorting out the housing situation.

My husband often feels cramped here at the moment, and he's not even the one at home with them all day! Thinking of people in less fortunate parts of the world who have to live in a one room shack, yet still praise God, brings me back to earth if I'm feeling discontent.

Pray about it, cast your worries on God.

 

[RoseofLima]

We live in a 2 bedroom house and have 5 kids

The oldest 4 share a room and the baby is in our room. If we won;t be able to afford to add on- then eventually we'll give up our room to the girls and but a really cozy sofa bed for us to sleep on.

I checked with social services and they said that there is no issue with children sharing a room --and no limitation on how many kids or anything.

 

[sparassidae]

There you go, now I can definitely say to my husband that he has nothing to complain about!

Personally I don't really feel the need to stick to convention- I have thought about just using trundle beds for extra children, or turning the lounge room into a big bedroom.

If we owned a house we would seriously think about using hammocks (proper brazilian ones) as beds. That way you can pack them up during the day time for extra living space.

 

[jgonz]

We have an 1800 sq. ft. 4 bedroom house, and there are 10 of us in here. I have 3 girls in one room, 3 boys in another room, and 2 more boys in another room. Sure, it's a little cramped, but it works.

 

[CelticRose]

We had a problem with snakes in the house at one point & all the kids moved out of their rooms & bunked together upstairs. When we have overflows, which happens a lot, we put one sex downstairs & the other upstairs, usually just in the living spaces on mattresses, which can be stored in the bedrooms during the day. We do have a house & lots of outside space & the boys actually chose to live in tents for a good part of each year in primary school because they thought it was cool to camp out.

 

[BlessingsROnMe]

I feel cramped too, but now that I read some of your guys situations, I guess it is not that big of a deal. Although we are still looking to move. We live in a 1400 sq ft home and there are five people living in it. Five people with A LOT of stuff!! And the configuration of this house is not smart. We converted a mystery room into our bedroom but now we have no door. And our room is right next to the kitchen and living room. People have to walk through our bedroom to use the bathroom upstairs. Ugg! And my two oldest kids share the downstairs room which was not meant to be a bedroom I do not think. It is a decent sized room (19x11) and it cramed full of 3 kids worth of stuff. The baby sleeps in our room but his stuff is in the kid's room. The only room in our house that actually appears to be a legit bedroom we recently converted into an office.(it was the kid's room but when number three came along three kids worth of stuff would not fit). But it is all working for us currently.....but we are still looking to upgrade.

 

[BlessingsROnMe]

Although I was told that if a kid is five or older that they could not share a room with someone of the opposite sex. But I do not know that I believe the source much. She says that is what her friend told her because she got in trouble for not having her kids separated. Who knows if it is true......I have heard other people say something similar. To me that is completely stupid. But one person posted up here that they talked to SS worker and they said that it did not matter. So that is probably the case, unless it is different according to state.

 

[Sabertooth]

Although I was told that if a kid is five or older that they could not share a room with someone of the opposite sex. But I do not know that I believe the source much. She says that is what her friend told her because she got in trouble for not having her kids separated. Who knows if it is true......I have heard other people say something similar. To me that is completely stupid. But one person posted up here that they talked to SS worker and they said that it did not matter. So that is probably the case, unless it is different according to state.

Separate gender bedrooms are a good idea to stave off sexual experimentation, which happened in our case. We corrected it, but with at least two autisms in the house, it was helpful.

Our present house is about 1600 sq.ft. with six children at home. We have two official bedrooms, but we also use the basement and a small entry way preceding an attic space. Our living room is rather large with two doorways, so we split it in two using a large bookshelf, an armoire and a free-standing closet. One side is a playroom/bedroom, the other is our functioning living room.

I understand it was built in 1895.

 

[JulySheMustFly]

For us it wasn't number of kids that we had to be concerned about it was gender. When we were looking for a place to live all the apartments forced us to look at 3 bedrooms because we knew we were having a boy and already had two girls. We had to go with an FHA loan when we purchased our house and they wouldn't let us look at 2 bedroom homes even if there was a study with a functioning door that could be converted to a bedroom by adding a bed and armior.

Little did they know we planned on putting our younger two (boy & girl) in the same room no matter what size the home was.

 

[BananaCake]

We live in a 2 bedroom house and have 5 kids

The oldest 4 share a room and the baby is in our room. If we won;t be able to afford to add on- then eventually we'll give up our room to the girls and but a really cozy sofa bed for us to sleep on.

I checked with social services and they said that there is no issue with children sharing a room --and no limitation on how many kids or anything.

I was just gonna say, "You should talk to Rose! I'm pretty sure she lives in a 2-bed."

You're an inspiration

 

[BlessingsROnMe]

FHA loan? Is that the one that is really really cheap and is hosted by the department of agriculture or something?
My friend was telling me that there is a loan that you can get if you are not living in city limits and it has low interest rate but there are regulations....I was not sure if that was the same or not.