View Full Version : House is too huge... what can you do?
We are home shopping and I recently saw a listing for a property that looks promising. The problem is, the house is ridiculously huge. Like, 3-4x what we need, over 7K sqft. It is in need of light fixtures and appliances. The walls and floors are finished, that's about it.
So, is there anything that can be reasonably done to make a house smaller? I just want to put up a wall and live in 1/4 of it.
goldensmom
11-6-12, 9:49am
Put up the wall. When I was a child, my parents shut off half of our house in the winter to save on heating expenses. Shut off or don't use a section of the house or a whole floor. Always ways to make a house smaller, making it bigger is an expensive problem.
Sure, you can close off part of it and not live in it. But that doesn't seem practical to me, buying a huge house when you know you don't need it.
When the time comes to do exterior maintenance you'll be paying for a huge roof and lots of wall maintenance regardless of you using it all.
Is this a new or old house? I really can't imagine buying a new 7,000 sq foot house. WHY? I mean, 7,000 is HUGE. The biggest house in our neighbrohood of big victorian houses is 9,000. The average "big" house is probably 4,000.
what is the draw for this house?
Put up the wall. When I was a child, my parents shut off half of our house in the winter to save on heating expenses. Shut off or don't use a section of the house or a whole floor. Always ways to make a house smaller, making it bigger is an expensive problem.
My in-laws do the same, closing off the entire upstairs, and they can do that because there is no plumbing. But they raised five kids in their home. The didn't buy it knowing they'd only use half of it.
It is ridiculously huge. Ridiculous. Such a waste and shame, who needs that?! We wanted something around 2,000 sqft for our family of 4, which would include space for a home based business.
The draw is the price (because it is unfinished) and the 7+ acres it sits on. It is "new" construction. It says it was built in 2006, but it isn't done yet. So someone must have had grand plans and a major fail.
I can't see it being practical to only use part of the space unless the rest of it would be rented out, or space for other family members, or something like that.
Bigger house = more cost for everything as Iris Lily pointed out. 7000 sq ft is absolutely enormous for a house.
It's expensive to finish off that much square footage. Doesn't matter what you use for finishes it will cost a lot. And you will have to get it at least very close to finished before the building department will give you a certificate of occupancy. If you go too cheap on finishes you will probably have a really hard time selling it some day. If it were closer in size to what you want you could simply take a room off, but it makes no sense to knock down 75% of something you'd have to pay for. Remember, a low price doesn't always mean its a great deal. The acrage sounds nice, but is there some special reason this property appeals to you?
http://www.kspr.com/news/local/kspr-huge-highlandville-home-spans-01132011,0,7101009.story
Read this and that 7,000 sq ft will seem tiny. This is the largest house in the USA and it's being built about 20 minutes north of me. You can see it from HWY 65 off in the distance. Massive. Stupid.
I was recently either watching something or on a website (maybe here?) where someone had suggested the novel idea that many do not think of: a demo of a portion of the home. Maybe it's mainstream to think of an 'addition', however, you could get a bid to have a portion of it taken away. Or.. is there an alternative to turn unused square footage into a sunroom or other mixed use area that does not need to be heated/cooled. I'm also with the idea of closing off and turning off the vents. The final home that we're planning on building, similar to Tumbleweed's B-53 plan will have two bedrooms and a 3/4 bath upstairs. When the kids move out, that will be a portion of the house that will no longer be used.
It sounds like there's other attracting factors for you. So, hopefully, you can find a compromise or be able to move onto another property.
Tussiemussies
11-6-12, 10:52am
You could possibly wait to find a house that suits you better. There probably are other homes that are smaller but have the other things you are looking for...:)
You could possibly wait to find a house that suits you better. There probably are other homes that are smaller but have the other things you are looking for...:)
Our main restricting factors are school district, acreage, and price. So it's unlikely we'd really go for this one given its challenges, but I still have a hard time not trying to consider anything that falls within our restrictions. We've been house hunting since Spring of 2009, and it is really getting old.
Honestly, even if we could do something about the size, the RE taxes on this place are crazy. nearly 10K a year. Well, I'm sure RE taxes vary greatly, but I think that is crazy high. I'm hoping for under 6K/yr.
DH and I saw the movie "Wanderlust" last night and joked with my husband that the appropriate use for this place would be an "Intentional Community." Not knocking the concept, it's just not for us; we like our privacy.
iris lily
11-6-12, 12:05pm
It's expensive to finish off that much square footage. Doesn't matter what you use for finishes it will cost a lot. And you will have to get it at least very close to finished before the building department will give you a certificate of occupancy...
Maybe. Look, I know that this is your area of expertise, but in my neighborhood we could move in without finishes. DH and I moved in with no floors finished, no drywall in about half of the house, electricity in only 3 rooms. But just recently my neighborhood became part of the citywide effort on occupancy inspections and that kind of thing is no longer allowed. It is a sad day, indeed, and it seems to me that is one more nail in the coffin of urban pioneeering. The gooberment must protect us from ourselves.
But I digress. Back to discussing this 7,000 sq foot albatross (from which the OPs hould run very far away, I think!)
SteveinMN
11-6-12, 12:12pm
Any chance that zoning laws allow you to make it a duplex? You may need to complete a separate entrance and some more plumbing, and you'd have to find some way to share the 7+ acres. But it's worth a phone call or two to find out.
I agree with the others that just walling off a portion of this house doesn't make a lot of sense. You're still on the hook for maintaining the closed portion of the house (which will be a magnet for whichever critters precede you on the property). In some places, you'll even be taxed for the square footage even if you're not using it. You don't seem to be head-over-heels in love with this place; I'd keep looking.
awakenedsoul
11-6-12, 12:20pm
It sounds way too expensive. I found myself getting kind of obsessive when I thought I was going to have to close escrow in two weeks with the buyer that changed her mind. I wrote out all of the new expenses and compared them to the old. The differences were huge! Although propety taxes and water would have been lower, electricity, gas, and association fees were sky high. It helps to get it all down on paper. When it comes to homes, I believe smaller is better.
Our 1600 sf house feels too big! My very favorite house ever is the 512 sf one I built on Lopez with the Lopez Community Land Trust. When we bought the house we're in, all I could think of was the three bathrooms, and who the heck was gonna clean those?!?
7,000 sf is obscene, imho.
I would wait to find the right house....7000 sq ft is like a little city! I know it is so frustrating to find the right house, but if there is no urgency to move, then I would wait to find one that fits all your needs.
I would wait to find the right house....7000 sq ft is like a little city! I know it is so frustrating to find the right house, but if there is no urgency to move, then I would wait to find one that fits all your needs.
I agree - wait! However, if you have been housing hunting for almost 4 years and haven't found the dream place yet, then maybe it's time to change the dream .iLook into something else that fits more in with your needs rather then trying to change your needs to fit into something that really isn't suited to your lifestyle.
Thanks all. As I mentioned before, this really is unpractical on many levels for our family of 4, we aren't seriously considering it. I mostly was wondering if anyone had a clever way to cut a house in half (or quarters, as would be more appropriate.)
IDK who the heck would buy this house. There are some pretty large mansion type homes in the area, but they just have enough yard to be manicured, plus maybe a pool and tennis court. I think the kind of person that wants a 7,000 sf home (with an indoor pool) does not want to maintain the 7 acres it is on. Bewildered by whoever came up with the idea for this monstrosity.
We need 2000 sqft and a good floor plan to live comfortably (currently in about 1500 and it is too tight!)
Maybe. Look, I know that this is your area of expertise, but in my neighborhood we could move in without finishes. DH and I moved in with no floors finished, no drywall in about half of the house, electricity in only 3 rooms. But just recently my neighborhood became part of the citywide effort on occupancy inspections and that kind of thing is no longer allowed. It is a sad day, indeed, and it seems to me that is one more nail in the coffin of urban pioneeering. The gooberment must protect us from ourselves.
It started off practical enough. The furnace had to work, all the flues had to be done so the house didn't fill up with carbon monoxide, at least one toilet had to be installed, etc. It was a health and safety thing that made sense to most people. It's the banks that pushed it ever farther. They didn't want to get stuck with half done houses if they had to foreclose. You don't need trim, interior doors, carpet or paint in most places, but you now usually need just about everything else.
fidgiegirl
11-6-12, 5:58pm
Here's a wild idea . . . can you have plans drawn up for a different house, and dismantle this one to use the materials to build the one you really want?
It started off practical enough. The furnace had to work, all the flues had to be done so the house didn't fill up with carbon monoxide, at least one toilet had to be installed, etc. It was a health and safety thing that made sense to most people. It's the banks that pushed it ever farther. They didn't want to get stuck with half done houses if they had to foreclose. You don't need trim, interior doors, carpet or paint in most places, but you now usually need just about everything else.
That's true enough, for those who have mortgages. There are always strings attached when money is given.
The typical urban pioneer here paid cash for their house because mortgage companies redlined this neighborhood, anyway. Only I don't think I can call it "redlined" because that's that word is now owned by the game of race politics.
Here's a wild idea . . . can you have plans drawn up for a different house, and dismantle this one to use the materials to build the one you really want?
Wild idea indeed! I was waiting for someone to suggest this. I wonder how much something like this would cost. I wish it was practical...
iris lily
11-7-12, 12:55pm
Wild idea indeed! I was waiting for someone to suggest this. I wonder how much something like this would cost. I wish it was practical...
Please. Let this idea go. This house is not for you.
Materials "dismantled" are not reuseable, for the most part. I'm not sure that framing timber is reuseable, modern stuff anyway. We've got 100+ year old recycled framing wood in our house but it is old grwoth forest and a LOT better quality than the stuff you get today. Recycle drywall? hahahahaha. Some doors and windows and kitchen cabinets and a few appliances might be all that you can salvage.
And then--A huge % of the cost of a new house is labor. So that unrecoverable cost is already sunk in to the house. And THEN you are going to pay people to "dismantle" materials in such a way that they are reusable? C'mon, that's not remotely practical.
Seriously, let it go.
Please. Let this idea go. This house is not for you.
Materials "dismantled" are not reuseable, for the most part. I'm not sure that framing timber is reuseable, modern stuff anyway. We've got 100+ year old recycled framing wood in our house but it is old grwoth forest and a LOT better quality than the stuff you get today. Recycle drywall? hahahahaha. Some doors and windows and kitchen cabinets and a few appliances might be all that you can salvage.
And then--A huge % of the cost of a new house is labor. So that unrecoverable cost is already sunk in to the house. And THEN you are going to pay people to "dismantle" materials in such a way that they are reusable? C'mon, that's not remotely practical.
Seriously, let it go.
Thanks all. As I mentioned before, this really is unpractical on many levels for our family of 4, we aren't seriously considering it.
Again, thanks, but really we are NOT serious about this place! I needn't be convinced to let it go, I never really held it.
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