A bit run down

[ailbhe]

I was just looking at the mess in the kitchen, dining room, rest of the ground floor, etc, and I thought "I wonder if I have B12 deficiency like my friend does?" and seriosuly considered that for a minute before I remembered -

I'm thirty-one weeks pregnant, I have two active home-educated children, and we all have a very nasty cold with a stomach thing as a special bonus offer.

That might be why I don't feel up to tackling the mess, then, perhaps.

However, I am bound and determined to tackle the stairs, because I want to reboot the printer and maybe measure the square metres we live in, because I have no actual idea and a few people on my friendlist have mentioned theirs in the past couple of months and I'm curious.

Edit: (7.25x4) + (2.5x4) twice is 78sqm which is 839.5 sq feet, apparently. It's a little rough, because it doesn't include the airspace where the stairs go up, or the bay window, but they about cancel each other out, I think.

Edit again: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8201900.stm indicates that we actually have a fraction more floorspace than average in a new build, though the five chimney breasts probably eat that up.

Comments

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I could find ours quite easily- it's marked on the house floorplan, though I can't remember offhand what it was. 90-something rings a bell, but I can't remember if that's what we sold or what we bought. Or even if it's anything at all!

But yes, certainly those things together would make you feel run down. I think you're brilliant for coping at all!

[ailbhe]

Of course, now I can't remember which friends mentioned it, so I can't compare. Googling reveals that it's a lot smaller than the average American house, which will surprise nobody!

[rmc28]

How did you measure it? Just lots of work with a tape measure?

I ought to find out our living space, because it would make it easier to figure out things like new boiler vs heat pump.

[ailbhe]

Not lots of work - it's only longer than the tape measure in one direction. I measured from the front to the back wall, and side to side, ignoring the chimney breasts because they don't affect the footprint even if they do affect the living space.

[quentinwrites.livejournal.com]

I'd have no idea what our square metres/feet. Now you've made me want to go and measure my house!

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

You are amazing for coping so well with all of those demands on your energy.

Ours is ca. 60 square metres, but having the loft and the garden makes ALL the difference. The garden is an extra room on a good day, and the loft means that we don't have to use any of our floor area for storage at all.

[ailbhe]

Another thing that makes a difference is not being awake there most of most days - we had to *seriously* cut down on our clutter when we started being *in the house* more, even when there were only two of us. Especially the clutter we, um, didn't like and didn't use.

Without the loft, having babies would be a lot more expensive, because we have nowhere else to put the Stuff between times. Also things like suitcases, and clothes one child has outgrown but the other hasn't grown into, etc.

EDIT: and I really, really hope that this summer we'll get to the stage of the garden being an extra room, because last summer and most of the autumn/winter/spring it was a miserable pit and utterly unusable. Urgh.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

I am still in the glad-eyed phase where I believe I will always devote as much care and attention to my garden as I do know, and it will never descend into an unusable pit. Hah.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

We have a storage space, which is very helpful for baby stuff (though it turns out we haven't used the moses basket at all this time - need to freegle it, I think, ditto cot) but causes arguments as we disagree about what should stay there and I get frustrated as I can't get there easily.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I think ours is about 40sqm, but I can't find the particulars to confirm.

I do love so many aspects of our house, but it is small and I like stuff.

[ailbhe]

Oh, that article only takes new build house numbers, and this is an 1899 house - and it doesn't take flats (or houses converted into flats) into account at all. And of course "within an hour of London" includes Oxford and other totally discrete cities, so it's a bit arbitrary.

But our 840 square feet is a three-bed one-bath, not a one or two bed like the 710 you cite.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I agree with all this - though you do sometimes find attached row houses in small American towns that were dominated by industrial mills. I live in rural New England, and we've got them here in towns of 8000 people. Of course, they are rather unusual for this country, which is why we *notice* them..... And most people do still live in detached houses.

My old house was 1035 sqft, and that was 3 BR, 1 BA. At one point we had 4 adults living there and it worked just fine. My current house is much larger, I admit (for 2 adults and 1 child) - and our lot is a full acre. Country living....