Gyr, thanks. I did a quick scale drawing so you all can visualize the space. The wall with the dashes around it is the one we are proposing to remove. It is fairly accurate to scale with one square being one foot.

As to what's normal around here, I know that most newer homes the size of ours have only three bedrooms. But I don't know if that means that us having four makes it a bonus selling point.

One big pro I see is that currently when you walk into the house, you walk into the dining area and have to walk through the dining and kitchen to get to the living room. If we knock out that wall, you would walk into a dining/living area, which seems more normal.

In MY neighborhood, small starter homes, the 4-bedroom homes are worth $15,000 or more than the 3-bedroom homes.

If I were in your shoes -- living in what I believed to be my "forever home" -- I'd open the wall and use the space in whatever way works best. However, as I do not love "open concept", if I were going to open that room I would probably just create a 4-5 foot opening into the room and not take the whole wall down.

I should probably clarify. This is not my dream home or my forever home. It is, however, exactly what we wanted for raising our kids as it has two acres and is just outside of our town. We have six kids ranging from one to ten years old. Our five boys have the large downstairs bedroom and our daughter has the small upstairs room. I have always been of the mind that it's better to have small bedrooms and/or share them and have more living space, so we weren't intending on leaving this fourth bedroom as a bedroom anyway, as we really need a place for desks and bookshelves. I'd say we plan on being here 5-10 years. Ideally, we'd love to be here until we're ready to buy the home we plan to be in permanently, which will not be until most of the kids are out of the house.

The difference this change would make is how long we could comfortably live in this house. For example, we currently cannot have a lot of people for dinner as there's no space for a second table. I would love to host extended family thanksgiving, etc, but it's not currently realistic.

I'm also not a person who's been a huge fan of the open concept thing, but with the size of this house and our family it seems to make seen to make full use of every available inch.

This post was edited by threepinktrees on Mon, Nov 3, 14 at 12:30

What would the lay-out look like if you reversed the current living room and current dining room?

We did it and 25 yrs later are still happy that we did. That being said, as pointed out, much depends on your local RE market.

Interestingly enough, right after we did it, an appraiser criticized us for what we did (remove the third tiny bedroom to convert to a DR/open plan space; create a spacious master bdrm/ba suite downstairs in what was an illegal in-law basement apt). But 13 yrs later, a different appraiser loved what we did, saying that buyers were now looking for exactly what we had done. LOL!

The livability quotient of the house is so much better than the original floorplan. It's been flexible to accommodate my temporary disability (had to live on the main floor for 4 mos. as I couldn't manage the stairs to the master), as well as housing first my mother for five yrs, and then my MIL for seven yrs, while still maintaining some privacy for ourselves in a small home.

Would it be nice to have another $25K (for that extra bdrm we removed)? Sure it would. But $25K now wouldn't have made up for the pain of living in what was a cramped, awkward, unworkable, inflexible floorplan.

It's an individual decision. Ours was that life is too short to live in a home that doesn't work for our lifestyle. There is no "perfect" house, really. What works for you at 40 may not work at all when you're 70!

Most appraisers will tell you, the number of bedrooms doesnt matter. After all, you could have 10 shoe box sized bedrooms in 2000 sq feet or 3 good sized bedrooms in the same sq footage. The value is based on sq footage, not number of bedrooms. As long as you have 3 you should fit the needs of most buyers and you will still have the extra office room. I would call a local appraiser in your area to see how it is counted in your area.

I agree that the number of bedrooms is not necessarily the most important consideration, and that livability can make a small roomed house more desirable. Our previous house model was originally designed by the builder to be 4 small bedrooms, but someone convinced the builder to make many of the homes with one becoming part of the master. It made for a funny shaped master, but the 3 BR design turned out to be the preferred version. Some 4 BR purchasers ended up punching out the wall themselves. I don't think there was a price difference.

You are planning to live there for quite a while, so I'd go for livability. Walking into the dining area is a bit odd; I agree that having the living area in view at the entry would be a plus. Or if Hayden's idea of switching the dining location to the living room is feasible. It does not appear as if you would be doing anything that would make it difficult for future buyers to convert it back, so there may not be a hit, or a significant one, for reducing the number of BRs.

Thanks all. As we're already having some electrical and Sheetrock done for the kitchen remodel I think it will be minimally expensive to add this change. I'll need to confirm with the GC though.

Hayden-- I'm not sure if you meant switch the living and dining without doing the remodel? That would give us a much more spacious dining room. However, the current dining space is only 11x13 and due to the front door being their the useable space is even less. I don't think more than one couch and a coffee table could be wedged in there, which isn't enough.

Here's a view under the awful soffit cabinet into the dining area and out the door so you can visualize that space (the table is only 30" wide). The door next to the entrance door is to a large pantry that I would lose with the proposed change, but I am planning to do a 6' bank of built-in cabinets to replace it. It's a very poorly designed pantry so that would function much better for sure.

If i am reading that drawing correctly, you now have a bedroom all by itself off your diningroom? If that is the case, I think it would be a big improvement to get rid of that bedroom and make it living space.

You said your 5 boys currently sleep downstairs. So I'm assuming in this bedroom? Where will they sleep if you knock the wall down?

Pixie-- the floor plan pictured is the main floor. The bedroom pictured was going to be used as a library/office. There are two other bedrooms on the main floor (our bedroom and my daughter's room). Down in the daylight basement is a large bedroom where the boys are.

I'm not sure where you are so ymmv. In my area, basement bedrooms, living areas, etc don't count as the same sq footage as main floor spaces. Your best bet is to talk to an appraiser.

The home I am in now sat on the market vacant for 6 months because it was a 3 BR in a 4 and 5 BR neighborhood. An appraiser probably still would have looked to sq ft first and the real estate agents to the copious amount of faded pink and green wallpaper, pink tile, pink carpet and dingy once-white carpet. However, the fact that many of our neighbors looked at it when new and bought other homes as well as the 6 month vacancy before we bought were attributed to it being a 3 BR home. But that's in a neighborhood with a street full of 4 BR houses. I think a lot depends on your area.

If the wall isn't load bearing, it shouldn't cost a lot to take it down. Putting a wall back up would be even less of a structural issue and not a lot more in cost (presumably buying new studs and drywall). Is it worth that to have the use of the space how you want it for as long as you want it?

Ordinarily I'd say make more living space, but . . . 6 kids and you're removing a bedroom? Sharing is fine when they're small, but older kids want more separate space and privacy, so down the road, you may regret the loss.

what Violet said.

Sylvia and violet-- thanks, I realize this is a valid point. However, I grew up in a large family as did my husband and we never had our own rooms and never were bothered by it. It never was an issue for my brothers or sisters either. I know it's a bit un-american, but I find personal space in a home somewhat overrated and aside from my daughter don't plan on having 'own bedrooms' for the kids, whether we have the house space or not. The room we are thinking of removing was going to be an office/library anyway.

Also, we live on two acres with lots of outbuildings. We're surrounded on all sides by endless rolling hills. If they need privacy there's a lot of it outside :).

Unamerican? I would not say that. I know a family that raised 12 children (girls and boys) in one bedroom and many more that have raised 3-4 per bedroom. It isn't uncommon in the U.S. at all--except maybe with the Houzz crowd.

Thanks, Gyr. I realize I need to take my pronouncements with a grain of salt as my oldest is only 10 at the moment, but it's nice to know it's still successfully done.

In this house we have to be creative because it's not huge. But even in the floor plan of the dream house we thought about building we had large living spaces and only three bedrooms-- master, one for my daughter, and a boy bunkroom.

We've talked about it a good bit and what Lascatx said is helpful-- it would be easy and inexpensive to return the space to a bedroom if we or future owners wished to. At this point it looks like we will do it unless it turns out to be absurdly expensive for some reason.

My only concern would be losing the office/library space.

As the kids grow, they are going to need or want quiet space for doing homework, or just reading for fun. With the shared bedrooms and all the living space one large open space, where will they go for peace and quiet?

I speak as one of seven children, who always had to share a room, and who lived in several houses where there was simply no place to go to curl up and read, or do homework without the noise of the tv or radio.

So it's not the loss of the bedroom that would concern me, as that there would be no quiet spot other than the bedrooms, and since those are shared, they may not be all that quiet. And you really can't kick a sibling out of their own room, just because they want to play something noisy and you want to read.

Without knowing the layout of your entire house, it's hard to make suggestions. But since you are considering making some major changes anyway, I would consider how to open up the living space more, while still keeping or creating one small room for quiet activities.

Cam-- I agree completely that such a space is important. In the current plan, the living room, which is a bright and sunny room in the back of the house, will become a library. We would put all our barrister bookshelves, a long table for homework, two desks, and a comfy chair or something similar. The tv is in the basement family room (and is only on Friday nights), so while there's always a level of background noise around here, the living room currently stays pretty quiet.

So the girl gets personal space and quiet when she wants it, and the 5 boys never do?

Even if there were 2 BRs to split between the 5 boys, at least some of the time each might be able to be alone in the room. The LR space may be quiet, but it sounds like it would usually be populated with several people.

"So the girl gets personal space and quiet when she wants it, and the 5 boys never do?"

Hey, she deserves something for having to live with 5 brothers. (Speaking from experience here . . . )

But that does bring up a point that the brothers may find unfair, as they grow up.

People do grow up in dormitory-style environments, but I don't think it's as optimal as at least a little place where they can have their "own little corner", their "own little chair" (quote from Eliza Doolittle).

It seems to me that too much togetherness is detrimental to the closeness that parents want to encourage.

When we were growing up, I had my own room, & my brothers shared.

As they got older, they became more competitive, & the competition became more aggravated & more aggressive & ugly, & I think it was because they couldn't get away from each other.

At nearly 60 years old, they still compete.

Thanks all! It's been very interesting to read everyone's point of view on the private vs public spaces in a home.

Couple things:

--it is true that my daughter has her own room while it's likely few of my sons ever will. It's also true that my daughter has five younger brothers. I guess to technically be fair we'd need seven bedrooms, which isn't going to happen. Although we'd also need a sister for my daughter, and clearly that wasn't part of her story.

--I get the feeling there's many theories about personal/shared space and how it effects personality and development. For every story like that of sylviatexas, we could counter ones like that of my three brothers who shared a room all their lives at home and are great friends as adults.

I think there are probably many factors going into sibling relationships and well turned-out adults. My kids live in a home filled with love, fun, and secure boundaries. They are thriving, well-adjusted, and leaders among their peers. I am skeptical that limiting private home space will change that.

--most importantly, the room we will be turning into living space was already planned to be used as a public area, it will just be larger and more pleasant without the dividing wall.

Sincere thanks to those who chimed in. I agree that this setup may not work permanently. We will definitely be playing it by ear and watching for signs that we may need to move to a bigger home as the kids grow up. I'm by no means claiming that we have it all figured out after just 10 years of parenting!