I feel your pain with the kitchen table. I’m the oldest of seven kids, though the youngest wasn’t born til after I was married. My husband came for dinner every night for the two years before we were married though. The same kitchen table that comfortably seated four of us when it was just my sister and I kept getting more and more crowded until there were 9 of us sitting there every night until the day I was married. (That got rid of two of us!) Us older kids truly sat two kids to every three chairs (the middle one straddling the crack between the chairs), every night, for years. The littlest ones stood on narrow kitchen chairs (one per each) as soon as they were old enough to stand. Before that it was a tiny 1950′s era highchair in the corner by the stove. For holidays, we’d clean out the living room and set up the big dining room table there. It was so much nicer except that the table was so wide it took up too much room. My sisters and I kept trying to convince my mom to get a narrow dining table big enough for everything and just ditch the whole concept of living room so we could eat in comfort. It never happened, though.

My biggest recommendation is to give up any thought of having a “normal” house and instead make a “functional” house. There’s also a great book called Little House on a Small Planet, which is all about people who intentionally chose to live in less space. It can be inspirational. Also, watch this video: . It really changed my concept of how much space a family needs.

Good luck!
Robin

We love living in a small space. It means that we are forced to prioritize our things, forced to think “outside the box”. About half our official floor space (for some reason the cellar and attic aren’t counted) is taken up by one large living/dining room, which was the one major criteria we had when house hunting (I’m the oldest of seven kids so a big dining table was a given). Our kitchen puts out more food than most of the large “gourmet” kitchens I see in other people’s homes. Its so reassuring to find another family who embraces this sort of life as well!

I live in a 1100 square foot house that really doesn’t meet our needs. Its become a source of stress between my husband of 16 years and I. We have only lived here for a year and a half but a lot happened with the economy and he was sick so we went through savings. We wern’t able to build our dining room or extra bedroom.

My kitchen is so small that a dining room table for 6 cannot be comfortably placed in there without blocking the entrance to the living room. That will leave me with a tiny bit of room to squeeze by and by early summer it will be hilarious to watch me try to make it into the living room. I don’t have 6 chairs I only have four. My husband and I eat in the living room, the kids at the table, except for Jacob. Theres no where for the poor kids highchair, in fact he doesn’t have one. He eats on the couch and thank God its microfiber and easy to clean. Maybe I’ll get a fold up highchair. Ikea is usually good for that.
So for the bedroom situations…My oldest has his own. He has bipolar and he needs to have his own space. My 8 and 6 year old share a room. They have these gorgeous sleigh beds and thats all that fits in their room besides a dresser. They have a tiny closet.

My husband and I share a room of course with Jacob. We have one bathroom.

We have an unused three season that functions as my attic and basement. I have a garage, but get this, its at the top of a really steep yard with no road to go up there. I guess they built it from scratch up there. Its really useless because to haul all the boxes from the three season porch would be too hard. I guess it can get done, though. We have a small pull down attic.

My wish for our three season porch would be to have all the boxes organized and moved up the hill and have that porch split into two parts. A bedroom and playroom. We have heat and my husband is an electrcian and knows some framers so we may have some hope there.This would be a huge help.

I have weaned Jacob and he’s sleeping in a tiny crib instead of our bed.

This is our story and layout of our home and I’m here to find suggestions on how I can make this work for us instead of be upset about it.