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Comment by Sharlin | Hacker News Reader

800 square meters????

This is something I still don't get, even as an American. I live by myself in a 950 sq ft (~88 sq m) apartment, and that's already more space than I know what to do with. Sure, add a spouse and 2 or 3 kids and my space needs would increase, but I can't imagine needing 8-10x as much space, ever. Maybe 3x, at most 4x.

I grew up in a fairly large house (I don't recall the size, but two floors, 6 bedrooms, kitchen, formal dining room, living room, family room, 3 bathrooms, basement filled with junk; so, fairly large -- semi-rural Maryland, where space was cheap in the 80s/90s). My parents weren't hoarders, though they did accumulate stuff. After my sister and I moved out and my mom passed away, my dad lived in a giant house by himself, couldn't maintain it, and also felt like he couldn't move because the house wasn't in good enough shape to sell.

I just don't get this need for more and more space. It just encourages you to buy more stuff that you don't need, and takes more time/effort/money to maintain. I hesitate to "tell people how to live", but this keeping up with the Joneses attitude is a component of what causes cost of living to rise and is ultimately a zero-sum game.

I know people who don't have the discipline to keep spaces open, but large open spaces can be wonderful (and easy to maintain). The tough thing is maintaining large arrays of intricate special-purpose rooms which you don't need and which are full of stuff that makes it feel small nonetheless.

Space is wonderful for doing things like dancing, hosting guests, exercise, communal/family cooking (sprouting many kilograms of chickpeas, fermenting 40+qt of kimchi).

There are certainly times I regret having so much space for our kids to clutter, but we ultimately bought it as a place for us to grow into. My wife is expecting our 6th child later this year, and our house has 6 bedrooms. So in that sense, it isn't insanely lavish, but a comfortable place to raise a large family.

Also, as the commenter below mentioned, we do enjoy hosting people for parties and family get-togethers. We spend a good amount of energy and time and money on these activities that are for the enjoyment of other people.

Wealthy people often build massive palaces to honor their own greatness and inflate their egos, I can assure you this is not one of those homes :).

A lot of it isn't "need" for more space; rather, it's that all that is available. I've been living in the same 3.3k sq-ft house for 10 years. There's simply nothing smaller in my area. OK, one retired farmer down the road has a house that's about 1200 sq ft, but that's by far the smallest house.

It's a pattern I found recurring as we were looking at houses: unless you wanted a 100 year-old house (which could be a good or bad idea), there was simply nothing under 3,000 sq ft on the lot sizes we were looking at.

If you were a Mormon living in Utah, you might need space for three or four wives, not to mention lots of children...

I'm sure the OP purchased such a large house for efficiency... as their children mature they can just start their own families in various parts of the vast, cavernous manor.

Yes, I guess 8,000 sq ft translates to 743 meters :)

8k sqft is ridiculous even by American standards. For a family of 5, I'd call about 2400 sqft (~220 sqm) normal, maybe a bit overkill.

Probably around 180 square meters plus 50 square meters garage, driveway and garden?

Edit: duh, it's really 800 sqm.

My reaction exactly. Americans use way too much, to be honest. 8k sq ft is more than enough for like 7+ families.

After living in 'cramped old london' for over a decade (still), I can only dream of the luxury of 800 Sq.m. Where do I sign up? :) fitting multiple people/families into anything less is just bad living standards as far as I'm concerned. You work hard all day long to go back to such a depressing existence. Time to start living fellow HN'ers!

Eh, grass is greener. Some of us worked hard to live in lively, crowded European cities. The suburbs have their downsides. For me, it was crushing loneliness.

You live in the centre when you're young and single and changing jobs. You move to the suburbs when you have married, settled down and want kids, a garden, good local schools etc.

When the kids have moved out, you can downsize to that retirement place in Spain... except that may not work as well after the UK leaves the EU.

Well, I don't live in the UK, so there's that. I am expecting a child within a few months and hope to stay in the city; we'll see how it pans out.

Which is why Londoners move to suburbia...

..and always dream of places like Spain (or better yet "Texas")

Time was Greater London was suburbia.

Does that make Luton, St Albans etc. the 'suburbs' of London?

Suburbia started at Aldgate, which is just outside the city walls ;-)

A good rule of thumb is (or was): Does it have black cabs?

Or time to charge more and get bigger

Yeah.. I mean, space is nice, but in homes of 800 or so square feet I've been pretty happy.

How much carbon is emitted cooling and heating an 8k sq ft home in Utah? How far do you have to drive to do things?

Our utility bills certainly have gone up, which we aren't thrilled with. We are considering some solar panel options to help bring our carbon footprint down. Being fully remote, I try to make up for that by not driving very much :)

Overall, the valley we live in has pretty much everything we could want, from a retail perspective.

A nice small-town grocery store about 3 mins away, and larger national chains further down the road.

Yeah, seems fairly ridiculous. You'd spend your life vacuuming.

That was actually an onerous task at first. But I bought my wife a Neato robot vacuum a few years back and it has been such a nice thing to have.

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