No, I’m not talking about family size. I’m talking about something perhaps even more controversial…home size.

Over at (new-improved-check it out!) Larger Families, I recently posted about housing size on the message boards (psst! See that? We have brand-spanking-new message boards! Register! Post! Ahem…where was I?)

Oh yeah…the jist of the post is that I’m curious whether living in a smaller space is maybe more than doable, but actually advantageous, when raising kids (even lots of kids). Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing posted about this recently and it got me to thinking how much I really enjoy being in this little cottage, even though I’m used to having a lot more room to spread out.

Here’s where I’m coming from. Our space in Chicago was perfectly arranged for a family, particularly a big family. Pretty much everyone who ever came over remarked on how ideal the layout was. It was two apartments that had been duplexed together into one unit, so the living/”grownup” space was upstairs, and then there was almost as much “kid” space downstairs.

There were just two drawbacks. One: We never, ever used the fourth bedroom. Sure, there was a bed in there, and occasionally a guest slept in it or I dumped laundry on it. But mostly, it went unused. So did the upstairs office, for that matter. So basically, the six of us shared three bedrooms and seemed to prefer it that way. I’d even say the third bedroom didn’t see a lot of action, between the bigger three boys always wanting to bunk up together, and the youngest generally preferring to be with us.

The other drawback is that I’m an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person. So if the kids were downstairs playing, I really didn’t think about what they might be doing down there until I went down and saw an outrageous mess. There was a huge toy area, and lots of space for them to spread out/spread stuff out. I had a harder time keeping on top of the small messes they made throughout the day, because I preferred hanging out in the upstairs part of the house, so I wasn’t always walking through the downstairs picking up little messes before they got to be big messes.

But I’d gotten really used to having all that space so I was a little nervous when we moved in here. The home we currently live in has two floors, but there’s really no extra space to speak of: a kitchen that opens into a dining room, a decent-sized living room and sunroom…that’s the whole first floor. Upstairs is two small bedrooms and one medium-sized bedroom.

And still, it feels like plenty of space. In fact, there are some things that are easier about it. For one thing, keeping track of where all the kids are and what they’re up to is a snap. And since there’s really just one common area in which to hang out, it’s impossible for the boys to slink off and disappear when it’s time for homework or dishes. We’ve been talking more, just by virtue of being in each other’s presence most of the time. And I find that instead of facing an unholy mess at the end of the day, I just naturally deal with stuff throughout the day as it comes up because it’s right there in my face.

I’m sure a lot of my preference has to do with my ADD-esque personality. I have a much easier time remembering to do things–even connect with my kids–if circumstances throw them right in front of me. And as we add another child to the house and my big boys become privacy-seeking teenagers, we may very well need a lot more space than a house this size has to offer. But as we contemplate what kind of house we’ll buy in the future, I have to admit that a home that’s on the diminuitive side is feeling more and more attractive. Maybe we–even those of us with bigger-than-average families–simply don’t “need” as much space as we’ve been led to believe?

Do you feel like your house is too big, too small, or just right? Is layout everything or are you more interested in square footage?