Whether you’re planning to have more kids in the future, preparing for a kid that’s returning from college or the like, or even welcoming in your parents or in-laws to live with you, it’s important to understand the many ways in which a growing family can add growing demand to your home. You need to be able to learn together with less space, but also with the utilities and amenities shared between more people. Here, we’re going to look at some of the ways you can make sure that your home is ready for a bigger family.
Do you have enough rooms?
The first thing to address is how you’re going to provide the space that every person needs to sleep and relax in privacy. A lot of homes see their kids sharing rooms, but adults need a little more privacy than that, and this can be true of teenagers growing up, too. You might have to look at getting rid of the home office to make way for a bedroom, or you can look at loft conversions, basement conversions, or even garage conversions to create an outbuilding. Extensions are always an option, too, but they’re an expensive one, that can often be limited by HOAs and other red tape restrictions, so plenty of research has to be done on them.
You’re going to need more space
Aside from the fact that you might need to find some space to provide additional rooms, you’re also going to need more space in the home in general. Shared spaces such as the living room and the dining room, hallways, and the like, all of them are going to be hosting more people more often. As such, to make sure that you’re not cramped up, you should look at some tips on how to make your home more spacious, such as by using storage solutions to make a little room, decluttering shared spaces, and moving the furniture in places like the living room to make sure that there are clear walkthrough paths.
Power to the people
The more people you have in the home, especially if they’re old enough to use devices of their own, such as PCs, tablets, smartphones, game consoles, and the like, the more that you’re going to expect to spend on your power supply. Keeping the energy bill low is one of the biggest budgeting concerns for any household, but it becomes even more important when you’re supplying energy for the needs of more people. By far, the most effective way to cut those costs is to look at how you heat and cool your home. Getting in touch with an HVAC expert to upgrade your home climate control systems for more efficient measures can help you make some room in that budget.
Don’t let the hot water wars start
You may well have experienced it yourself: waking up a little later in the morning than some of your family members, only to find that all of the hot water has run out. Not being able to provide hot water for everyone who needs it, when they need it, can become a legitimate battleground for plenty of fights to come. As such, it may be time to start looking at tankless water heater sizing to make sure that you have a water heater big enough and able to provide immediate heating quickly enough that it can support the needs of all of the family. Of course, fighting over who gets to the bathroom when can still be expected.
Could you add another bathroom?
If you only have one bathroom in a household of five or more people, then you’re certainly going to experience some of those bitter fights, as mentioned. Adding a whole new bathroom to the home can be an expensive project, that is for sure. A lot of households reduce the expense by installing a half-bathroom, meaning that it provides a toilet and a sink. It’s still not inexpensive, any plumbing installation should be treated as a serious investment, but it can reduce some of the tensions that can arise from having to share a single bathroom. Of course, if you have the space and budget for a whole additional bathroom, then that’s going to solve many of those problems almost entirely.
Be mindful of that bandwidth
Nowadays, one of the utilities that are as just as widely used as hot water, as just as important depending on who you ask, is access to reliable and fast internet. If you’re having more children, they may not be doing a whole of browsing in their off-time, but teenagers and adults can be expected to be on the net. This means that you’re going to want to look at your router and provider. You want to make sure that you have equipment that’s able to support a strong signal throughout the entire house, as well as plenty of bandwidth for the whole family to be able to use, so you can watch Netflix while the kids are gaming online.
Make it easier to care for
The more people living in a home, the more mess, the more clutter, and the more wear and tear that you’re going to have to deal with. Aside from making sure that you have a routine schedule to take care of the needs of the home, you can also look at ways to make it a little less needy. You can start installing easy-to-clean materials across the home, with smooth flooring options, be it hardwood or vinyl, instead of carpets, for instance. Options like elevated furniture can make it a lot easier to dust and vacuum underneath it as well. Of course, the durability of the materials and the furniture you choose can make a big difference, too.
Not all of the changes that come with a bigger family are going to be immediate. Some can be more gradual, as kids can take a while to grow up. However, you should still be mindful about it all the same.
