A Growing Family Needs a Growing House

Guest Blogger #520, Entry #1174, May 14, 2012

When I first stepped into my new house it seemed absolutely massive. There were just two of us back then and I simply couldn’t imagine what we would do with so much space.

In fact, in the first year we lived there I only ventured into the spare rooms on about 5 occasions, and one of those was when I was drunk and got disoriented on the way to the bathroom. However, it is amazing how much smaller a house seems when children start arriving. Now it is perfectly normal for there to be one person in each room at any given time.

Is it time for a larger home with more space?

Image via: The Hermit Lifestyle.Tumblr

The kitchen becomes particularly busy at certain times of the day and sometimes the queue of people waiting to use the toaster or the kettle has to be seen to be believed. It is difficult to believe now that it was once an almost empty house which had no life about it and no memories attached to it. Most of the family memories we share now are based around things that have happened here and we can’t imagine living anywhere else in the future. That doesn’t mean that the place is perfect for us yet, and my home office is one of the big issues which needs to be resolved.

Time to Hit the Garden

As I work from home the noise and lack of space in the house can be a problem and lately I have been getting rather more irritable than is my custom. I like some peace and quiet to get on with my work but in the last few months it has been getting harder and harder to find this. When I made this complaint to my wife she silently pointed out of the window at our garden. Oops, I thought, she has finally lost patience with me and now I’ll need to work and sleep in our old tent for a while.

It turns out that she was just showing me something I had completely forgotten about; we have a big garden which we don’t use at all. I have never considered myself as being green fingered and my wife just about gets round to watering her cacti once a year. The garden is therefore a concrete wasteland where neither man nor beast dares set foot and it could be my future office too.

Your growing family could use more space

Image via: Traditional Home

All Mod Cons Included?

I still needed a bit of convincing at this point, as the thought of working out in the rain and snow doesn’t exactly get me jumping with joy. Luckily she had something a bit more exciting up her sleeve. The plan she had in mind was to set me up with an outdoor office with internet connection, big windows and maybe even one of those tiny fridges which are ideal for a home worker on a hot summer day.

I pictured something a bit more ramshackle and basic as our budget wasn’t very big, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was a quiet space where I could work without any sort of hassle. A roof over my head and least a couple of walls would have done the job if I am being honest. Anyway, my wife did some investigating and came up with the idea of a garden office built using structural insulated panels, which is a good value way of do it and gives a high quality finish.

Now the only worry I have about the future is that I know what my family are like. Just as I switch on the computer, pop open a cool drink and look forward to a productive day of work I will see them all trooping across the garden to join me in my lovely new office.

If you need to find more space for your family then the use of SIPS is something you should consider looking into.

For more home organization ideas on Stagetecture, click here.