I remember reading this thread back when our foundation was poured. The perception through the process for us was......basement foundation looked huge, framed looked small, sheetrock smaller yet......now we're finishing flooring, trim and cabinets and we're finally back to feeling about right. Whew!

Funny that this thread popped up again, as it was just tonight that my wife said, "you know, it's feeling big again".

BTW, 2400sf main level, 2000sf basement.

Meagan, I really like your floorplan. I love how you put "The Mans Grill" right off of the kitchen. I bet you get a lot of use out of it since it's so convenient.

Our great room is 16 x 20. Pretty close to yours. It opens up to a breakfast area, requires one wall for foot travel and has a wall full of windows on another. Like you, the only usable wall space is going to house the entertainment stuff.

We plan on floating furniture around the room. Anchoring the sofa with a sofa table....etc. Did you say you thought maybe it was "too open"? No way. Is that even possible LOL! I love wide open spaces. I have lived in a standard 1200 sf ranch for 10 years. Walls blocked the view from everywhere......I probably went overboard w/ open spaces too. I bet we both love it when we finally get to move in. :)

Meagan, our great room has seemed small to me throughout the entire build. It's 17x20, but everytime I've walked into there, it just seemed smaller. Our house is almost completed, just within a few days of an occupany permit, and we just put the flooring down this weekend. FINALLY, I stood back, and the great room looked HUGE!! I was shocked at the difference the flooring made in the room. Maybe that will help you later.

Thanks Charliedog. I designed it myself and then had a draftsman draw it up. I too love open spaces. But, it's just another thing that I am second guessing myself with! Sounds like our great rooms are very similar. I hope to find a modern-ish sectional to put in the center of the room. Maybe something with a curve and/or a chaise end to it.
The "Man's Grill" is just as much mine as his! I can't wait to use the outdoor kitchen. I named it that to give him "something" in this house. Ha! But now we are arguing over the grill! We had originally planned on gas, but now he is wanting some sort of built-in grill that burns wood pellets!

Kbkids-Oh, I can't wait for the flooring to go in (uh, even though I haven't picked it out yet). I bet that was a great feeling thinking your room was now huge!

Wow!! I thought I was crazy. I hope. We are building a 3834 squarte foot two story house. I freaked out when I saw the foundation. It looked smaller than I anticpated. I guess the reality is that the bank will measure the total square footage related to price. They will validate if the builder if off the total square footage. Our great room will be 21 by 18 and the extra room on the 1st floor will bey 14 by 14. Any one know how I can post my home plans? I can't find the directions. I want to post my plans.

Hopping on this thread. We dug our footers yesterday and my husband panicked. This thread saved the day - he was ready to scrap the floor plan and blow up the whole project. Funny how you all went through this as we were planning our wedding several years ago. I hope everyone's projects went on to become beloved homes. THANKS!

I remember my wife and I standing out with a long tape, stakes and our initial floor plan just after our land was cleared. She was standing at the rear exterior wall and I was at the front. It felt like we were 5ft apart from each other. The footers seemed way too small. When the subfloor went on, it got a little bigger. When the walls were framed, it got a little bigger. When the trusses were set, it became GIANT. But we do have a huge roof. We're still waiting on drywall to go in. I've heard people around town asking about who is building the huge house. Weird thing is, we're building on a dirt road where maybe 3 cars go by a day.

I have been watching our house go up and wanted to cry when I noticed how small all of the room are. My husband keeps reminding me that we are "downsizing" but looks like we are going to be living in a cracker box. Hopefully it will start to look bigger as we go along. We are building a 2200 sq ft home with a full basement that we will finish after we move in.

Glad this helped, Jes.

Our project has been done for almost nine years now, and it turned out great. In fact, at the time, my wife said we'd never build again. Now, we're almost done designing our next home, and will break ground at the start of 2017.

To make your husband and you feel better, I've attached some before and after photos from 2007.

Good luck with your build and your new home!

Kevin (Finesse)

And now does it look bigger Kevin Lee?

What area of FL is that?

It never seemed small to me, primarily because I designed the home. My wife, however, was nervous about it. Now she's just fine. In fact, the design we're working on now is smaller than this house since it will not have a second story.

We're in Southwest Florida.

Time11130,

EVERYONE warned us that all the rooms will look too small when the process starts and then as it evolves, everything looks much bigger. FWIW, we are building a big house and we already regret it :) So enjoy your perfectly sized home!

We're in Southwest Florida.

Me too. I'm guessing about 1/2 hour south of us. If you'd like, message me.

Same here exactly. I even measured as you did.

Wow--a nine year old thread. Surely a record!

Yes Virgil it is an old thread, but for those of us building new, it's relevant. I know when we went the other day to see the footers dug out, my DH complained that the garage and kitchen were way too small. They did look too small, but I knew about the illusion, so explained it to him. (Of course, he still doesn't believe me. LOL.)

I felt the same way when it was staked out and they were doing the basement. Now that I can walk inside it everything feels just as big as I wanted it to be. When we did a walk through, our builder painted the kitchen layout on the floor. I had to double check the island size because it looked so tiny but it was correct so I'm hoping the same illusion is going on there!

When I first saw our footers I said "holy sh*t, what have we done. It looked huge.

Lake, I feel like kitchens always seem dubious until you get those counters on, and they overhang, and then it all works just right! Of course, that's one of the last things to go in...urg!

Great (and OLD) thread! I had the exact same panic moment when I first saw the footing forms for the garage extension. "There's no way I can fit a car in this space!!" I thought to myself. I shall wait patiently for the process to unfold..... hope I will have my "aha" moment like most of you.

I'm sitting on my property about in tears and have measured and remeasured the stakes marked out. I found this and sat here and read them all. In one way helps but in another way doesn't as all these houses mentioned are so much bigger then the one we are building. Our home is only 1770sq ft two stories no basement. So our home is already small to begin with but now it looks waaay to small. So if these 2000-3000 + sq ft homes look tiny to everyone what on earth is mine going to look like?! Yikes! I called my husband panicked about it and he said I was giving him chest pains, I told him I'm having chest pains thinking that our forever home is too small (and we like small cozy homes and have two older teens), I'm just afraid it's Too small. Our builder said the same thing though that it always looks really small but gets bigger as walls go up. Which sounds crazy because I would think it would make it even smaller.

I posted in this thread earlier because of my concern that he house would be too small but now that the walls are up, I think that it may be too large. I think you will be okay armyyife. My house is about 2,200 sq. ft. too.

Ohmygoodness, yes, Miss Army, the house will definitely look crazy-small. It will totally be okay!

I had the same experience when we built our 1900 sqft home almost 15 years ago, and I suspect I will have the same thing happen again, when they pour the foundation for my new 2100 sqft house now. :-) And they are both single story homes.

I'm in a 1350 sqft rental at the moment, can you just *imagine* the panic of the original owner of this house??? lol Poor thing probably thought she was moving into a shed! (It's less than 700 sqft on the first floor, so the footprint is Cinderella sized! :-D )

Thanks for the reassurance. We owned a 1,200 sq ft home before bought our land and raised to kids in it (now 17 and 19) and the only thing I wish was different was storage so size isn't the issue overall. It's more how it's laid out and it's an open floor plan. On paper and when we measured it out it all seemed just fine but standing inside the marked out area of where my front door will be looking into the open living, kitchen, dining area I freaked out, and then when I realized that I was actually standing on my 8ft deep and same width as the house front porch I really freaked out! lol maybe it's best I don't go to see the house till walls are up!

I was freaking out when our footers were poured and I am still freaking out with the slab poured today. It does look small. I just cant see how all those rooms will fit in the space. I didn't measure.

Reviving this threat yet again to say thank you! I am not even building that large of a house 950sqft. You can only imagine how small my footer looks. My boyfriend made a Zoolander reference asking me if it was a "house for ants." I cannot wait until this period is over. I have two boys sharing a room and was looking at a space that looked the size of a twin bed! Its technically larger than the house I am currently in!

Glad I saw this thread! I thought the same thing when our footers were poured! Today our walls will be poured and I will probably still think the same thing.

Reviving this thread also! I’m freaking out looking at the footers and 1st floor framing so I decided to google it. This made me feel soooo much better - I’ll post an update on weather or not the ‘optical illusion’ is true! Thx all!

We have a pretty big house but I've always thought it looked tiny from the roof. I still can't process why the house feels so small from standing up on the roof and so big standing inside.

Glad to see we aren’t alone because I am in a panic as well. Ours is a two story, full basement, 3 car garage home. The footers were poured today and the basement looks impossibly small! It is supposed to be 1800 square feet down there but doesn’t look like it could come close to fitting what is planned. Husband is heading back up to the lot to measure and hoping for it to be the optical illusion everyone talks about! Thanks for the insight :-)

We are building and the footers were just poured last Thursday, I’ve been out to look a few times and taken my dad and oldest daughter. They all agree with me

that it looks way small. I’m going to have my husband go out with a measuring tape tomorrow. It should measure out to 3300 square foot but looks maybe 1000. I’m happy to have found this thread as I’ve been worrying that nothing we have planned will fit and they made a huge mistake with the digging/footers.

I found this thread after doing a google search today when I freaked out about how small our house looks with the footers! I'm so glad I found you guys! I'm still trying to figure out how the heck it will all work out but am more willing to trust the process now. I just can't quite get my head around how exactly that works but I guess we will find out!

Good luck with your build, Chelsea, and don't worry. If your home was big enough on the plans, it will be big enough when finished.

Since I posted about my build many years ago, I've designed and built another home in 2018. Even though I knew the house was a good size (3,200 sq ft), when the footers were poured the house looked small. Now that I'm in, it's just the size I designed.

Try to enjoy the experience and don't be stressed.

I'm also a big believer in (1) measuring rooms in your existing house so you get a sense of, say, what a 12' x 12' room looks like. And (2), drawing out a life sized floorplan with sidewalk chalk. Find a big, empty parking lot and map everything out. Park your car in the garage. Walk around. It's not perfect, but it gives you a good sense of what the spaces feel like.

Thank goodness for the internet - I almost had a heart attack yesterday and again earlier today when I saw the footers for our 2400 sq ft. house...it's our first custom build and I was thinking, "there's no way this is 2440 sq. ft. it looks smaller than the 1700 sq ft apartment we live in!!" I had measured and re-measured, and even texted my builder to be sure they didn't make a mistake! He hasn't texted back yet which is how I found this thread, lol. What a relief to know I'm not crazy!! Thank you all for this, seriously!!

Totally understand all of you as I'm in the same situation!! I've read every single comment on this thread so I know I'm not alone and that it will actually all be okay but......STILL! We are building a 1 story 1900 sq ft ranch with a 1002 sq ft garage. Heck, the garage is bigger than some small houses. But it looks so tiny with just the footers poured! My husband thinks I'm silly as I have made him go to the lot with me not once, but TWICE lol, to measure. And I've also measured our current rooms to compare. Its definitely a real mind bender and I can't WAIT for the "aha" moment to come because I'll admit, this size thing is making my excitement dull quite a bit right now!!

We went through the same thing when our footers were poured. I didn't see how our cars could possibly fit in the garage, or that my furniture would fit in the house. I remember my daughter asking what in the world we were doing downsizing to such a small house. Now that we are almost in, the house is feeling huge! I guess that will change when the furniture goes in. 🙄

Our footers will be dug this week but they have roped off all of the rooms and I have gone out there everyday for 2 weeks measuring it over and over again. We are building 1764 sq feet on the main floor with a bonus room over the garage that we will finish later. Not a mansion by any means, but perfect for our first home. I cried the first time I went out there, and finding this thread has given me SO much relief. I pray it continues to take shape and make more sense, because right now it looks like I could jump from one end of the house to the other. Crazy that this thread from almost 15 years ago is providing hope for me. I was only 10 years old when the first post would have been made! Thanks to all.

This thread helps so much in 2021 all these years later from the original post. i had the same stress about my foundation and a few google searches lead me here. Thanks for the reassurances everybody

I am so grateful for this post! I yelled at my teenager when the first thing he said at our site was, ”its so small”. Then I saw for myself and about cried. My husband and I measured because the kitchen/keeping area seemed small and I cant beleive it, but it was accurate. I am drawing it up on sketchup to make sure we shouldn't add a foot! Anyone have a keeping room that is appx. 19by15?

Thank you for this post!!

Thanks for this post, my house will be 3000 sf. In the first floor but it looks half of that with the concrete forms, the garage seems like for 1 car.

This is the most validating post possibly ever! Our footings were poured this week for our 5,200 sq foot house and I honestly can not imagine how the living room, kitchen, primary bedroom and bathroom can all fit where it is going! So thank you for helping me not feel like a crazy person!

sighhh I feel better after reading this post house is 2900sq ft and I thought i was losing my mind with how small it looked staked out. I also went out to measure and thought there is no way! we need a bigger house. I wanted to cry

Thank you all for feeling the same way I do looking at my crawl space starting to go up.

Here we are in 2024 and this post might’ve saved my marriage. Kidding! But I was unable to get past how small the footing for our 2800 home seemed when I saw it today! Like how do all these rooms fit in that tiny space?! In reality, I’m sure the people know how to do their job. And it’s twice the size of my current house. Trying to trust the process.

Just left our new property and my husband and I both were kind of freaking out at how small it looked. I felt like we made a huge mistake. Glad to hear this is common and we just need to be patient.

A common misperception. But a couple dozens builds in...

Looked just right to me. (5,850 sf)

(mrs. worthy says it's too small--the house!)

Tell her not to worry, painters can fix anything.