Sleeping on shelving??

[Visionoyahweh]

I vaguely remember Emily planning shelf-beds for her (potential) 10 kids. When you've reached that level of crazy I agree CPS should at lest be notified....

[ladypuglover]

They built a house too small for their family on purpose?

I am curious how you managed to build a house, home school your children, and not go crazy! We would love to build our own house but don’t see how we would have the time, especially since we’d have to commute to the site.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

They built a house too small for their family on purpose?

LadyPugLover, I did some digging around old posts the other day and the answer to your question is YES! She's got a whole series of posts about the house and even has a floor plan posted. They do have plans to expand "someday" but its really not necessary at the moment and when they do expand it may or may not be another bedroom.

[ladypuglover]

LadyPugLover, I did some digging around old posts the other day and the answer to your question is YES! She's got a whole series of posts about the house and even has a floor plan posted. They do have plans to expand "someday" but its really not necessary at the moment and when they do expand it may or may not be another bedroom.

Is this someday when all the kids are grown and gone? What do they want to expand? A music room or another library? They need 2 more bedrooms at least.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

First, we planned just 3 smallish bedrooms. We knew this would be tight but we felt that we could get by with 3 for quite some time, and living areas were a priority to us. In our home, bedrooms are used primarily for sleeping, dressing, and quiet time. None of these activities requires a tremendous amount of space. We strive to live together as a family so we didn't see a big need for a lot of private space in our home.

inashoe.com/2008/05/big-family-in-a-small-house-part-3-floor-plan/

Here's the post with a pic of the floorplan. It looks to be enough space for myself, my son and my dog. I can't imagine cramming 11 or 12 people in there, plus she says they entertain a few times a month with 15-20 people plus her brood. Oh my !!

[emmiedahl]

I'm not sure where they would put another room. The deck on one side looks off a mountain or cliff or something, so no room there. If they added to the other side of the bedrooms, they would be taking away windows from the bedrooms and breaking fire codes. It's weird that they plan to add on but left no room for doing so.

Their dining room looks big enough that they probably could have carved out a bedroom there when they were building. Or, just not had a laundry room. My washer and dryer are in a closet in my kitchen, and I would rather have them there then give up a bedroom for them.

[ladypuglover]

I'm sorry but maybe I'm a house snob but that is the ugliest floor plan I have ever seen. Little homes can be so cute and still have plenty of space but that looks like the floor plan a 6 year old would draw, boring as all get out.

Unlike many families, we had the privilege of laying out the floor plan in our house. We built it ourselves - with our own hands, that is; not in a call-the-contractor sort of way. We built this part of the house with a future addition in mind, so this is not the final structure; it's temporary, but not short term. We wanted to keep the cost low so we started small while trying to plan for the most efficient and practical use of the space we were creating.

Still boring and they could have saved so much space by using built in shelves and so forth that would have given it character. To me it looks like a lot of basement floor plans that when people get the cash redo to something more efficent.

[ladypuglover]

I have another question, They say they are a family of 12 but only have 9 kids shown on the header, where/who is the other person besides the parents? 9

+2=11 not 12. Is a grandparent shoved in a closet somewhere?

[emmiedahl]

They have the same amount of square footage that we do and we have four bedrooms and two baths. Granted, our rooms are all small, but they are big enough and we like our privacy.

I just can't get over the fact that they designed and built this house and it is not even as good as section 8 apartments.

[ladypuglover]

They have the same amount of square footage that we do and we have four bedrooms and two baths. Granted, our rooms are all small, but they are big enough and we like our privacy.

I just can't get over the fact that they designed and built this house and it is not even as good as section 8 apartments.

It's not the square footage, I've seen 700 sqf feel and act quite roomy. This house is a worse case for being efficent enough for such a large family, and then to force all the kids into a room like that? It might be better to put all the kids in the living room and use the bedroom as a parlor.

[tabitha2]

have another question, They say they are a family of 12 but only have 9 kids shown on the header, where/who is the other person besides the parents? 9

+2=11 not 12. Is a grandparent shoved in a closet somewhere?

The newest baby is missing.She keeps talking about redoing the header but never gets around to it.

[ladypuglover]

The newest baby is missing.She keeps talking about redoing the header but never gets around to it.

Ok, thank you. She must have done the header while still pregnant with the baby. Is the baby a boy or a girl? What will she do when her son notices that his sisters have different body parts from himself? I think boys and girls(everyone at some point) needs time alone for personal reasons such as grooming or dressing at the very least.

[tabitha2]

The baby is a boy just turned a year in June;The header is actually about 2 or 3 years old.As the other boy is just now five,I would think now would be the time they start changing the sleeping plans but she has not mentioned anything of the sort.

[Brainsample]

If you go to any of those links, it suggests other posts you could view. One was "storage."

I now understand why I thought this was a moblie home. The house is suspended off a mount of caliche limestone, or so it looks, so that the house starts out on the side of an incline, but it is bolstered up on the bottom on pier and beam as the house extends out from the hill, suspended on those piers. (That's why you can see under the house, and why it is like a moblie home which have pier and beam foundations.) They suspended 2x4s off of the beams to use as hanging storage -- where the stuff is essentially outside all the time. A kid could hang a hammock off that suspended foundation, kind of like they use in the Caribbean.

Anyway, if you build on to that house, you'd have to extend the length of the house as opposed to widening it, because there's just no room, either way, to build. You can't go out any further without literally moving a mountain, bringing in stone to build up the incline so that the whole house would not be floating on a few piers, or the whole thing will become unstable. Going the other way would put more pressure on the piers if you added extra weight on to the existing building against the hill. You'd have to go to the side, and you'd almost need to build a whole new structure. It would be easier to build another detached structure, probably, rather than mess with the balance of weight that they have with the suspended home on pier and beam.

[Patsy]

They used to talk about the fact that the house could be modified and added to more than they do now; I think they have perhaps realised/decided it will be left as is.

[tabitha2]

Then I am really curious as to what they plan to do...she is 38 or 39 and will almost certainly have several more children.

[Wolfie]

nevermind, i got families mixed up.

[Kelya]

The newest baby is missing.She keeps talking about redoing the header but never gets around to it.

Her busy schedule of getting her own water and fetching her own purse prevent her from fitting that into her copious amount of online time. *eyeroll*

[apple1]

I think maybe I have been spending too much time reading FJ. This thread about kids sleeping en masse on shelving, combined with the thread about not allowing reading of books, just is making me angrier and angrier.

I predict that one or both of these situations (and maybe a few other situations we talk about on here) will produce a true sociopath, with disastrous consequences, in a few years.

[Deleted03]

I'm not sure where they would put another room. The deck on one side looks off a mountain or cliff or something, so no room there. If they added to the other side of the bedrooms, they would be taking away windows from the bedrooms and breaking fire codes. It's weird that they plan to add on but left no room for doing so.

Their dining room looks big enough that they probably could have carved out a bedroom there when they were building. Or, just not had a laundry room. My washer and dryer are in a closet in my kitchen, and I would rather have them there then give up a bedroom for them.

That's the risk of bulding your own house without professional help... what do those people think that all degrees are just useless?

I'm confused in her post today she refers to this one: http://inashoeDOTcom/2008/04/big-family ... -bedrooms/

where she says there are 4 kids per bedroom, I'm pretty convinced too that they posted that all the kids were in the same bedroom... so what happenned?

[slickcat79]

That's the risk of bulding your own house without professional help... what do those people think that all degrees are just useless?

I'm confused in her post today she refers to this one: http://inashoeDOTcom/2008/04/big-family ... -bedrooms/

where she says there are 4 kids per bedroom, I'm pretty convinced too that they posted that all the kids were in the same bedroom... so what happenned?

When they had 8 kids, they were split 4 and 4 in the 2 extra bedrooms. Then the kids "begged" for a library, so they got the shelf bunks in one room to open up the other room. I'm not sure why she's referencing 3 year old posts when the ones from last fall clearly show all the older kids in one room.

Oh, but that is the one where she says that she sticks the baby in with the older kids at 2 months old because they already sleep through the night! Isn't that great?

[Koala]

at 2 months my babies were still nursing every two hours....

[Deleted03]

at 2 months my babies were still nursing every two hours....

and yet it takes her more time to get pregnant... O_o

But I also know a family who stuck their newborn in the hospital room's bathroom just to be sure he would not be used to sleep with them. Yes. I know.

[theologygeek]

If you go to any of those links, it suggests other posts you could view. One was "storage."

I now understand why I thought this was a moblie home. The house is suspended off a mount of caliche limestone, or so it looks, so that the house starts out on the side of an incline, but it is bolstered up on the bottom on pier and beam as the house extends out from the hill, suspended on those piers. (That's why you can see under the house, and why it is like a moblie home which have pier and beam foundations.) They suspended 2x4s off of the beams to use as hanging storage -- where the stuff is essentially outside all the time. A kid could hang a hammock off that suspended foundation, kind of like they use in the Caribbean.

.

Their clothing is stored under the house. That is repulsive.

[theologygeek]

That pisses me off. My mom was like that. She sat around and had us fetch and carry everything to her. That's how I burned my arm with hot coffee at age 6 because she had me learn to run the pot, pour it and serve it to her. I was too short to reach anything. I climbed on the counter to do this. I got a big blistery burn, and she yelled at me for holding my arm carefully against my body in public. Didn't want anyone to think she was a bad mom. :roll:

Kim called those things errands. An errand is going to the Post Office. Fetching your purse or getting your little one a drink does not fall under errands. These are things she should be doing. The woman is lazy.