Cramped quarters with kids

Share your stories here of squeezing the family into small living spaces -- how did/does it work for you, and what advice would you give to someone who might be about to embark upon it as a...er...lifestyle option?

Ha! That would be us then! A family of 7 whose kids have grown up having had the luxury of their own room! 
We're expecting to have to squeeze into a 3 bed-semi, possibly all 4 boys (aged 10-17) in one room and the 12 y/o girl on her own, or DH & I on a sofa bed in the front room while the boys divide up between 2 rooms! Or a tent in the garden! 

One thing we have done already is get each of the kids their own laptop in the Back to School sales for Christmas presents, as there won't be room for desk-tops, and we will probably have to set up a rota for the TV (watching vs games)!

Otherwise I'm kind of looking forward to having a smaller house again. Being a Brit I've always felt ours was too big anyway!

I think that feeling cramped is a relative thing...we feel like we struggle as a family of 4 in a 3 bedroom semi, but my next door neighbours in a smaller house (no extension like we have) and they have 5 kids living at home, ranging in age from 21 to 4...

They stack 'em on top of each other!

There are four of us in our two-bed semi.  We've had our house on the market since last year, unfortunately no one seems to be interested in viewing, let alone buying our house.   

The kids (18 mos & 3 1/2yo) share a room, while we have the other.  At the moment we have a cot and single bed in the kids room, but if we're here in a year's time it may end up changing to bunk beds.  We have the main computer in our bedroom, as DH often works from home (it used to be in the kitchen when DS's cot was in our room).

We have  a drop leg table as our kitchen / dining table and a sofa bed in the kitchen to give more room.  We also have folding chairs to save space.  The cusions for the folding chairs get used to line the wall at the back of the sofa bed to protect the walls and little heads from bumps.

My advice:
Find multi-functional furniture that can help save space.

This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately as we are expecting a baby in December.  Our two bedroom flat has been pretty much adequate (cozy even) because we make the most of the space we do have and my 10 year old stepson only spends the night in his room every other weekend.  We plan to have the baby in a moses basket in our room for the first few months and then transition him or her into the other bedroom which is absolutely tiny!!  It's really frustrating trying to turn half of it into a nursery while trying not to make my stepson feel like he's being kicked out of his room. 

And all of the ideas I've had for a nursery aren't really doable in this scenario because the room can't be too babyish.  If the baby is a boy it will make it a bit easier (we did paint the walls light blue last year) but if it's a girl than they can't share a room in the long term.  My stepson has bunkbeds where the bottom makes a chair and there is a little desk and bookshelf but the unit takes up a lot of space. 

We have a mortgage so moving isn't really an option.  I guess it can be stressful but in the end the important thing is that we have a roof over our heads at all!  Many people in other countries live in much more cramped housing...

Been there done that and thrived! 

Living in a small two bedroom apartment when my kids were young was the best thing we ever did for our family. 

Two things can happen:  it can rip you apart or bring you closer together. 

We loved it and learned a ton of valuable lessons.  We learned really effective conflict resolution - no place to hide!  and the kids stopped fighting completely.  We learned to respect each others' space because it was so valuable.  You learn to ditch a lot of material things that you don't need - believe me those things that you thought were important to keep, really aren't.  and storing those things that are valuable to you brings out all those creative organizing solutions.  We learned that bikes hanging in our dining room can be considered decor...

As I said, it was great when the kids were young but once they hit pre-teen years, it got a bit tricky as they really wanted their privacy (boy and girl).  Plus they're bigger and they take up more space physically.  Having said that though, we know families who made it work well into the teen years.  It's just what you adjust to.

If you've got a good family foundation, you can make it work and it could be a very positive thing.   

IKEA is your friend.  Not that we are cramped ( us and 2 kids in 3 bedroom mid terrace) but we've used so many of their solutions to use the space we have better.