What Size is an “Average” Room?

A year ago, we wrote about the changing trends in home design. Overall, new homes reached their largest size in 2007, at 2521 square feet on average, and new homes have been slightly smaller. As a result, specialty rooms like home theaters are becoming less common. One topic we didn’t cover was how large the rooms within a home tend to be. Since many clients have questions about room sizes when they start working with Timberpeg to design their homes, we thought we would talk about average room sizes. Here are figures from a 2013 National Association of Home Builders survey of new construction. Below, we will consider a small home to be below 2000 square feet, medium homes between 2000 and 3000 square feet, and large homes to be above 3000 square feet.

Overall Space

At the time of the 2013 questionnaire, the average new home totaled 2315 square feet of space, containing 2.56 bathrooms and 3.38 bedrooms. Although this may seem like a large space, a total of 530 square feet (or about 23 percent) of the average home was occupied by “other finished space.” This category includes bonus rooms, studies and so forth, but in reality, many times the hallways take up a large part of this category in the average stick-built home. Thankfully, Timberpeg post-and-beam homes are a natural fit for open floor plan designs that eliminated unnecessary hallways and free space to be used more efficiently.

The Great Room

The great room lives up to its name, and is the largest room in the home by far at an average of 550 square feet. Interestingly, the size of the great room does not substantially change with the home’s size. In small homes the average was 487 square feet, and in medium homes it was unchanged at 481 square feet. This suggests that modern buyers place a great premium on having a great room but rooms above 600 square feet do not add much function. Small home buyers probably sacrifice space elsewhere in order to maintain the great entertaining and everyday living opportunities afforded by a full-size great room.

Laundry Room

Mt. Holly (T00504)   The laundry room averages around 100 square feet, but it varies greatly with the home size. Small homes average only 67 square feet for the laundry room, while large homes have twice the laundry space at 145 square feet. While a smaller room will certainly work, if you have the space a larger room is more convenient.

Bedrooms

The master suite becomes much more spacious as the home’s size increases. The average master bedroom was 309 square feet, with small homes averaging 231 square feet and large homes averaging a generous 411 square feet. The master bathroom also grows substantially with the home, averaging around 160 square feet but growing to over 200 square feet in larger homes.

timber frame bedroom with log bed

Guest bedrooms show perhaps the greatest correlation with home size. The average space dedicated to all additional bedrooms was 481 square feet, but small homes only dedicate 261 square feet to guest bedrooms while the figure for large homes is a gigantic 713 square feet.

Closets

The average home has 146 square feet of closet space, but this number is skewed by large homes with 201 square feet. Small homes only averaged 106 square feet of closet space, and even the medium homes only managed 125 square feet.

Timber Frame Walk in Closet

While these figures show the average room sizes in modern homes, they need not dictate your home’s design. One of the best aspects of building your own home is tailoring it to your needs. Do you want a smaller home with lots of closet space? Or do you want a larger home but don’t need a large number of guest bedrooms? No problem! Contact Timberpeg today and our team will work with you to create a home that is just perfect for you. *Please note that the information in this article is based on data collected by the 2013 National Association of Home Builders survey of new construction and a 2013 Specialty Study conducted By Paul Emrath, Ph.D., Economics and Housing Policy, Spaces in New Homes.