What “maintenance” do you think is more for a 3000 square foot house than a 1500 square foot house?

I just mentioned it.

1. Master bedroom

2. Son’s bedroom

3. Gym with three pieces of cardio equipment and weights

4. Office

5. Guest bedroom

The 6th room was a dance studio for my wife. She taught online fitness classes during Covid.

It’s not like we paid millions of dollars. I qualified for it when I was only making $115K and put 3.5% down - less than $12K. In 2016.

It’s now worth twice that (we rent it out to our son and two of his friends at a discount).

My wife and I have since moved to a condo in a resort area where one fee ($650) pays all utilities, access to a decent gym, 3 pools, a running trail, three restaurants on site and a lake. It’s the same price that our house was in 2016.

Do you pay someone from cleaning or do you clean it yourself?

That looks like a lot of work, probably 1 full day per week (probably more) to:

- vacuum everything (including the skirting boards)

- mop the floors

- dust everything else

- clean all the windows

- change/wash/dry the linens/towels

- clean the kitchen

- clean the toilets

- most of the carpet is covered by “stuff” and doesn’t get vacuumed,

- it took maybe an hour to take care of the hardwood.

- having a larger house doesn’t mean you have more to wash. How much you have to wash is a function of how many people live there.

- you would have a kitchen either way

- one bathroom only got used when guests come, one was our sons (and his responsibility). That left only two - the one in attached to our room and the half bath.

The gym got sanitized with everything being wiped down and air freshener after every use.

> - you would have a kitchen either way

I'm fairly sure your kitchen in the 360sqm house is bigger than my kitchen in the 90 sqm apartment :-)

It’s a kitchen with a stove, a sink, a microwave and a dishwasher. What does the size of the kitchen have to do with how hard is to clean? That’s a function of how much you cook and what you use to cook.

> vacuum everything (including the skirting boards)

My house is mostly wood floors but I maybe Swiffer and vacuum once a week (probably a lot less) for about 15-20 minutes. I run Roomba once or twice a week to take care of the rest.

> mop the floors

I can count on one hand how many times I mop floors per year in any size house.

> dust everything else

I definitely don't do the blinds/baseboards/etc enough. Wife usually does the furniture once a week and the rest is on demand.

> clean all the windows

Only when I get a wild hair.

> change/wash/dry the linens/towels

Size of house doesn't change this. See above.

> clean the kitchen

Still only one kitchen.

> clean the toilets

Same number of people