u/grumblypotato

F(34) and M(34) just passed the 2M Net Worth mark today. I think our coast number is around 3 million but we aren't locked in yet, mostly due to:

- Currently live in a 2 bedroom w/ one toddler and pregnant with a second. Our next housing decision will really impact our #s

- Finally got a highly paid tech job this year just in time for everything to go to shit and I know this won't last probably past 3 years at best

- We aren't sure if we want to stop at 2 or 3 kids. Need to see what our mental, emotional, and physical capacity is like 2-3 years from now.

Plan is to ride the gravy train as long as AI + layoff culture lets me. Husband may quit next year when I go back after leave if I have a good year at work even with the leave factored in. His salary is 12% of mine.

Spending is particularly high right now because we have a nanny. Toddler starts preschool in the fall and then we will have to hire another nanny when I get back from leave in May. Looking forward to public school for everyone in the next 5 years.

Depending on the bullet points above I think we are less than 2 years from coast! Particularly looking forward to comfortably and confidently having my husband quit his job, and not feeling as personally stressed about keeping a high paying job.

https://preview.redd.it/s9o6ke6huh2h1.png?width=2294&format=png&auto=webp&s=f7cc29619c2bb9a6d5feda9cb7db00a3bdcdc1cf

We are adding ~500 sq ft to our 1200 sq ft house. We had originally planned to add open living space with a playroom space to the left (1 toddler, 1 baby on the way) and just plan to have the kids share room after they move out of our bedroom. We are generally concerned about the new space feeling too small and cut off from kitchen if we add a bedroom given how are house is set up as very narrow today.

- We are trying to figure out if we should add a bedroom instead and if the bedroom should be a new primary or a small nursery. Nursery pros: wouldn't take as much space. Nursery cons: would be right next to living space. General con: we would really love some playroom space. I wish our front bedroom wasn't as large and instead we had two smaller kids rooms and one larger primary. Living space is so much more important to us than bedroom space.

- Secondly, our laundry is in the kitchen today, we are thinking of putting it in the new entry hidden behind cabinets and having our formal "entry" be a mudroom with lots of built-ins. We know it's unconventional, but we are trying to make our small house work for us.

Looking for opinions on the bedroom decision and also any other creative ideas? We lose so much space to our dining room today, but we can't figure out how to re-arrange things to make anything work better. Load bearing walls are front to back for us.

https://preview.redd.it/d2v43bwe8y1h1.png?width=564&format=png&auto=webp&s=66e7013f65b66fd8b67bc9866ebecbe7b753e6f6

We have a 2nd child on the way and originally planned to add a second story to our house but are balking due to displacement time and cost given we aren't sure this is our "forever" spot. We are scaling back and trying to only do a first floor addition that will give us ~3 years to then decide our long term plans before our oldest starts kindergarten.

Goals of the renovation:

- Have a living room without a door entering through it

- Master bath renovation (it is so small that it's actually no longer up to modern code, plus we have humidity and shower cracking problems). We also have this strange empty space between our bathroom and closet today that is wasted and would like to put towards the bathroom.

- Have some dedicated space for playroom stuff

The big question:

- Should we be trying to add some small nursery suite off the master? This addition will give us more living space, but ends with our kids sharing a room at young ages (25 month age difference). My sister thinks we should try to create some sort of passthrough from the master into a really small nursery "nook". I don't know how to achieve this without taking away from living room/playspace goals and I worry it would be too close to the living room and be loud at night when we're watching tv and such.

Would love any creative ideas! Since this is a real "in between" addition, we're trying to keep things really non-extensive so we don't want to like entirely shift rooms around. If you're wondering where our laundry is today it is in the kitchen. Also we have two big dogs (labs) which add to the feeling of our house being small. We could probably go a few feet (like 3ft) wider on the back addition. I don't know the cost of widening the master bedroom/bathroom area given those are already exterior walls.

Here is our current floor plan:

https://preview.redd.it/mksp10abxa1h1.png?width=582&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f8751a8cfbe0a1f98dbda68514ab144b3db45fd

Here are the preliminary plans of our addition (but stairs crossed off):

https://preview.redd.it/zs2w11hdxa1h1.png?width=568&format=png&auto=webp&s=d99da49c87b0d87e7fab20052fb000f93ee1b9bc