As your family grows you may find the home you live in to get smaller and smaller. When I married my wife back in the day, we were living in a 4-room apartment, which to me seemed pretty big. After all, we had a living room, a kitchen and two bedrooms – perfect for a family of four and there were only the two of us. But then we had our first child and things didn’t change much. We were using the second bedroom at last, because the only thing we used it for before our first child, was pretty much a storage room. Then two years down the road our second baby was born. Now things were getting a bit tricky. Our two-year-old son could sleep by himself, but by no means could he sleep with the baby. So we decided to put the crib in our room. All of a sudden everything started looking a bit cramped, but we managed.

As our children grew older, we put them in the one bedroom, with me and my wife sleeping in the other. Four rooms where fine for us, the kids didn’t complain, they actually liked it. But then my wife got pregnant again. At that point, we just knew we needed a larger home. We couldn’t quite afford a house, but a bigger apartment was a must. Living in Chicago, it isn’t really the place to offer big apartments if you aren’t ready to pay the buck. But we managed to find a decent one, 6-room apartment.

We hired professional movers, moved in and divided the rooms among us. My wife and I got a room, our two kids got another, there was a nursery as well, a kitchen, a living room and a whole another room to fill. Not to mention that each room was bigger than its corresponding room in the previous apartment. But that put us in front of another problem. We didn’t know what to do with the space. It felt kind of empty. Surely, not a bad problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. So here are some tips about what to do with all that space.

First, envision an idea of what you can use the space for. Maybe you can put a larger sofa, a bigger TV, maybe a home library on an empty wall. The space maybe filled by a big table for family board games, jigsaw puzzles or whatever else you desire.

Another thing you can do is after you fill the room, move furniture around. Try out different setups. This can add a bit of a fresh look to every room. Every once in a while you can do another moving around. Say every six months or a year. We have made it a tradition to change room setups every February. That is also the time when we figure if we want new furniture or an addition or something else.

Think about these tips and come back next week for more tips about larger homes.