Free Quiz!
Should You Renovate Your Home… or Move?
Eight questions about the house you're standing in right now. At the end you'll know whether your house is genuinely too small, whether it's arranged in a way that fights you, or whether it's time to find a different one.
I'm a Colorado licensed architect, and I'll tell you if the answer is move.
start
You've had the conversation at least four times
Usually in the kitchen, usually after the kids are down, usually some version of: we need more space.
And maybe you do. But somewhere in the back of your head there's a quieter thought that you haven't said out loud, which is that this house is not actually that small. Your parents raised three kids in something this size. The square footage on the listing was fine when you bought it.
So why does it feel like everyone in your family needs the exact same three feet of floor at 7:27 in the morning?
Here's what I've found after designing houses for a living and renovating five of my own. Most families who feel cramped are not short on square footage. They're living in rooms that are arranged in a way that makes every ordinary day harder than it needs to be. The house isn't too small. It's fighting you, and nobody ever taught you how to name it.
Some houses genuinely are too small. Some houses should belong to somebody else. This quiz is how you tell the difference.
Why an architect wrote a quiz about your house
I'm Heather, a Colorado licensed architect. I ran my own residential practice for five years, designing renovations, additions and custom homes, and I've personally renovated five houses and lived in every one of them while the work was happening.
Somewhere in there I noticed that my friends, all buying starter homes and having babies around the same time, could not afford what I did for a living. They'd ask if I could just give them some ideas. So I would, for free, because I loved them. And over and over, a few small layout changes turned a house they'd written off into a house they were excited about, usually for far less than they'd braced for.
I hate that architects read as a luxury. Good design is what decides whether your morning is hard, and that should be available to a family in a 1,400 square foot ranch, not just to somebody building a custom house.
This quiz is the first step of what I'd do with you if you hired me: figure out what's actually wrong before anybody spends a dollar.
Top: My husband, Jed, and I after framing the first wall on our new house. Left: Me at 4 months pregnant helping on the jobsite. Right: Where you can often find me, working on designs at the computer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Should you renovate or move?
Renovate when the bones are right and you still want to live there: good location, structure you can work with, and rooms that could serve your family if they were arranged differently. Move when you've stopped wanting the house, or when what your family needs is bigger than what the walls can ever become.
Q: What is a home flow problem?
A flow problem is how your house routes people, not how much space it has. There are three common ones: a Pinched Entry with no drop zone, Mixed Public and Private Zones (guests pass through the parts of your life you'd rather they didn't), and a Missing Spine, which is when there's no clear path through the house so you pinball off furniture, corners and each other.
Q: Do I need more square footage or a better layout?
Picture the perfect floor plan inside the exact walls you have now. Same square footage, nothing added, everything in the right place. If that's enough house for your family, you have a layout problem. If you'd still be short an actual room, you need square footage. Most people have never been asked to separate those two things.
Q: How long does the quiz take?
Under two minutes. Eight multiple choice questions about how your house actually behaves on a normal Tuesday, not about what you wish it looked like. You'll get your result on screen right away and a longer explanation by email.
Find out what's
actually
wrong with your house.
Two minutes. Eight questions. An honest answer.
Start the quiz