Ever since we had Bean 3 years ago, I’ve watched and heard about other couples making the choice to stay put in a one bedroom apartment. In San Francisco these days, it’s a choice of either staying put or leaving the city (and often the Bay Area) entirely.

However, a lot of those itty bitty babies are turning into rampaging toddlers and actual-kid-sized preschoolers, and…the game changes slightly. What worked two years ago may no longer be working. You’re still stuck, the housing market hasn’t changed much since baby was born, and now what. Recently, with our new Murphy bed decision, we’ve been fielding a lot of questions from similarly constrained families about how we’re managing, mostly because they want to see a viable option for continuing to stay put.

I’ll write about our Murphy bed another day, but today, I wanted to step back and explain why this whole set up works for us at all. Because, depending on your personality types or your apartment layout, this could also continue to work or it could begin to drive you absolutely insane.

1. We generally always hang out in the same room
Even before we had Bean, Dave and I always hung out in the same room. Maybe not doing the same thing, but we always tended to migrate near each other doing our respective hobbies. Now that Bean’s a little kid, she tends to migrate with us. Sunday mornings, you’ll find me curled up in a chair in her room, Dave laying on the floor reading a newspaper, and Bean playing about. Even if we lived in a larger space, we’d still all be hanging out within feet of each other.

2. Our apartment doesn’t have an open floorplan. Doors everywhere.

Like many other San Francisco apartments, ours is cut up into rooms rather than an open floorplan. Bean’s bedroom door opens to a hallway, not straight into the living room. Our large kitchen is sealed off from the living room with a door.

The closed floor plan works to help our apartment feel more private than it might otherwise be. I can be at my desk in the kitchen while Bean and Dave are off in some other part of the apartment, and I’ll have no idea what they’re up to because I can’t see or hear them. In that way, we can actually find space to be alone despite the small square footage.

3. On a related note: our apartment has thick walls.
File this under “they don’t build them like they used to.” Our apartment’s walls are so thick that sound barely travels between rooms. This gives us a sense of separation, privacy, and quiet, in an otherwise small space. If Bean and Dave are in her bedroom and I’m in the living room or kitchen, I truly can’t hear them. We even had to get a baby monitor so we could hear Bean at night, roughly 40 feet away. (This has also worked well for our neighbors, who constantly assured us that Bean crying in the middle of the night sounded like a far off baby, and not one on the other side of the wall. They now have a dog, and I agree. It sounds like a dog barking a few blocks over, not one next door.)

4. We tend to spend our days outside doing stuff
This is a huge factor. San Francisco has so much to do, for adults and especially for kids. Staying home seems boring. We don’t really hang out at home. Dave and I preferred being out and about before we had Bean and we’re the same now. Bean and I are usually out the door by 9 am everyday, going to classes or on hikes or out to play soccer or baseball at the beach. Our weekends are scheduled with adventures and picnic lunches. Since we live in the city, even heading to a supermarket involves an hour of strolling, window shopping, and coffeeshops. We do chill out at home sometimes, but with the pleasure of a rare lazy, cozy morning.

5. Related, we live in a truly stunning geography, that lends itself to peace and calm
As I told a friend a year ago, even when I do start feeling stir crazy and suffocated by the lack of space (at the time, Bean was 2.5)…I can be at a sunny beach within 20 minutes. Or, in a redwood grove within 15. Or staring out at sailboats on the bay, or looking up at the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, just walking outside of our apartment, you have views of the bay, downtown, and hillsides for miles. The views are vast and plentiful here, and we usually get whole swaths of beach to ourselves. There’s little overcrowding, actually. I’m not sure we could have lived in a one-bedroom in New York, because we utilize the Bay Area’s vast outdoor spaces so much for mental clarity and peace.

Any other one-bedroom families out there? Why do you think it works for you? Or doesn’t it?