Rejigging bathroom/upstairs layout: please help

planetclaire70

We have just moved to a house which has an unsatisfactory upstairs layout and we want to improve it, but the job is so big I’m not sure where to start, so I’d appreciate some advice on the order I should be doing things in.

As you can see from my slightly rubbish plans below (not to scale), we want to i) knock down a load-bearing wall between the bathroom and utility room to make one long, narrow family bathroom, ii) move the wall of the en-suite so we can fit a toilet in, and iii) knock out a gigantic built-in cupboard and move the door of the master bedroom to make a bigger, squarer room.

We have a small baby, so we’d like to do this with as little disruption as possible (ho ho!). My main question to start with is: which would be the best way to split the work?

My thought was to get the walls knocked down/moved and then have the en-suite refitted as quickly as possible so as to have a functioning bathroom, and then plan the layout of the new main bathroom later, once I can visualise the room better (there are several difficulties involved in the new, narrow room, not least the fact that the boiler is in a very awkward position in the the toilet/utility room, so I will need to see the new room with the wall knocked down before I can do any meaningful planning).

Does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks.

planetclaire70

OK, it seems as if I can't insert my slightly rubbish plans, so that's my next question...!

keystone

Are they jpeg images? If so upload to imageshack or similar then post the link back here. However, your post count isn't big enough to post links directly so you'll have to modify it slightly (eg say xyz dot co dot uk or dot com rather than xzy.co.uk or xyz.com) but make it an easy mod so that the terminally stupid like me can work it out and find the pic.

Cheers

planetclaire70

Thanks Keystone :beer:. Let's see if it works. Otherwise I will have to resort to making random posts all over the place to get my post count up!

Current layout:

flickr dot com slash photos slash planetclaire70/4408440566/

Proposed layout:

flickr dot com slash photos slash planetclaire70/4408440644/

WestonDave

Current link http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetclaire70/4408440566

Revised link http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetclaire70/4408440644.

I'd knock out the cupboard and pull the ensuite wall forwards first so that you have a clean tidy bedroom albeit open plan onto the landing and a functioning ensuite. You can then start on the other bathroom maybe as the last piece in that load of works with a view to having a gap while you plan it.

If its any help, we've recently moved our boiler from our garage into a cupboard above the toilet cistern which can be done quite nicely if you use a cistern in a cabinet and pick finishes which enable you to get a matching large door from someone's kitchen range (we used gloss white slab doors!). Provided your boiler is reasonably high or could be moved higher that might give you maximum space as the space above the toilet cistern is only normally usable for storage anyway.

planetclaire70

Thanks WestonDave. I was thinking that might be the best order. I'm not sure putting the boiler above the toilet will be very practical in our case though, as it's a big Vaillant and protrudes quite a long way, so I think the whole thing might look a bit top heavy.