spliting one bedroom into 2

davidriley

Hi, we have a three bed house - the spare room is 10' by 15'4" - we are thinking of creating a 7' X 7' "guest" room and a 10'X8' bedroom just by adding a stud wall down the middle. We would have to replace the window with 2 windows - one on each side of the stud wall - but wouldnt need to extend the overall size of the window opening.

question is - is 7' X 7' going to be a useble bedroom - or is it just too small?

This room is the biggest bedroom in the house at the moment (it's the spare because we haven;t decorated it since moving in!!)

Any thoughts?

startrekker

most box rooms in modern houses are only 7 x 6 anyway, so the one you are plannng is bigger than these anyway

never_enough

I would say it's too small, even for a guest bedroom, unless you're only planning on having a single bed in there? I'm not even sure you could open a door into it with a bed in there.

davidriley

the door "could" open out - but I think this may be back to the drawing board time - thanks for the replies nm

PoorDave

I'm puzzled as to how you turn a 15ft by 10ft bedroom into one 7ft by 7ft and one 8ft by 10ft. Shouldn't the smaller one be 7 by 10?

The size sounds ok to me. You could easily get a single bed in and have an inward opening door.

Question occurs is "why do you want to do it?"

Not sure it will add more value than it costs to do properly. Especially as it involves messing with a window. Sounds like the finished rooms might be a bit dark if your not making the overall window bigger.

A 4 bed you've created from a 3 bed without extending isn't going to suddenly be worth the same as a "proper" 4 bed house.

davidriley

...there would be a narrow corridor allowing access to the 2nd room without having to go through the other bedroom...

it isn't about adding value to the house -as we intend to be here for many many years......just young growing family wanting "private" spaces....

I do think we may just put this off until we can afford to extend properly....

never_enough

Depends how often you have guests...but I do think it's a bit of a waste of space having somewhere set up for the odd visiter if you could make better use of it on a daily basis. You may be more sociable than I am though!

My parents have a 5 bed house, all open plan downstairs so upstairs no guest room but sewing room, dressing room, study, bedroom & hobbies room! Yes, they are a bit bonkers, but rarely have visitors that need to stay so it works for them.
Alternative options are a sofa bed downstairs for guests. A friend has one in her dining room, works fine for overnight guests as they mostly eat in the kitchen anyway. If someone stays longer one of her teenagers sleeps on it & gives up their bed for a couple of nights. Or have bunkbeds in one of the childrens rooms, good for sleepovers or if they need to double up when someone comes to stay.