If this was your house, what would you do?

Jaymzrsa

We are moving into our new home soon which is a 'renovators delight'. Currently upstairs there is a bathroom & vanity, storage and a toilet (3 separate rooms). On either side of these are the 2 bedrooms.

We will be renovating and are thinking what we would be best for the value of the property in the long run. These are our three ideas;

Space to work with ~3m x 1.7m

Remove the storage and toilet and make 1 big room with wetroom-type walk in shower on one side, bath on the other and WC and vanity in the middle (config could change)

Remove toilet and storage and make small storage on the right and have a smaller single bathroom with shower-bath, wc and vanity.

Or three, remove some storage, remove toilet, steal a little space from the bedroom (currently 4m x 3.6) and build en-suite with only a shower, wc and vanity and a compact second shower-bath, wc and vanity.

The issue with number 3 is bother en-suite and main bathroom would be compact and would not be very big. The biggest thing for me is the value this will add/remove from the house when the time came to sell.

TIA

Link to aprox floor plan (new user so links not allowed )
imgur dot com/jC5L8

Whirlee

Personally I would put in an en suite - much more use than having both a shower and bath in the same room.

Jaymzrsa

Whirlee wrote: »

Personally I would put in an en suite - much more use than having both a shower and bath in the same room.

This is the option I like too, I just worry that people might be turned off about the sizes. There would not really be much room to proverbially swing the ol' cat around cat around.

BitterAndTwisted

In a two-bedroomed property it's a waste of space and money to have both a family bathroom and an en-suite. In a property with more than one bedroom a separate WC is always worth keeping. What are the estimates of costs for the options you have mentioned?

Jaymzrsa

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In a two-bedroomed property it's a waste of space and money to have both a family bathroom and an en-suite. In a property with more than one bedroom a separate WC is always worth keeping. What are the estimates of costs for the options you have mentioned?

I would do much of the work myself, essentially the en-suite route would be double as I would need 2 suites and not just one. The ensuite would also require a wall re-configuration.

I had not thought to leave a separate toilet. i thought that was a very dated thing to do?

mysk_girl

Could you make it a jack'n'jill type, where both bedrooms have a door into the bathroom? Obviously both can lock, but then both will sort of have an ensuite?

casper_g

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

In a two-bedroomed property it's a waste of space and money to have both a family bathroom and an en-suite.

In the case of a property with two good-sized bedrooms in an expensive area, a two-bed property with two bathrooms would be appealing for house-sharers (or landlords hoping to rent to them).

Whirlee

Yes I am currently buying a my first two bedroom home, and having an en suite and bathroom was something that put properties above other properties because it meant I could rent out one room without having to share a bathroom. I don't think you need much room to swing the old cat, esp if the bedrooms are a decent size - you won't be getting dressed in there, just clean and out.

Lilibee

From the floorplan it looks like two decent size doubles, so two bathrooms could work. If your second bedroom was a single there's not much point (there's a whole estate of 2 bed houses near me with an 'ensuite' - shower and basin only, about 2'6" by 5-6' in total - to the main bedroom, but the second bedroom is only 6'x9'. I don't see the point - you're not going to get more than one child in there, so why do you need a separate bathroom? Far better to make the ensuite a big built in wardrobe).

Having said that though, if you put in two small bathrooms and get rid of all the cupboard space, where are you going to store all your towels etc? We don't have an airing cupboard and we've got a tiny bathroom, and it drives me mental that there's nowhere to store anything in the bathroom and nowhere to keep all the towels and bedlinen.

sparklysaver

Like others have said, it does depend a bit on the market in the area, but you could take out the storage area currently accessed from the bathroom to create an L-shaped family bathroom, leaving the bath where it is, then steal a bit off the largest bedroom to extend the current toilet and create a shower room with toilet & basin. That would still leave you the cupboard off the hallway (that could even be made shallower - as long as it's deep enough to store towels & bedding on the shelves).

That would give you 2 rooms with the minimum of plumbing relocations - you'd want both toilets close to the existing stoil stack I'd have thought or else you end up with boxing in everywhere. Neither room would be huge but I've seen some new builds with minute shower rooms - there are loads of sanitaryware solutions for small spaces which seem to be perfectly acceptable in the housing market these days.

(Having said that, I knocked through and made a huge wetroom in my tiny house, which is completely impractical for resale value, so I'd probably go for option 1 )

Jaymzrsa

Thanks for the reply every one. The property is in Wimbledon area (towards Colliers wood side). Our intention is going to be to rent the property in the long run (in the next 5 years maybe). Have spoken to a plumber who says that we need to first look at the and see if the waste pipes can be moved at all so first need to look at that before I can make the final choice I guess.