How can I make a third bedroom?

kgall

Hi,

We are looking at buying a new place and have found a great little house that we would be happy to do up. However we can't work out a way to make a third bedroom (which we would need) out of the huge landing without moving the stairs. The width of the house is 3.5 meters.

Any ideas? (Oh, and if you can fit an upstairs WC or bathroom in as well that would be even better!)

Fire_Fox

IMO you can't make a useable bedroom and still have space to move along the landing and open doors without moving the stairs. You could put a shower room on that landing and convert the back part of the downstairs to living accommodation/ bedroom. You might also be able to make bedroom two larger to accommodate another person with beds on stilts.

IHateDida

You could fit a small one on the landing but it would be small. I would extend into the loft (if the pitch is high enough, and you have the finances to do so), and put a shower room/bathroom in some of the landing space along with some stairs upwards.

Cornish_piskie

Hi OP

One idea is to use an online 'house layout' site. I did this when buying my new build - I didn't want the standard layout which was 2 largish doubles and a dinky 3rd bedroom, I wanted 2 similar sized rooms for my kids and a master with en-suite for me (greedy me!). To ensure it would work with door openings, windows etc, I simply took the exact dimensions and then played around with the layout site until I had something workable. Of course, the thing to remember if you're wanting to move a bathroom is the plumbing/drainage. Just google 'house layout' and have a play with the room sizes, doorways and even adding in virtual furniture to see what works.

Or how about a loft conversion? Are there any other houses in the street with dormer or velux windows in the roof? If it's big enough you could be looking at a super-duper master suite!

Another option is using an architect - can be expensive but they can often give ideas/solutions to space creating that you wouldn't have thought about.

HTH

Strapped

What's wrong with moving the stairs (apart from the expense)?

Owain_Moneysaver

A loft conversion would take you to 3 storeys, where having the stairs exit into the lounge would not be acceptable. If there is garden access to the rear, you might be able to partition across the lounge at the bottom of the stairs, so there is an alternative means of escape through the kitchen.

kgall

Thank you all. Cornish piskie - I will give an online layout tool a go, sounds like a good idea.

I suppose there is no real problem with moving the stairs but I am worried about how difficult/expensive it would be to do. Can anybody give me a very rough idea on costs?

I couple of other houses on the road with the same sort of houses have put dormer bedrooms in the loft space however I would be even more worried about the cost of this. The house is worth about £150k and I presume a dormer bedroom would cost a good £30k.

tight_is_right

Depending on who is using bedroom 2, you could potentially knock through a doorway level with the stairs and have some kind of step ladder joining the steps where they turn 90 degrees right. Block up the existing door, new wall parallel with the stairs and move the door into bedroom 1 so it fits in the new corridor.

Obviously no good for young kids or oldies, but a teenager would probably like being separated by a ladder.

thelem

What about moving the wall for bedroom 1 as far towards the stairs as possible, then adding a wall from the outside wall to the new bedroom 1 wall. Would the rooms be wide enough?

I don't think building regs let you build ladders as the only access to a bedroom any more.

PasturesNew

I'd put the bathroom on the landing - and make the bathroom and inner lobby Bed3. Then put in a door from the kitchen to the garden room.

bosseyed

kgall wrote: »

Hi,

We are looking at buying a new place and have found a great little house that we would be happy to do up. However we can't work out a way to make a third bedroom (which we would need) out of the huge landing without moving the stairs. The width of the house is 3.5 meters.

Any ideas? (Oh, and if you can fit an upstairs WC or bathroom in as well that would be even better!)

One thing I would say is if that image has come from a typical estate agent/house search website then chances are its all over the shop dimensionally. Whilst I'm not expecting scale plans, in many cases the simple dimensional relationship between rooms is not even vaguely accurate - whilst the layout looks right at a glance I wouldn't try and figure out a workable layout using those diagrams.

I'd ask to visit the property and actually take a couple of measurements in each room and then draw your own very simple plan. At least that way you have a clearer idea of size and what you can/can't do.