Downstairs bathroom/no garage - thoughts?

Melv

Cheers for sharing your views/stories. Unfortunately the bathroom is on the opposite side of the house from the bedroom as an ensuite would be an amazing idea. But it's still handy for our family we have an aged parent who may benefit from downstairs facilities in the next 10 years. We only have one child so we could have another guestroom with ensuite upstairs without compromising space.

I agree with the sentiments about garages being storage places these days. We can't fit our car in our current garage so it's basically a big shed with a make-shift utility room in the back. The house we viewed already has a dedicated utility room so we don't need this space in a garage.

phoebe1989seb

Our last house had a downstairs bathroom and shower room but no upstairs facilities at all when we purchased it. Normally this would have put us off, but the fact that it was a very unusual layout 2 beds upstairs, then kitchen, conservatory, bathroom, shower room and five reception (or bed) rooms downstairs altered our viewpoint as we could see the potential for creating an upstairs bathroom in the eaves - wasted space as there were two huge walk-in cupboards as well as other built in storage in the master bedroom.

We converted the small *family* bathroom downstairs to a second shower room and partitioned off the master bedroom to create a good size en-suite bathroom (large enough for free-standing bath) in the eaves incorporating a former walk-in wardrobe and where there just happened to be a window. We were fortunate that this still left us with a 16' x 10' master and doubly so as the plumbing was already in position below in the smaller shower room.

It definitely made a difference when we came to sell three years later as our buyers intended to utilise three of the reception rooms as downstairs bedrooms so the two shower rooms downstairs suited their requirements perfectly (for their teenage kids) and they were very surprised to have the added bonus of an en-suite with a bath for themselves! We went SSTC within two weeks despite it being an area where nothing but the least expensive properties were selling.

If you can do the eaves shower rooms it sounds as though you'd be happier and the saleability factor would be increased. You have to ask yourself if you didn't get planning permission would no upstairs shower rooms be a deal-breaker.......?