Stairs from one bedroom into another

LandyAndy

davidmcn wrote: »

A room you can only access via a bedroom is more properly a "dressing room" or "en suite" or the like - most people wouldn't regard it as practical to use them both as bedrooms.

In some areas of the country it was a common practice to have one bedroom accessed through another. These are often changed now so that a part of the first bedroom is converted into a corridor. Still plenty with the original arrangement though.

moneyistooshorttomention

Is the layout of the house such that it would be possible to put in a replacement staircase (say off the landing) instead?

I was only noticing this morning that there are some very stylish Italian staircases being advertised - from memory - think they were saying at prices of around £2.5k?? Obviously there'd be the cost of labour as well.

You could get a really "good-looking", sculptural wood and metal spiral type staircase that wouldn't take up much floorspace at all to go up from only a small floor area.

That would just leave the question as to how furniture could go up and down that staircase to get into the loft - but that isn't an unsolvable problem for a teenager. Flat-pack furniture and maybe a futon for sleeping on.

Davesnave

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

A loft conversion accessed through another room is highly unlikely to have been compliant with Building Regulations means of escape in a fire, which is a completely separate matter from planning permission.

However, there was a time in the past when there were no building regs to comply with.

What matters most is whether the room can be made reasonably compliant, not as a means of satisfying a law that might not apply, but to prevent putting one's children at risk.

Changing the stairway for another would bring modern building regs and means of escape to bear.

fairy_lights

I viewed a house with this set up and it put me off instantly. The loft room was accessed via stairs that ran up from inside what had presumably been an airing cupboard in the second bedroom.
I don't think it would be practical at all, the person in the second bedroom wouldn't have any privacy as their bedroom would be a thoroughfair and the person in the loft room would have to awkwardly tiptoe through to go to the loo in the night etc.

hazyjo

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

That would just leave the question as to how furniture could go up and down that staircase to get into the loft - but that isn't an unsolvable problem for a teenager. Flat-pack furniture and maybe a futon for sleeping on.

Many bedframes (including the storage beds) come flatpacked too. Plus, many mattresses come boxed now (mine did). So very easy to get a standard type bed up there.

howisthisriskfree

I used to rent a house like this.

It is fair to say that this type of set up confers absolutely very few (if any) advantages. We were prepared to live with it because we didn't have any kids, and the location was good. But the lack of privacy precludes it being used as even a guest room. It was apparent why the staircase could not be used in a more traditional way, there was not the space. I am fairly sure in this case it might be similar and they didn't build a staircase via another room for the fun of it...

If you have kids that are gonna be teenagers living in such an arrangement it does seem a very poor way of doing it. Safety seems a real issue to me. What if, hypothetically a fire starts in the room with the stairs leading to the loft? That is even before the privacy aspect, bound to be the cause of a million arguments.

I would say unless there was something really special about this house, or the price, or there was a shortage of houses with more conventional layouts, why bother? That house I lived in also had other pain in the butt traits - no off-street parking, only bathroom down-stairs which had the only toilet in, very cramped rooms (although superficially very pretty and location good). In the end we compromised slightly on the location (10 mins from trains instead of 5, slightly less pretty) and have to conclude putting up with the bad things were not worth it in hindsight.

jbainbridge

You've got to all yourself - do you really want this house? You're having doubts and when you sell, buyers will too.

pollyanna24

elsien wrote: »

I used to have a bedroom accessed through my brother's. Didn't bother me but he hated it.

Well, of course, it would bother him more than you. It wasn't your privacy being compromised.

silvercar

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

A loft conversion accessed through another room is highly unlikely to have been compliant with Building Regulations means of escape in a fire, which is a completely separate matter from planning permission.

They may not have been building regs at the time, or if they were in existence there is only the requirement to confrim to the regs in fo ce when the wok was done. So the work may be fully compliant legally.

Of course, this doesn’t negate the desire to keep your family safe, so comsidering an exit point is prudent. a skylight on its own is not much use unless the room also contains a suitable ladder or pole vault to reach it. Even then you need to consider how long someone can safely remain perched on the roof before sliding off!

Cakeguts

If the stairs go up from one of the bedrooms that means that one of the bedrooms is a corridor or a walled off landing not a proper bedroom. So you are then left with the original bedrooms without stairs in them and a loft conversion that probably does not meet up to date fire regulations.



Add up the number of bedrooms you have left not including the non loft conversion and the walled off landing with stairs in it. For example if the house is advertised as a 3 bed which includes the stairs room and the storage space in the loft you only actually have 1 bedroom. So the house is actually only a 1 bed. Compare the price of the other houses with normal bedrooms to this one. In my example the price would need to be closer to a 1 bed house than a 3 bed because that is what you are effectively buying.



Just being a bit cheaper makes it expensive because there are technically two bedrooms most people wouldn't see as bedrooms.


The reason that it has been done like this is to save money so it has been done on the cheap. What else has been done to the house on the cheap?