Creating an additional bedroom in a 2 bed end terrace.

boongywoongy

We've found a 2 bed end terrace house that we really like and we are considering making an offer. It's an eye watering amount for us so we want to make sure that it's a sound investment. One thing that we are considering is to knock down the wall between the two existing bedrooms on the upper floor and create a third (smallish) bedroom in between them which could act as a single/nursery/office room. Having taken down the wall, we would create two partition walls, add a doorway and put a window in the side of the house to allow for natural light. We appreciate that it would reduce the size of the existing bedrooms but we feel that it's a sacrifice worth taking to enable us to live comfortably in a 3 bed home.

My question is, do our plans sound feasible? Since we a taking down a wall but putting up two partition walls, would there be any structural problems? Also, has anyone 'punched' a whole in the side of a house so that a new window could be added on the top floor?

Any thoughts would be most welcome! Thank you.

Here's a picture of the existing layout.

RAS

What size are the current room and what is the other side of the wall? any chance that would be built on?

FreeBear

Depending on the age of the house, you may well find that the wall is structural, providing support for the roof and lateral buttressing for the side wall. If this is the case, then "just knocking down" is going to end up being an expensive job - Structural engineers, steel beams, Building Regulation sign-off, etc.

GDB2222

Often, people do a loft conversion, as that adds space. What has been done in the neighbouring houses? Have a look at the local planning applications.

twopenny

Will you have to do further alteration making further landing to allow for 2 more doors?
It looks that way.
Unless you put the door between the two new bedrooms as they did in the old days.
It could then be study, nursery, dressing room and quiet convenient. I've lived in one like that.

Doozergirl

If you want to live in a very small three bed forever then that's fine, but I don't
think it will be adding any value. 

For value add, looking at a loft conversion, and adding a dormer might be a better solution, but there still doesn't look to be much room.   I have often seen people talking about playing around with the first floor in these sorts of houses but the reality is limited.  

 

If it were for an office or occasional spare bedroom then a garden room extension could also be an option.  

Section62

boongywoongy said:

Having taken down the wall, we would create two partition walls, add a doorway and put a window in the side of the house to allow for natural light.

As FreeBear says about the wall providing lateral support for the gable wall.

Also, what would the new window be looking at?  If it overlooks someone's garden or into other people's houses there may be planning objections.

You also need to think carefully about how the layout would work.  There's a risk of having an excessive amount of first floor space taken up with landing areas to be able to access all four rooms.  Landings/corridors are dead space, so best to minimise them where possible - a common mistake is to spend a lot on alterations/conversions that primarily produce a lot of expensive corridor, which is useful for hanging pictures, but not much else.

boongywoongy

Thanks for all the comments. I'll try to address them here:

"What size are the current room and what is the other side of the wall? any chance that would be built on?" - I don't have the exact dimensions (I'm going back today for a second viewing to measure up precisely) but my feeling is that both the existing bedrooms could be reduced and still be usable i.e the master would still fit a double be Ok. The wall which is perpendicular to the dividing wall which we want to remove is an exterior wall that does not attach to another building (it's the end terrace wall) and if we were to put a window in, it would overlook part of our garden to the side of the house and the side of another neighbour (whom I pretty sure wouldn't object at all).

"Depending on the age of the house, you may well find that the wall is structural, providing support for the roof and lateral buttressing for the side wall" - good point and confirms what would be my worst fear.

"Often, people do a loft conversion, as that adds space." - good suggestion but this is far more expensive and disruptive and not something we are considering.

"Will you have to do further alteration making further landing to allow for 2 more doors?" - Depending on the placement of the partition walls, I'm hoping that we can still fit doors into all 3 bedrooms. Anything else and it would start feeling weird to me.

"If you want to live in a very small three bed forever then that's fine, but I don't think it will be adding any value." - I think given the increased cost of housing buying, a proper 3 bed will be beyond many people, so compromises like this may be our only option. I agree that a 'very small three bed' may not be everyones cup of tea though. However, if future purchasers want to expand, they could add the loft conversion and make this into a 4 bed!

GDB2222

"Often, people do a loft conversion, as that adds space." - good suggestion but this is far more expensive and disruptive and not something we are considering.

I fear that what you are proposing is going to be expensive. What sort of figure do you have in mind?

Doozergirl

Houses have always been expensive and people still don't typically do what you are suggesting.  People would have much larger families than we do these days and they'd all share those rooms. There is a point at which small rooms are too small.  Turning more of the house into circulation space reduces the ability to store things.  It's not just increasing hallway space, it the space needs to manoeuvre within a room as well. 

Your window will. need planning permission if it isn't going to be obscured, by the way.  What you want to do is still hugely disruptive, with knock-on effects on your wiring and heating systems with money that could be spent on doing the same but creating extra space.  

Turning more of the house into circulation space reduces the ability to store things.  

When we had a house like that, the children were small and shared.  There was decent storage and space to play on the floor. 

Section62

boongywoongy said:

However, if future purchasers want to expand, they could add the loft conversion and make this into a 4 bed!

I think that's unlikely.

To go up into the loft means finding space on the first floor for stairs.  If you have large rooms on the first floor there's often a solution which takes a modest amount of a large room and leaves you with stairs + smaller room.

If you've already made the first floor rooms small, then trying to fit in first->loft stairs will reduce the size of at least one room below the level that could be called a 'bedroom' with a straight face.

In your case, the stairs to the loft would logically go somewhere above the stairs from ground to first floor.  The net result would mean having approximately 2/5ths of the first floor given over to the bathroom and stairs/common circulation space.  That's a significant chunk - and the layout would appeal to a relatively small subset of buyers seeking a 4-bed property.

If it were feasible to do a loft conversion (we don't know) then a result with three decent sized bedrooms is likely to be more attractive than one with one decent bedroom and three very small ones.