3 Double Bedrooms vs 4 Smaller Bedrooms?

Bluebell1000

I agree - that's a really nice layout, and an ensuite would be a selling point for me if I was looking. 

If this is not your forever home, and you currently aren't living there, could you just sell this one before you spend lots of money on adjusting it for a few years of being there, and use the money to buy a house that's right for you? I appreciate there are a lot of complications and it may not be that simple, but i thought I'd just float it as a possibility in case you'd not looked at it from that perspective.

EssexHebridean

Something to consider - if the other houses in the road are 4 bedroom, and you convert yours to 3, when you come to sell, if one down the road in a similar decorative state is on the market at the same time you will potentially be at an instant "at a glance" disadvantage as there will be an expectation that yours should be cheaper. I'd also warn against a conversion that looks in any way "obvious" - when we were looking we were searching for 3 beds, and found the "2 bed with a large master divided up to make it a 3" a real turn-off. 

Your floor plan shows that there is no "obvious" way to reconfigure without it ending up looking like what it is - a 3 bed that ought to be a 4, and includes one truly awkward shaped bedroom, to boot. 

The only change I would consider making if that was my house would be to turn the shower room downstairs into a utility room. 

Albermarle

gazfocus said:

lincroft1710 said:

gazfocus said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Perhaps share the upstairs layout?

Here you go

That GF layout looks as if there has been a semi integral garage conversion to form the shower room and study. Don't do anything to the FF, it is an acceptable layout for a family with 2 or 3 children and at today's materials and labour costs would be uneconomic to alter 

Almost... when we bought the house (14 years ago), the previous owner had converted the garage to a downstairs bedroom and en-suite shower room for their disabled son. We altered it to create the hallway and study and left the downstairs shower room as it was.

With the upstairs, I'm thinking we will likely leave most of it as is but get rid of the en-suite to improve the master bedroom. (We will leave the plumbing under the floor for future options but it's the one thing we hate the most about the house). 

Buyers like 'en suite'. Can you not just spruce it up, new shower etc. Would not be very expensive.

gazfocus

lincroft1710 said:

gazfocus said:

lincroft1710 said:

gazfocus said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Perhaps share the upstairs layout?

Here you go

That GF layout looks as if there has been a semi integral garage conversion to form the shower room and study. Don't do anything to the FF, it is an acceptable layout for a family with 2 or 3 children and at today's materials and labour costs would be uneconomic to alter 

Almost... when we bought the house (14 years ago), the previous owner had converted the garage to a downstairs bedroom and en-suite shower room for their disabled son. We altered it to create the hallway and study and left the downstairs shower room as it was.

With the upstairs, I'm thinking we will likely leave most of it as is but get rid of the en-suite to improve the master bedroom. (We will leave the plumbing under the floor for future options but it's the one thing we hate the most about the house). 

Do NOT get rid of the en suite, it will cost time and money and make the house less desirable and lower its value

The en-suite is the biggest issue we have with the house. We have a standard king size bed (not a big lavish type) and with it in the room, there's barely any space to get past the end of the bed thanks to the en-suite taking a chunk out of the corner of the room. The en-suite in its current form CANNOT stay. Whether that's just a matter of relocating it, changing its shape, or something else, I don't know, but it has got to change.

gazfocus

Bluebell1000 said:

I agree - that's a really nice layout, and an ensuite would be a selling point for me if I was looking. 

If this is not your forever home, and you currently aren't living there, could you just sell this one before you spend lots of money on adjusting it for a few years of being there, and use the money to buy a house that's right for you? I appreciate there are a lot of complications and it may not be that simple, but i thought I'd just float it as a possibility in case you'd not looked at it from that perspective.

To be honest, that would be my preference but we're not in a position to buy another house at the moment. Both my wife and I are company directors and we don't have enough history behind us to qualify for the mortgage we'd need. On top of that, we still have 3 years left of our very favourable fixed term mortgage which we wouldn't be able to port (at 2.06%) so we need to keep the house for another 3 years really before both of these are no longer an issue.

gazfocus

EssexHebridean said:

Something to consider - if the other houses in the road are 4 bedroom, and you convert yours to 3, when you come to sell, if one down the road in a similar decorative state is on the market at the same time you will potentially be at an instant "at a glance" disadvantage as there will be an expectation that yours should be cheaper. I'd also warn against a conversion that looks in any way "obvious" - when we were looking we were searching for 3 beds, and found the "2 bed with a large master divided up to make it a 3" a real turn-off. 

Your floor plan shows that there is no "obvious" way to reconfigure without it ending up looking like what it is - a 3 bed that ought to be a 4, and includes one truly awkward shaped bedroom, to boot. 

The only change I would consider making if that was my house would be to turn the shower room downstairs into a utility room. 

We are 'fortunate' in that our street has a real mix of houses. Some semi's, some detached 3 bed, some detached 4 bed the same as ours, and some detached 4 bed that are about 1m wider. The 3 beds on the street are the same sqft as our house from what I've seen but the staircase is a kite staircase which alters the layout quite a bit.

gazfocus

Albermarle said:

gazfocus said:

lincroft1710 said:

gazfocus said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Perhaps share the upstairs layout?

Here you go

That GF layout looks as if there has been a semi integral garage conversion to form the shower room and study. Don't do anything to the FF, it is an acceptable layout for a family with 2 or 3 children and at today's materials and labour costs would be uneconomic to alter 

Almost... when we bought the house (14 years ago), the previous owner had converted the garage to a downstairs bedroom and en-suite shower room for their disabled son. We altered it to create the hallway and study and left the downstairs shower room as it was.

With the upstairs, I'm thinking we will likely leave most of it as is but get rid of the en-suite to improve the master bedroom. (We will leave the plumbing under the floor for future options but it's the one thing we hate the most about the house). 

Buyers like 'en suite'. Can you not just spruce it up, new shower etc. Would not be very expensive.

The issue with the ensuite is the space it takes away from the bedroom. At present, there's no way of getting our bed and even 'standard' sized wardrobes in the master bedroom without the wardrobes sticking out slightly into the window. I know the obvious answer would be to downsize to a double bed but I'm on the larger size and a double bed would be uncomfortable and a compromise I wouldn't be willing to make. 

Doozergirl

gazfocus said:

Doozergirl said:

A smaller four bed is always going to be more saleable than a larger three bed.  People always have to compromise, so if someone only has x amount of money, needs a four bed and yours is the cheapest, you have a captive market to a certain degree. 

Having seen the floorplan as well, I don't think the house lends itself well to being divided from 4 to 3 beds without a huge amount of work.  The stairs are right in the middle, not easily relocated, and so you have a natural division of the upstairs into four around those stairs.   

i'd rather set one room up as a dressing room and use the space that way.  

Thanks for that. What we were thinking of is…

1) get rid of the current en-suite to make the master bedroom more square.
2) put two doors from bedroom two into the space over the stairs to create a built in cupboard. 

3) move the bathroom to the current ‘bedroom 4’.
4) making the current bathroom and bedroom 3 in to one larger bedroom. 

We’d also thought of taking a bit off bedroom 3 to square that off and put the en-suite on that wall. 

I get it, and it does work.  If the family bathroom needs replacing and you're doing much of the work then it may make sense. 

What I would say regarding the ensuite, is keep the position of that to save money.  You could, however move the doorway by knocking out the section from the doorframe to the shower.  That would put the door on a 45 degree angle and have the door open outwards.  

It will remove the worst of the pinch point around the bed.  You do have the width in the room.   You don't need to drop down to three bedrooms to achieve that though.  If you have a dressing room then you can move the bed too. 

Question is, does this reduction in rooms turn the house into your ideal home?  

NameUnavailable

gazfocus said:

Albermarle said:

gazfocus said:

lincroft1710 said:

gazfocus said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Perhaps share the upstairs layout?

Here you go

That GF layout looks as if there has been a semi integral garage conversion to form the shower room and study. Don't do anything to the FF, it is an acceptable layout for a family with 2 or 3 children and at today's materials and labour costs would be uneconomic to alter 

Almost... when we bought the house (14 years ago), the previous owner had converted the garage to a downstairs bedroom and en-suite shower room for their disabled son. We altered it to create the hallway and study and left the downstairs shower room as it was.

With the upstairs, I'm thinking we will likely leave most of it as is but get rid of the en-suite to improve the master bedroom. (We will leave the plumbing under the floor for future options but it's the one thing we hate the most about the house). 

Buyers like 'en suite'. Can you not just spruce it up, new shower etc. Would not be very expensive.

The issue with the ensuite is the space it takes away from the bedroom. At present, there's no way of getting our bed and even 'standard' sized wardrobes in the master bedroom without the wardrobes sticking out slightly into the window. I know the obvious answer would be to downsize to a double bed but I'm on the larger size and a double bed would be uncomfortable and a compromise I wouldn't be willing to make. 

Use one of the other smaller bedrooms as your wardrobe/dressing room?

Or, as you have the downstairs shower, reduce the en suite to just a WC and gain the space where the shower is?

Herzlos

If you're selling the house it's almost certainly not worth spending any money trying to convert it. The 2 smaller rooms are small, but would be fine for a single kid / office / gym / whatever, and 4 rooms is always going to be more appealing. As far as new builds go those rooms are pretty normal.

Looking at the floor plan, I don't think you could turn it into a 3 bed without it being pretty obvious that it was meant to be a 4 bed, and I wouldn't be surprised if buyers took £10k+ off the offer to restore it.