Has anyone had a large bedroom spilt into two?

[HaveAGoodDay]

We're in a two bed semi. There's me, hubby & our ds & dd. at the moment, ds has his bedroom & we sleep on dd's bedroom floor. Not exactly ideal but only option for now as if we were to put ds & dd in together - it would be a nightmare!

Anyway, we haven't enough head room or funds to go up into the attic. So it's back to our original plan when we first moved in, to split the biggest bedroom. It's roughly 14 & half feet by just under 8 feet. Currently has one large window & one radiator. Plan - take window out, brick over & put in place two smaller windows positioned for bedrooms. Take radiator out. Place stud wall down centre of the room. Small radiator in each bedroom. The entrance door to the further back bedroom, would either have to be entered by a door via the stud wall or a door knocked through what would become our bedroom ( which is what ds is in now).

We know someone, well he's a friend too, who is an electrician/ builder - not sure if he'd be able to carry off all the work himself but he's given us an estimate of around £1500 all in.

I think this way is the most cost effective & least time consuming. Dd coming up to 10 yrs soon so needs her own space. Hopefully the kids will end up with a bedroom of about 8ft by 7ft.

Does anyone know if we need planning permission for this?

[addictedtosugar]

You shouldn't need planning permission for the internal wall.
I don't think you'll need it for the window moves, but ring the council to check.
All work will need to follow building regs.

I had a 2 bed terrace. Next door split the master to make 2 rooms.
Before the split, it was 16x12, so you got 2 decent rooms out of it, and it already had 2 windows.

If you can, I'd have all rooms accessible from the landing - ie not have bed3 accessed though what will become the master bed.

[PrimalLass]

Yes. We split a front-to-back bedroom across the middle and added a dormer at the back (bungalow loft conversion was already in place).

[Janeyspamey]

hi. we split our front bedroom into two when we bought our three bed terrace as it was the only way to maintain three bedrooms after we moved bedroom upstairs. The loft hatch is in the front room so we had to build rooms around that so one has a dog leg shape and another is a square. Neither room is pretty big: we can get just a single in one but a small double in the other. If we hadn't done this we would have to do a loft conversion or bought something else. We had to install a new window as well as the actual room divider.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Our house had the master bedroom split into 2. It's a dog leg to access one to ensure all open from the landing. The bedroom split had dual aspect windows so that was no problem. It's quite good here. This house was a 2 bed turned into a 4 bed. One room is a boxroom. not one of the split ones so I still want to extend our house (not happening btw! !) I'm. sure no planning was needed in this house.

[StuntCodPiece]

We are in the process of doing this. Although we have had to do a bathroom re-jig too. Very pleased with the results, although there is far more involved than we imagined. Mainly down to the fact dh we wanted to do all the tiling and decorating ourselves to save £££.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

I'm baffled - if the room is 14.5 x 8ft how will you get 2 x 8ftx7 rooms from it? I can't visualise the floor plan at all but perhaps I am being a total nitwit.

Any how. You will need planning for the windows - definitely. Just fire regs for internal walls unless they are structural [ie holding up the loft].

I think for fire regs and also for keeping the peace, it would be best if everyone had a door directly onto the landing.

If none of the walls are structural [unlikely in an old house] it might be possible to rejig ALL the first floor walls to make DS's room a little smaller so their new rooms are a little larger.

There's a BBC programme at the moment about interior design - sort of an upmarket changing rooms. Take a look at the episode on Victorian terraces. One couple completely changed the layout of their house, made the first floor totally open plan kitchen and living room all the way to the roof (so got rid of the attic), and put all the bedrooms downstairs. It looked amazing. If your downstairs footprint is larger or you could do an extension downstairs instead of a loft conversion, it might be worth taking a look. Lots of cash to do it possibly though as you'd be moving the kitchen upstairs.

[StuntCodPiece]

Tread if the room is currently 14ft long and 8ft wide, by putting a wall in the middle the 14ft becomes 7ft but the 8ft width stays the same.

[noddyholder]

I have done this in a few refurbs and have found it only really works if you make the rooms shaped eg an alcove in each and not just 2 boxes

[MillyMollyMama]

Having access for one room off the main bedroom is a very bed idea. You would also have two very small bedrooms. I would just do a temporary screen. Girl and boy halves. You can change or add windows without planning permission I believe.

[MillyMollyMama]

Sorry....bad idea!!!

[addictedtosugar]

A dog leg is a really good idea.
The rooms are bigger, but two of our rooms are like this - _|- is the best I can do on the computer. So each room has a wardrobe in the dogleg, and then a flat edge to the room which is made from wardrobe door or wall.
Noit sure if 7' is enough to do that along with 2 doors tho!

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

Thought I was having a total moment

[meadowquark]

Sorry what is a "dog leg"?
Are we talking about a period house or a later build?
What size would be the biggest bedroom?

In general this is interesting idea and perhaps I should consider this myself as badly need the third bedroom!