Adding an upstairs bathroom - with a diagram!

[AwkwardPaws27]

Ok, really hoping i manage to add these images correctly...

We recently bought an Edwardian house. The bathroom is downstairs, accessed through the kitchen. This is relatively common in surrounding houses, but it does mean a somewhat irritating trip to the loo if you wake up in the night.
No DCs yet, but this is the plan in the next few years, and I really want an upstairs bathroom before TTC.

My thoughts:

• The house is 3 bedroom, semi detached. 2 beds in the area go for less, so I am loathe to turn a bedroom into a bathroom and reduce the value in case we do sell in future/for remortgaging purposes.
  

• A loft conversion would be lovely, but not really affordable at present.
  

• I don't want to split the front bedroom as it is a nice sized master, has a beautiful original fireplace I've slaved away restoring, and I don't want a soil pipe in the front of my house.
  

• There are a lot of houses in the area, with a small upstairs bathroom and small box room as the 3rd bedroom (5 x 8 foot is common, but we did view a couple of houses with 6ft6 x 5ft6 foot box rooms).
  

I have been debating how to fit in an upstairs bathroom, and am thinking of removing chimney breast and splitting the 2nd bedroom, to give a 9ft x 6ft6 bedroom and a (cosy!) 4ft 6 x 9ft bath/shower room.

I may retain the downstairs bathroom, or possibly have a futility room.

What do the wise women of Mumsnet think?

[HideHide]

You’d need to consider your pipe work and routing of waste etc. We’ve just added a bathroom on the opposite side of our house (semi) to all other bathroom/kitchen etc. The plumbers had an arse of a job zig zagging the pipe work across the space

[massistar]

Could you section off part of the 2nd bedroom and knock through from master to make an ensuite? Would take up less space?

[AwkwardPaws27]

HideHide - There is a drain of some sort running alongside the house so I'm hoping we can link in to that without too much difficulty, fingers crossed!

massistar I would prefer it to be accessible from the hallway - I wouldn't really want guests to have to go via our bedroom, or go downstairs.

[tentative3]

I saw a floorplan the other day where they'd put a loo upstairs, but not a full bathroom. Would that be an option or would you def want a full bathroom?

[SilverSpot]

How you have got it planned is my preferred way of getting a bathroom upstairs with that layout if that bedroom is big enough to fit.

I would keep the downstairs WC 100% and might swap the downstairs bath for a shower and have your WM and TD stacked in there to be a utility room and shower.

[teaortequila23]

If I was you I would just stick with what you have till you have enough money for a loft conversion to then make one of the bedrooms a bathroom.

[Dinosaursdontgrowontrees]

A friend has done what you are thinking of doing I think it works really well. They have knocked the bathroom down stairs through and extended into the side return to make a huge kitchen family room out the back.. it is lush. They have downstairs loo under the stairs.
Only negative is they have no bathroom window but they don't mind that.

[Vitalogy]

Could you convert the downstairs bathroom into a study/third bedroom.

[AwkwardPaws27]

Thank you for your ideas. If it was only a year or so until I could covert the loft, I would, but realistically I have no idea when or even if we'll be able to afford it.
Downstairs study could be an option but I'm not sure I'd want a bedroom through the kitchen, or to put a future DC in a room that far away from me.
I love the shower & laundry room idea (& DP would love a side return extension one day!)

[Vitalogy]

or to put a future DC in a room that far away from me. You never know you might be glad of it

[AwkwardPaws27]

Vitalogy

[Angryosaurus]

I have recently seen it where the front room is split into 2 small doubles (plus small corridor), the second bedroom becomes the master with views over the garden, and bed 3 becomes the bathroom. It avoids a box room, but obviously compromises the fab front bedroom. Much nicer family sized bathroom though so you can lose the downstairs one in favour of bigger kitchen

[AwkwardPaws27]

angryosaurus it's not big enough unfortunately - 10ft x 14ft, plus a chimnet breast takes up part of that, so two rooms would be small. There's also a beautiful original fireplace that I've almost finished restoring & want to keep as a feature.

[Liara]

Would you be able to fit two rooms into the front if you added the bit you marked red to the front room? Then you could have what's left of the second bedroom as a bathroom (with a window), and still have a pretty decent sized room towards the front with the chimney (although with one less window).

[AwkwardPaws27]

Liara I think that wall is load bearing, and the small bedroom that would create would only be 5ft wide.
I can probably put a small window in the red area anyway, as it is semi-detached.

[MissDuke]

Awkward what is a futility room? I see that term on MN all the time and have no idea what people mean.

Anyway op I think your plan is pretty much all you have to work with as you have reasons why all other options wouldn't work for you. Go for it! I definitely think its worth it!

[AwkwardPaws27]

MissDuke a futility room is a utility room, but with the acceptance that it will never be a beautiful organised space, and that the laundry will never be done. It is futile to think it will solve all cleaning related problems, but you can at least close the door on them!

Thank you all for your suggestions and ideas, I feel like I haven't made a massive oversight, and that this is probably the best option for us, for now at least.

[AwkwardPaws27]

I just want to pop back and update this thread. Between getting married, replacing all the windows & repointing, saving up for the work and the pandemic (!) it took us a while, we finally finished the shower room a few months ago.
We had the middle bedroom split in two, including removing the chimney breast, putting up a wall and adding a new doorway, giving us a shower room while leaving a 9'3" x 6'6" small bedroom.

[Leobynature]

Thanks for the update. It looks great

[SocksForceFive]

What a lovely bathroom! What did you do with the kitchen/futility room in the end?

[AwkwardPaws27]

Socks nothing yet we ended up replacing the windows and getting married instead.
I've actually got another thread on the go at the moment trying to decide whether to remortgage and do a side return extension on the kitchen, or just replace it
I kept finding side return threads with similar dilemmas but without updates on what they decided to do, which prompted me to come back & update this one!

[ConcreteUnderpants]

Lovely bathroom and glad it worked out for you! You did what I would’ve done in the situation.
Can I ask about your bathroom mirror - I want it! I have got tiles though. Did they do all the electrical work before tiling or was it an afterthought and easily done?? 🤞🏻

[sarahb083]

It looks lovely!!

[AwkwardPaws27]

@ConcreteUnderpants it's this one from Drench - www.drench.co.uk/p/harbour-status-led-black-round-mirror-leds-600

We often use it instead of the spotlights, it's lovely mood lighting. We had the mirror wiring done pre-tiling when the spotlights, shaving socket & extractor were wired in.

[SocksForceFive]

@AwkwardPaws27

Socks nothing yet we ended up replacing the windows and getting married instead.
I've actually got another thread on the go at the moment trying to decide whether to remortgage and do a side return extension on the kitchen, or just replace it
I kept finding side return threads with similar dilemmas but without updates on what they decided to do, which prompted me to come back & update this one!

Haha getting married sounds like a lot more fun! We're just about to start our side return extension in the next couple of weeks. We've got a similar layout to you though our bathroom is upstairs already.

We went for one big kitchen with a utility cupboard so that we could have a stretch of bifolds across the back of the house. There's always a compromise- would have loved a full utility room! Our surveyor said that the side return will cost more than the value it'll add to the house but we plan on staying for a number of years so we've done it for the living space rather than the return on investment.