Is it always a "no-no" to reduce number of bedrooms?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Our home is an odd layout. Main floor has living room, kitchen, utility and bathroom plus 3 other rooms (we use the largest as our bedroom, then the two smaller ones are home office and a store room). We then have 2 bedrooms upstairs and a large ish landing area. These rooms are used as the children's bedrooms.

In an ideal world, we would add a shower room to the large landing upstairs, however it's all in the eaves so height is an issue.

A friend suggested turning one of the two attic rooms into a family bathroom. Then the downstairs bathroom can just be a shower room.

The large landing up in the attic could then become my workspace. We could move into the attic bedroom, leaving the large room downstairs available as a playroom/teen living room. The two smaller rooms can then become teenage bedrooms.

Its cutting a bedroom, but the house is full of rooms! To the point where we just use one to keep the vacuum/tools/etc in.

Wwyd?

I think enjoying the house as you need it to be for the next X years will likely outweigh resale issues. If push comes to shove you can convert it all back again when you sell.

That sounds fine to me. It’s a pet peeve of mine to have loads of tiny bedrooms just for the sake of it when the house is missing decent size living space / bathrooms / storage etc

Is there still a decent number of usable bedrooms?

How many bedrooms / bathrooms would you end up with?

We wouldnt be able to justify installing a second bathroom including all the pipework and reinforcing the floor for a bath to then change it back, sadly.

Swapping rooms round generally fine, but putting in a bathroom would be too much work to then remove in 10 - 15 years time.

We will definetly sell and downsize once the DC move out.

If you're planning to stay another 10-15 years, definitely change the house so it's how it will work best for your family. It's a very long time to be living with an arrangement that doesn't work.

@ShirleyPhallus

That sounds fine to me. It’s a pet peeve of mine to have loads of tiny bedrooms just for the sake of it when the house is missing decent size living space / bathrooms / storage etc

Is there still a decent number of usable bedrooms?

How many bedrooms / bathrooms would you end up with?

At the moment we have Main floor:- 1x living room 1x room which could be either a second reception or a large bedroom 2x standard sized bedrooms (not used this way atm)

Attic:-
2x bedrooms (one large, one standard size)
1x landing area (included as its large enough to be playroom area/office space)

New plan would mean
Main floor:-
1x living room
1x second living room (for the kids)
2x standard sized bedrooms

Attic:-
1x large bedroom
1x family bathroom
1x landing area (office space)

It sounds like you actually have two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs currently (since most houses of that size would have two reception rooms downstairs). Instead you'll lose a bedroom but gain an upstairs bathroom, making it three bedroom two bathroom.

It sounds like it will work for you and so I would probably do it but you are turning a four bed into a three bed which could decrease the value on paper or limit your market when you come to sell.

Could you not put en suites into the two upstairs bedrooms. You can put them into pretty small spaces.

or if one bedroom is too small can you pinch a bit off the large landing?

I definitely think people get too caught up in selling the house on - you're living in it now and need it to work for you!!

I got our bath taken out when we did the bathroom up before we moved in - I hate baths and my husband is almost six and a half feet tall, so just doesn't fit comfortably in a standard bath. ALL of my friends were saying they'd never buy a house without a bath and where would I wash my children? Five years down the line - we still live here and my children are (unfortunately) unconceived, but I'm sure I'd have figured out how to wash them by now if that wasn't the case!

When the time comes to sell, you only need your house to suit one buyer, and plenty of people would prefer what you're suggesting than preserving as many bedrooms as possible!

If your planning on living their for 15 years do what works best for you. At the end of the day it's your house and its got to do what it needs for your family

We could currently say the house has 1 reception & 5 bedrooms. Or 2 reception & 4 bedrooms. 1 bathroom.

The change would make it 1 reception & 4 bedrooms or 2 reception & 3 bedrooms. 2 bathrooms.

We could add one ensuite to the lattice but due to layout of the rooms/pitch of the roof, it would only be accessible to one of the bedrooms. Meaning the other rooms user would need to trail downstairs to the bathroom.

Added to that the current bathroom is at the back of the house which is relatively narrow and long.

I used to live in a 4 bed 3 reception house and a lot of neighbours turned the two smaller bedrooms into one large one and people seemed to prefer this.

I think 1 bathroom in a 4/5 bed house would put a lot of buyers off too, especially ones with teenage children
It sounds like what you are proposing will make your house more balanced, so I think you should do it. Especially if your kitchen is bigger enough that the second room can be used as a bedroom or reception - in that case you can still advertise as 4 bed

Is it worth getting an architect in to go through your house to see what solutions they come up with?
I thought i had a good idea if what I wanted but they came in with fresh eyes and ideas and it worked out better.
Sorry if this has already done.

I can't quite picture the setup but one thing worth bearing in mind is that families with younger children will often be reluctant to have them sleeping on a different floor to the parents. So I'd try to end up with a configuration where future potential purchasers could see a way to not doing that (even if you yourselves choose to do so).

If you're going to be there for 10-15 years, then make it work for you, now.

When you do eventually downsize, there will almost certainly be someone else who thinks the new layout is perfect for them too.

@notacooldad

Is it worth getting an architect in to go through your house to see what solutions they come up with? I thought i had a good idea if what I wanted but they came in with fresh eyes and ideas and it worked out better. Sorry if this has already done.

I thought the same maybe a dormer to add some head height for possible bathroom? It's also worth looking critically at your staircase arrangement to see if it can be reconfigured to improve upstairs space even if it means stealing space from.a..room Downstairs

So upstairs would become one big bedroom, one bathroom and a hall? I’d cost putting in an upstairs loo and sink and keeping the two bedrooms.

10+ years and your comfort and practicality overrides resale. In that time the market tends to inflate masking the difference anyway.
If it's a temporary home for a few years that's different.

We want to lose an old, tired en-suite to double the bathroom. Others think we're mad, but it's daft to pay out £££ to replace a suite that's long past its best before in a room that's rarely used when we can get a much better benefit from a larger room.
I can think of one house that was extended and now has 6 mostly small bedrooms, half of which are used as wardrobes, and a disproportionate number of bedrooms to living space downstairs. It's not as good as the headline sounds.

A loo and sink would fit well on that landing - but there isn't enough height to fit a shower where the space sits.

It would definitely feel more balanced with an additional full bathroom.

Our kitchen has our dining table in so no need for a separate formal dining room.

I think our mortgage providers have a clause about not altering number of bedrooms. You need to check that sort of thing.

I’d make the house work for you 10/15 years is a long time to live with something that you could make perfect for your needs. The housing market will change during that time too so you could keep it as is and find that it’s not quite right for market when the time comes. You’ll still have a flexible space with 3/4 bedrooms so I’d change it. We changed a very small bathroom into a decent sized en-suite and it’s made a huge difference, and the house value is now double what it was when we made the changes a few years ago.

Houses are for living in.