House design dilemma!

[maude87]

We are in the process of extending our 3 bed terraced house by adding a double storey extension. I'm really happy with the downstairs layout BUT the way our architect has designed upstairs leaves our bathroom with no windows. I'm not sure how I feel about a bathroom with no opening ventilation - we'd have 2 sun tunnels and an extraction fan in there but it's still not quite the same. My dilemma is this, do we:

a) move the bathroom across the hallway, sacrificing a spare bedroom (small room) and making the old "bathroom" into a walk in wardrobe/en suite for the master. This would mean we were a 3 bedroom house still just with bigger rooms and a new ensuite/walk in wardrobe!

b) keep the bathroom with no windows and have a small 4th bedroom upstairs. Meaning we were a 4 bed house.

We don't want to devalue our house by removing a bedroom to sleep in BUT as we don't plan on moving for a number of years, can't decide if we will regret not having a window in the bathroom and wish we had!

Any experience on bathrooms with no window? Any advice at all?!

Thank you

When we did our double storey extension, we converted the smallest bedroom into a walk in wardrobe and en suite. I'm really glad we did.

We took the view that, given we were planning to stay for some time, it's more important that the house works for us than the added value.

Cross post. It’s not an en-suite. That’s not ideal. Sun tunnel perhaps?

My first flat I bought had no window in the bathroom. It was absolutely fine, no signs of mould or anything. I've also rented numerous places with no window in the bathroom and never really considered it a problem. You just have to put the light on, it's not like you're in there for hours at a time.

Lots of top notch hotels have wonderful bathrooms with no windows. And I mean super-luxurious, fabulous bathrooms. The trick is to use lots of mirror. The mirror panels should run flush with the tiles (in other words, treat the mirror panels just the same as tiles so there is just one surface). So your builder insets the mirror into the tiles. Hope that makes sense.

Anyway - totally no need for windows. Trust me on this!

I'd much prefer the flexibility of a whole extra room rather than a window in a bathroom. We've been in our (new build) house 2.5 years and had the bathroom window open once or twice in that time, with no ill effects. Our en-suite has no window at all and again, no issue. As long as the extractor fan is suitably efficient it wouldn't phase me, especially with the sun tunnels which are a pretty cool feature anyway.

I once lived I a very damp flat. The bathroom had no window but very good ventilation.

The rest of the flat was dripping wet, the bathroom was the only room without damp.

I think if you go for 4 beds you ideally want 2 bathrooms anyway (from a resale pov) so I would go for 3 beds and an en suite. You've said you'll have a study with a pull out bed so that gives you the extra sleeping space for guests you're looking for anyway.

Our downstairs loo has no window. It's fine. My mil doesn't dare to go in but most people are ok.

I have two windowless bathrooms, and I'd say lack of natural light is the only drawback. I had to google sun tunnels, they actually look like a better option than windows to me, the advantage of windows, natural light, without the disadvantages: making you potentially visible to outside and taking up wall space in a way that might constrain your bathroom design. I now think the ideal bathroom should have sun tunnels rather than windows. (A window in a sloping ceiling would also be OK.)

The roof space being adjacent means you can install a powerful inline extractor fan that will ventilate the bathroom better than any window could. (I have to rely on centrifugal fans mounted on the ceiling, which in the bathroom with the non-enclosed shower take quite a long time to clear humidity after a shower. Tip: a shower enclosure seems to makes a lot of difference to how much steam is released into a bathroom, try to have those rather than a over-bath shower.)

Both my bathrooms have a huge mirror covering the upper half of one wall, which helps them feel spacious. Visually, the mirror acts as a sort of proxy for windows.

Oh my goodness, what a huge response! Thanks everyone, hubby and I will be reading through all the comments later with a cup of tea and a much better idea of opinions!

Put a velux window or 2 in.
You get light, ventilation, and no one can peer in!

@stifledlife I don't know that we can as the attic is directly above. I have been told it might be doable but would need to look into it and also consider cost. Light tunnels are an awful lot cheaper so wondering whether that's why the architect suggested it!?