Reno plans - 3 or 4 bed?

[thegreenlight]

You lot are all so good at this so I have a conundrum for you!
we have hired an architect to reconfigure our small 3 bed to build over the single story extension we currently have and add more space upstairs (and a small extension to the front of the house to increase the box room).
we have two options.
Option A - move our bedroom to the new extension with en-suite, bifolds and Juliet balcony. The bedroom would be quite small (about the same as now) but have a separate dressing corridor. The small family bathroom would remain the same size but we would gain a 4th single bedroom/office.
Option B - build over extension to make a really large master bedroom, en-suite and bigger family bathroom.

We are also building a large annex in the garden with toilet/kitchenette. This will be for a hang out spot for the kids and potential accommodation for my special needs son as he gets older or my mum.

Which one would you go for? I have plans for option A, waiting on option B.

I'd go for more rooms. You don't need a big bedroom - you only sleep in there - but an extra room is always handy if only for drying clothes in the winter

Here are the plans - thick black lines show the new bits (as they will be thicker walls due to regs) this is the plan for option A.

i'd definitely go for the study / bed 4, but DH and I both wfh (at least some of the time) and really value having extra bits of private space.

Option A. More rooms definitely. The dressing room will make your new room less cluttered so it will feel bigger even if it is the same size as you current bedroom.

Trying to convince DH - he’s not having it and wants a bigger bedroom but it will me almost too big. A middle hound would be good if anyone wants to make suggestions!

Bigger rooms always. Stud walls don’t add anything other claustrophobia. Too many small houses have been ruined by attempts to add ‘bedrooms’. A bedroom, if you have the opportunity as you do, should have a king sized bed, ample wardrobe space away from sleeping area, seating area and en suite. And you shoo do be able to walk around the sides and food of the bed freely with a metre of space. These sound like luxuries in this country of course, but if you have the opportunity, this is what a bedroom should be.

Tell your husband the house will be worth more with 4 bedrooms. A large master bedroom will do almost nothing except give you more debt, assuming that you aren't paying this with savings. You'll get a bit of an increase in the price of the house, but not much.

Definitely fewer, bigger bedrooms. I personally really dislike the new build style trend of shoehorning loads of small bedrooms in to a space just to be able to say it’s a 4 bedroom house.

A lot of those bedrooms then feel really cluttered as you don’t have decent wardrobe / dresser / walk around space. I’d always go for fewer, bigger rooms.

Would smaller bedroom be just under 3m sq? That’s really small.

Our house has a big master on the top floor. It is lovely to have so much airy space and we wouldn't want to turn it into two rooms even though an extra room would be helpful, so I can pitch in that it's good to have for quality of life. We didn't even look at houses without a big master when we were buying, so while you add value on bedrooms you also lose out on a sector of the market; your local estate agent could give you a decent guide about the likely house price effect.

Two things that would improve our top floor:

1. Eaves space for our stuff is good, but don't underestimate how much you might use; on the pitched roof side make sure there is enough height get flooring in all of it and lots of doors for access. It takes so much of our junk that would otherwise be in other rooms that we can look like we live more minimally.
2. It gets hot in summer, so whatever type of extension you pick talk to them about solar panels and the most effective heat insulation.
3. Not ours, but we viewed a few houses with small en suite; they didn't feel luxurious. You're in that bathroom every day at the start of your day, make it spacious and special.

I would go for the fewer bigger bedrooms and a decent sized en suite. That en-suite looks like your knees would be hanging out of the door if your sat on the loo. Does it have a shower? Do you need extra office space?

Do you have the plan for B?

Have I read snd converted the dimensions properly? The master will be around 9ftx9ft, and bed 3 11ftx6ft? Presumably bed 4 is smaller again.
To me that is saying make 3 decent sized rooms, as the footprint is too small for a 4bed.

No plan as yet - the architect is working on it now. Seems to be a fairly equal split!

Definitely the 4 bed option, with So many WFH 3 beds are seeing a big dip in demand around me and friends have said the same when trying to sell their 3 beds across the SE.

There will be a big stand alone annex in the garden built to be guest accommodation and we could put the elements of a home office in there. I have attached the plans. Does this change anyone’s mind. DH is now saying not to build over the extension and just do the front bit to make the living room and box room bigger. Thoughts?