Splitting a room

[bardos]

Not really an AIBU but WWYD.

We are moving house soon, I will attach a picture. What I would like to do is split the bigger room into two so my children can have their own rooms.

The door would have to be inside the rooms to maximise on space and as there is no where in the hall to put another door.

Has anyone done similar and can advise on cost and whether you think it would give decent sized rooms? I've measured it out on the floor but I'm struggling to visualise the space as a room and whether they are going to feel really tiny.

Thanks in advance

how about this sort of arrangement? With no extra door. Seen it work really well…

Rather than splitting with an adjoining door, I’d suggest making a small corridor just inside the existing door

Remove the existing door entirely
Put in another wall horizontally approx where your have marked the potential door.

They then both get private rooms.
This does mean the new corridor is dead space, but there would be similar dead space to allow entry to the joining door

Take out existing door and do this?

I would wait til you can afford to split properly. They won't be bothered right now, or you could split with a kallix.

Could you take a bit off the other bedroom to square it off?

Like this

I'm thinking something like this? I would rather not have to change the other room as we will be living there while doing the work

And you get rid of the landing door to the lobby.

Excuse my amazing editing attempts.

I would have smaller rooms but complete privacy if you are staying there. Stud walls are easy to remove if you sell in the future. Look at ikea for space saving

A temporary measure would be to put two wardrobes down the middle, with one facing each way. Cover the back side of each wardrobe with posters.

I did this when I shared a room with my sister and the fighting got too much. We each had our own space and meant that I wasn’t constantly pissed off with her slovenliness in my space.

Not sure what tye cupboard off room two is. But could it become an entrance.

I'm too slow 😆

I'd do it as cheap as possible, given the ages, and then you have to work out, and save, for a more permanent solution where you don't have to have the door in one of the bedrooms, given they are so young, and this is the long term home, you've got time to save for a more long term,solituion when they need and ask for more privacy

@BarrelOfOtters I was about to suggest the same thing! Bunk bed room dividers are a good solution. It splits the room in two so they have their own space to personalise and get into bed on different sides, so it doesn't feel like traditional bunk beds. But if you don't fancy that, then I think splitting the room into two box rooms would be fine.

Thank you everyone for the advice. I think we'll go with creating a lobby so they have completely separate rooms. The suggestions for using bunk beds is good, but I know that they would just destroy each others rooms and cause arguments which is why I wanted to split in the first place as my 5 yo is starting to want space away from 2 yo. 5 yo also goes to bed a bit later so bedtimes can sometimes be difficult so separating completely will make family life easier on us all

You can pop a bit more of the landing into each room if you’ve the space for door frame etc. but you need to lay this out to see if feels like room enough before you decide

We had a similar room layout and two boys, we currently have a split with furniture where they have back to back wardrobes as a ‘wall’ with one walking through the first room to get to theirs. It worked fine when younger but no longer works and we are just measuring up for a different solution that gives each a completely separate room with entrance so if you can I would suggest just doing that straight away. As teens the one who has to walk through seems incapable of doing so without annoying the other. We are lucky enough to have a cupboard outside which we are going to use for the second access but only one window at the minute so need to sort that out first.

I'd do this so you have 2 double rooms and a smaller room like a traditional 3 bed

Just one design thing, put the doors so they open flat against the walls rather than into the room. Adds more space. Might be slightly awkward when it comes to light switches but running the electrics into new walls is easy.

I would do the wardrobe split for now and deal with it in a few years when they’re bigger. I’d actively encourage them to share until the eldest is 8-10 anyway.

We have reconfigured our house a number of times with stud wall changes as the kids have grown bigger. If only I’d anticipated it all up front I’d have done it in one go, but didn’t realise how their needs (and size) changes over time.

Also, given the 2 windows, it suggests it was originally 2 bedrooms. If there are similar houses adjacent could you ask one of the neighbours for a look at their upstairs to see the original layout?

We did this 20 years ago, stud wall so you can remove if needed.

It worked well.

These bunk beds are a great way of dividing a room and maximising space.

Is it going to be a long term home? If you are planning to stay till they are much older I saw a great idea of an interior programme. They made the wardrobe area a communal area and then they had smaller sleeping rooms. You could use stud work to create two sleeping rooms with either pocket doors or curtains and then share the rest of the space, negating the worry about an additional door.

I don't think that it was originally two rooms a quick look on previously sold on right move shows they all have the same layout