To move the family bathroom downstairs?

[letsjustdothis]

We've seen our dream property after years of looking...it's beautifully secluded, architect designed, and even within our budget, but the problem is, the eaves make the top floor feel a lot smaller than it is.

This looks okay for the bedrooms but the "main" bathroom has a tinier than average bath with attached shower head and a toilet and sink crammed in, and no storage options. It doesn't actually have a terrible footprint on the plans but in reality feels tiny and extremely claustrophobic because the ceiling height is incredibly low (part of the room is effectively lower than knee height) and there's no window (no idea how the extraction/fresh air works, if at all...).

I just don't think it's viable at all, but we love the rest of the house.

We could change the smallest bedroom into the bathroom instead, but then it would only be a 2 bed house which I think is too few bedrooms for its size (currently 2,000 sq ft on paper).

I was thinking we could just knock the bathroom through to the smallest bedroom instead and use it for a dressing area/cupboard storage, as closing off one of the doors would also increase the amount of usable ceiling height space for that bedroom.

And put a family bathroom downstairs off the sitting room (which is a decent sized second reception room with one tiny window). The house is very open plan with a big hallway, so I don't think it would look out of place.

Both my partner and I love a big bathroom, and he likes to have late baths, so there would also be the advantage that he wouldn't wake me up. And if there was a leak or something (as happened in our current house), it wouldn't wreck a ceiling. Plus some potential buyers may appreciate a downstairs bathroom for accessibility needs, although we would really like it to be our forever home so it may be practical even for us in the future.

The master bedroom upstairs has a small ensuite, so there would still be some kind of bathroom up there.

There's also a small cloakroom downstairs with just a toilet and sink, but I don't think there's the space next to that room to make it into a full bathroom.

We can't knock through the ensuite and bathroom to make a normal sized bathroom with a window because there's an old chimney in between the two.

So it seems like building a small extension for a family sized bathroom could make sense. The space where it would be built is currently part of a (long) flat paved driveway so we don't need it, and it's not at all visible from the street, plus there are tall electric gates so no one can see in.

That said, I'm reading that having a downstairs bathroom is really undesirable and knocks a lot of value off the property. I've been googling but a lot of situations seem to be where it's the only bathroom/toilet in the property, or where you have to walk through the kitchen to get to it. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this specific situation.

UK based, if that's relevant.

YABU = you wouldn't buy your dream property if it had the main bathroom downstairs and just an ensuite upstairs.

YANBU = doesn't bother you because there's a toilet and shower upstairs and it would be better to have a nice family bathroom even if downstairs.

As it's only you and dh there, what about knocking the en-suite and current bathroom into a sensible sized room with Jack n Jill doors, so you still have en-suite access but there is also access for guests when they are there?

We bought a house that had the bathroom off the lounge. It was in a very desirable road and the estate agent told us this was the reason it hadn't sold (was on the market for 4 months at a time houses went very quick in that area).

First job we did was relocating it back upstairs. We ended up only living there for 18 months and accepted an offer the first day it went on the market.

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ok so we have just come back from a holiday weekend where the bathroom was downstairs. ( I have tried to add the link so you can see - but if you look through the glass front door, you can see the bathroom door)

the house was lovely- t but this is the reason I hated the downstairs bathroom

1. waking up in the night , I had to get partially dressed, switch on lights , go down winding steep steps half asleep to use the loo - potentially a bit dangerous
2. you have to take all your stuff down to the bathroom to get dressed in the bathroom after a shower , or wander round the house through the kitchen half naked
3. half dressed teenagers wandering through when you’re trying to make tea
4. it’s actually quite spooky to go that far in the dark at night - I feel im normally a sensible person, but wondered about taking my husband with me on one 3 am wee trip- incase the ghost 👻 got me
5. all the curtains need to be closed at night , cause once the lights are on it’s very easy to see in windows in the middle of the night , and no one wants to see you naked or half naked running for a wee .
6. don’t know how old your little darlings are, but it’s a long was for toddlers to go by themselves in the night !

in short I hated it and was glad to be home where I can wee in the night and not stress lol

In addition to my suggestion up thread of knocking through the en-suite into the current bathroom- making a jack and jill type bathroom with 2 doors. If you have a pocket, sliding door from your bedroom, or both doors, you save about 1m2 of floor space for each door. It would really open up the room.