To take away dd(13)s en-suite?

[thatsfunnybecause]

Dd(13) has bedroom with an ensuite, 3 year old is at the moment in a tiny room that basically just fits a bed and wardrobe.

We want to combine dd’s en-suite and DH’s office to make decent size bedroom for 3 year old.

Up until dd(13) was 11 and we moved to a bigger house she always had to share with either younger brother or older step sister.

She thinks as she had to share until she was 11, that younger siblings should share until then or be lucky and get tiny room of their own. And that by the time toddler is that age she will move out and she can have her room.

Is it unreasonable to take away her en-suite?

Well, I don't envy seven of you sharing one bathroom/toilet growing up.

Well, perhaps we grew up in different social circles. My parents were Irish immigrants, they weren't rich, but we were fine and most of my childhood contemporaries grew up in similar - if not more slum like! - circumstances.

Growing up, no one I knew had an ensuite even for the parents. Children shared bedrooms, one family bathroom, no spare rooms. A downstairs toilet wasn't unheard of, but not common. No playrooms or studies. Just normal, 2 double, 1 single bedroom family homes for families with 2/3 children. Sometimes 4 children.

She may like having an ensuite but its not an "essential" and framing it as one is frankly ridiculous.

OP.... if you are combining the office and bathroom to make a new bedroom, what will happen to the current toddler bedroom?

Don’t take away her bathroom! A three year old doesn’t need a big bedroom.

You are being very unreasonable she is coming into puberty and a girl and you want to take her bathroom so your three year old can have a bigger room.
I agree with your daughter, you decided to have more children

OK.
Given your more recent posts @thatsfunnybecause , I think I have a better idea of the adjoining rooms and sizes/layout now. So might one of these suggestions have legs?...

• DD(3) swaps to current office (perhaps age-appropriate mid-sleeper or cool stilt-bed to maximise the floorspace), and DD(13)'s ensuite is reconfigured into an inter-connecting jack-and-jill bathroom accessible from both girls' rooms;
• As above, but ensuite is split into two smaller ensuite showers +/or wcs;.
• As above, but ensuite is accessed from DD(3)s new room now instead, and (handy the plumbing is in the right place) DD(13)s larger bedroom, has some of her more generous floorspace transformed into her new personal ensuite (she can be involved in her new bed/bathe ratio, too depending on which she space most values.);
• As above, but DD(13)s current ensuite is no longer connected to anyone's room, but becomes accessible from hall instead, taking pressure off the parent's master ensuite.

OR....

• Office and DD(13)'s ensuite remain as they are, but in that case some of her bigger floorspace is trimmed to enlarge adjoining current bedroom of younger DD(3). [As this doesn't involve a bathroom, it might cause least distruption/expense, and if that wall can't come down entirely, it could have a door knocked through to lend walk-in wardrobe or play/study nook etc to creatively even-up DD(3)'s size.]

As an aside,
what are your ceiling heights like... might mezzanine be something to explore, now or in the future?

I'm sure in the end, there will be a practical+harmonious approach.
All the best :-)

Where did you grow up @Clavinova in a castle?!

‘I mean, let's say you phone up to book a room in a hotel, and they say they'll give you an upgrade to the best room with a balcony etc. You arrive, looking forward to the extras, and they tell you they decided another guest could have it.
I suspect most people would feel indignant and feel it had been taken away.’

Do you understand the term ‘false equivalence’? Millions of girls have grown up having to share bathrooms with brothers, sisters and parents, and will go on to share bathrooms with colleagues and in public places with other people, it’s called life, it’s about building resilience and understanding you’re not the single most important person on the planet.

You’ve quite obviously have no idea how the other half lives have you? 😂

Plenty of uni halls or shared housing only have one bathroom, or one proper bathroom and one room toilet and sink. Sharing with strangers coming back drunk on nights out I’m sure is much worse than sharing with a couple of siblings.

Slum like how the other half live eh

Do you actually want advice, OP, or just validation of a decision you have already made? If you do want advice, you might be better off starting a thread with plans.

You have 3 issues:

Juggling the needs and feelings of 5 kids with a huge age range in a blended family without anyone feeling like there is favouritism. They are all at very different stages that are at conflict with their siblings needs when it comes to practical needs.

A house with an unusual, impractical layout that doesn’t suit your needs and makes it somewhat less desirable for a large property - 2 box rooms, a weird shape loft conversion with no bathroom, a downstairs bathroom, only 1 family bathroom on the 2 upper floors shared between 6 bedrooms (if you get rid of the en suite).

You are about to spend a lot of money on knocking down walls and new bathrooms that may devalue your property.

As you haven’t given us much to go on and we don’t know the layout, my suggestions to balance those things would be:

Go ahead with your plans but make the downstairs bathroom refurbishment really special and keep it for the 2 teenage girls to share eg a whirlpool bath, waterfall shower head, fancy make up storage, dimmable colour change lighting. Make it something more desirable than the en suite. Call it a spa room 😂

Leave things as they are. Move the 2 boys into the box rooms, the toddler into one of the medium bedrooms so she has her own play space, use the other medium room as a play space for the boys. Use the family room as a socialising/chill space for the older kids without toys. The boys are young enough that their own playroom is probably more appealing than a big bedroom of their own. Swap the toddler and your older son when he gets to secondary school and their needs have changed. If they know the future plan now, it won’t feel like you are taking something away.

Or as above but use the box rooms for the 2 youngest kids, the family room as a playroom so you can supervise, the upstairs medium bedroom as a chill/TV/gaming space for the older kids, if the 9YO is outgrowing toys already.

I think there has to be some sort of exclusion zone around the teenage girl when she has her period 😂 I’m surprised some of these posters haven’t berated the OP for not buying her daughter her own house.

I don't think youvshould let a 13year old dictate anything is what you are saying here isn't it?

Yes, it's unreasonable. She has had to share her space for pretty much all her life. Your other children, no matter how small it might be, still have their own private space. She is a teenager and NEEDS privacy. You would be extremely unreasonable to do something like this, and I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time your DD is old enough to move out, she chooses to cut all contact with you for clearly favouring her siblings.

You seem to have plenty of bathroom for all. If the three year old deserves a better bedroom then yes, I think the 13 year old will have to give up an ensuite. We don't always get what we want.

This is satire right?

You are not being unreasonable.

The welfare of the whole family means sometimes making unpopular decisions.

Hi op,

taking out the ensuite will devalue your house and in term of space not add sooo sooo much. At 13, I would let her keep the ensuite if possible.

what about instead of that you get an architect in and see what he can propose to get space in tiny bedroom for clothes and a place to sleep. They can do miracles really…

I think a 13 year old should be able to keep her ensuite for everyone's benefit. I think most parents of a 13 year old girl would agree.

She has her own, good sized bedroom. She has privacy.
When she uses one of the multitude of bathrooms/shower rooms available to her, she will lock the door and have privacy.

At the moment she is the only child with an en suite. So why do you think she's the least favoured?

@jennikr

I think “most” is a stretch. I find it quite boggling that people would allow a teenager to dictate household goings on in this way, as do a fair few others

The en suite obsession today is really odd.
I live in a house built in the 80s. None of the houses on this estate had en suites. The larger ones had a downstairs toilet.

I have a four double bedroomed house with an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs toilet.
Some people in this design of house have moved a wall to make the master bedroom larger and have an en suite. Those three bedroomed houses are now worth more than the four bedroomed originals. Which I find bizarre. Identical houses but with one bedroom less.

Seems as though 13yr old always gets the bottom of the barrel to me

I have so many thoughts on this...

1. Kids don't need en-suites. No one NEEDS an en-suite. They're a luxury.
2. The 3-year old won't be hanging out in his room on his own for years, and has access to a playroom.
3. I would keep things exactly as they are, but not because I'm afraid of upsetting a 13-year old girl. If the space was really needed, she'd have to give it up. But it isn't. As others have said, the downstairs playroom can be converted to a bedroom once the 3-year old needs the space, because no-one will be playing then. When that happens, I'd make his boxroom a gaming den. Husband would retain the office because home offices are useful.
4. I do understand why the 13-year old is aggrieved, and she's right to be. She's done her years of compromising, and must feel it's always been her that has to 'give'. If there really wasn't space I'd still do it, but with way more empathy than the OP is showing. However, as everyone currently has a space to sleep and socialise...
5. OP won't listen to any of this because she wants the answer to be, tell me I'm right to take the en-suite from the teenager.

@HereintheloveofChristIstand

eh?? So Op should have thought twice about a second child as it might mean her first born can no longer have an en suite?? You do realise vast majority of teens don’t have their own bathroom, it doesn’t make them deprived