Is a second shower downstairs a big no, even if you really cannot find a place to put one upstairs?

[Pernickety]

I live in a 4 bed semi - 1930s build. It was built as four bedrooms. It's a lovely house. It has one not very large bathroom. There is a toilet downstairs, still sort of out the back, but joined to the house. When we extand the downstairs, we'll make sure we incorporate a better downstairs loo. I'm keen to make the room big enough for a second shower, as we have fairly frequent visitors and two DDs heading towards double figures.

My research leads me to believe that downstairs shower rooms are undesirable and put buyers off.

I've looked at every potential place to fit a shower in upstairs but it's not possible. If we did not have a chimney breast in our bedroom, it would be possible to squeeze a very narrow ensuite in, but the chimney breast can't go anywhere, as we have a fireplace in the living room below. Where do people manage to eek out a space for an ensuite or shower room upstairs? Am I missing something? And if we can't have a 2nd shower upstairs, is it better to not have one at all?

Definitely advantage in a family home, just make sure it"s warm and ventilated.

Better to have a second bathroom/showroom somewhere than not at all.

We have a house exactly like yours and we're planning (long term) to put in a downstairs shower room. We really feel the lack of a proper second loo (have one in the garage!) and it would be useful. Don't think it would put people off - everyone we mention it to says it sounds like a great idea.

Is a two story extension a possibility?

My DH would LOVE a downstairs shower.

We are putting a downstairs shower into our utility room. We have three kids and a tiny upstairs bathroom with no room for a separate shower.

Welll - we have three bathrooms and five bogs in this house. There is also a shower at the back of the utility room. When we bought the house we though "how odd - very strange". When the children were toddler - I could have a quick shower when they watched telly and wasn't far away. I quite like a shower in there in the early mornings when the kitchen is ALL mine.

When dd smashed her leg and was in a wheelchair for 10 weeks and could not get up the stairs and we had to make her a temporary bedroom in the dining room I was v v grateful for a downstairs shower. Without that downstairs shower she would have been the stinkiest 9 year old in South West London.

My parents have a downstairs shower and a third reception they can turn into a bedroom. It will mean they will be able to stay in their house; a house they love. DSS has just had a knee replaced and will have the other replace early next year. Yep, downstairs shwr rooms - worth their weight in gold.

Its funny because I'd have been pre-children but now think they are great.

We have two wet rooms downstairs, a toilets & shower, and a toilet & bath. Upstairs there is a bath, shower and toilet room, but all the downstairs room get just as much use.
You can use downstairs ones when people are asleep, if you're too dirty to go through the house, or if you need to bath someone but keep an eye on the others.
So all in all, a feather in your cap, not a black eye

I had one but it was part of the newish house design. With three boys it was INVALUABLE. Whatever you feel, go for it.

We have a downstairs shower and 2 DD's. We actually made the shower bigger

We bought a house with a downstairs shower which on moving in we discovered didn't work, so the space proved a useful dumping ground for extra storage. We then had the room redone and the shower replaced and it is fabulous, like a power shower but just running off the mains. Only I use it, for washing my hair.

A house should be a home that works for you.

we have a downstairs shower room. it is very useful and my dds use it. really useful. doubles as a downstairs loo and washroom (not the shower cubicle you understand)

It depends where it is. This sounds like a sensible location but my neighbours is off their living room and just feels too random! If we can ever afford it we will turn our downstairs loo into a wet room.

londonmackem, you have just reminded me that we looked round a house once where there was a bathroom (which may have even been the only bathroom in the house) behind a sliding wall off the dining room. It was like you opened the wall up and there it was! Too weird!

Lots of new houses are built with a big enough downstairs loo to incorporate a shower due to legislation about disability! The plumbing is all there if you want to install it. We found out recently when looking at smallish houses weirdly large downstairs loos! Might be more normal in a few years than you think.

Thanks for all the enthusiastic responses. I am now convinced that it will be useful, not weird and maybe even invaluable if I do indeed break a leg.

A two storey extension, I feel, would tower over the garden too much and would make the layout of the upstairs odd. The current layout is great.

Downstairs, the showeroom/loo would be at the back of the house, adjacent to the kitchen 9best make it soundproofed) and accessed though a sort of lobby, beside the backdoor. Its closest room would be our old kitchen, which will be a not very often used dining room, which could be swapped over with the 2nd reception to be more like a guest room, if we came to sell the house.

Oh I'd love a downstairs shower room, ideally one DH could access directly from putting his moutain bike in the garage without having to drop mud through the house after each ride (oh god, we're into muddy mountain biking season again and muddy marks on the stair carpets again )

A second shower room, downstairs or up, will be good when you have teenagers, and as a buyer, I'd like it.

DontmindifIdo - I empathise a lot!

We have 2 upstairs showers with very noisy pumps, that disturb our neighbours and their young children (attached house). As we want to be good neighbours, we don't use them after 9pm. A downstairs shower would be lovely!

As someone who is currently purchasing a house: I'd love a downstairs shower. :) Sadly there is no space for it as the house is currently. Well, there's space, but it'd require a bit of work and I think we'll leave that for when we decide we really need that sort of thing (perhaps when teenagers are in the house!)

you won't have any money then

Dh always used to bang on about how we must organise our building works around getting a second bathroom for when the kids were teens. It hadn't even crossed my mind, but my God, he was right! Now we're right in the thick of the teen years and, to be honest, a third one would be useful at times.

Our extra one is upstairs and I'm not sure I'd fancy traipsing downstairs, probably through the kitchen, to a shower room that would almost certainly be cold and uninviting, but that'd be a worthwhile sacrifice if I didn't have to lug a muddy dog upstairs avoiding my cream carpets!

I am in the minority as I'm not keen on a downstairs bathroom. I'd rather take the space out of the bedrooms upstairs. But then, I don't have DC yet so that may be why my view is different!

If you did want to squeeze one in upstairs, you would probably have to take a chunk out of two bedrooms (ie. take out an internal wall between two bedrooms and put the bathroom straddling where that wall used to be, if that makes sense). Could you consider that? The bathroom could then be accessible from both those 2 bedrooms.

We had a shower room added to a small extension downstairs, with wc, washbasin and shower , and its all at the front door! Colleagues told me I'd never go downstairs to shower, but, my 2 teenage daughters and I shower there every day. Its very powerful since its off the mains, and I love showering there late at night with the lights off and the moonlight from the roof window filtering in. The family bathroom has become dad's shower! You have to think about when you all leave in the morning, we all leave within 15 minutes of each other, so get up around the same time. It only works with 2 showers, and a set of tooth brushes in each place.