To knock through or not - toilet & bathroom

[waitandseepudding]

So, the builder is coming on Monday and I thought I'd made a decision but I'm having second thoughts.

We currently have a 1950s built house with separate loo and room with sink and bath. The upstairs of the house is badly laid out with a lot of wasted space but unfortunately not in the right place to be able to utilise it for the bathroom.

We have the doors to the loo, bathroom and master bedroom forming a U shape (door frames butting each other), the toilet door opens outwards onto landing and I'm worried about knocking someone out on my way out and can't be re-hinged as there's not enough room to open it into. It's just all a bit cramped. (Hard to explain)

My thought was to take one of the doors out of the equation (the toilet door) by creating this L shape. But... the resulting space leaves us with only one layout option and not much more room to move.

We have two DDs (5yo & 9mo). So, do we just refit the two rooms adding a sink and (much needed heater) to the toilet, choosing more space efficient fittings, or, do we knock the wall down?

It's not our forever house, and we've lived with it for > 6 years, so I guess I'm asking (partly) which is the more sale-able option (though I doubt we'd move for at least another 4 yrs).

Any other suggestions welcome, though we're not made of money!
thanks

It's handy to have a separate loo, but given the door situation and the fact that most modern bathrooms amalgamate them, I think I'd go for knocking down the wall.

Any room for a downstairs loo under the stairs? It's good to have one if possible.

I'd knock through too.
Much easier and nicer to have a loo in the bathroom when you have young DCs, also not so lovely to have a separate loo on its own with no basin...

No Ultra, it's the only loo unfortunately, I keep wondering if we could squeeze one in somewhere but alas not. Under the stairs is off the kitchen and there's no head height.

if it's the only loo in the house, I would keep it separate. It can be very inconvenient when someone is hogging using the bathroom; or indeed the WC.

Really try to keep it separate if it's the only loo. Maybe your builder can come up with a way of doing it so eg a space saving handwash basin can be put in with the loo (which sounds like it needs to be space saving design too).

Good luck.

I prefer the loo in the bathroom, but thats personal preference.
What I can't stand is no sink in the loo - the benifit of having a seperate loo is lost if you still need to access the bathroom someone else is hogging to wash your hands.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Different builder arrived today, he'd done exactly the same project in a similar house earlier in the year so had some suggestions. (Wall taken out in that one). He showed me the video on his phone and it looked good.

I'd keep them separate but the doors really annoy me and if we switched the door to the loo so it opened inwards (I thought this wasn't possible), there'd certainly be no room for a basin.

I'll wait for his quote and perhaps see if we can visit the other project for ideas and to get a real impression of size.

I'm rubbish at visioning these things.

Do you live with me? Fairly sure you've just described my house!

I agree with the poster above about the sink in the bathroom, away from the toilet and that is what we have. The wall is coming down next week and will actually improve our layout as well.

Our builder is managing to squeeze a tiny cloakroom into a useless mini pantry and the under stairs space. If there is really no where and you want to keep a seperate loo would bifold doors to the toilet and bathroom improve landing dynamics?

We have the same problem. When we first bought our place we thought we would keep them separate as no other loo so lived with it for a while then decided the bathroom was just tooooooo small so knocked through - did it ourselves (free) and paid for a plasterer to go across both ceilings. DH blocked up the loo door himself with plasterboard and again had the plaster go over it. The hall is more spacious and the bathroom is now waiting for a total refit. Just wish I could squeeze in another loo somewhere, though I must say it hasn't been the issue I thought it might be.

We knocked through and turned the old loo into a huge walk in shower. Best thing in the whole house!

grumpy unless you're my dh I don't think so! FIL insists bi-fold doors are a pita!

fussy, we'd do the knocking through ourselves but the toilet is on the wall that needs to come out and in the interests of speed and convenience it's better the pro does it!

lucid

We kept ours separate. We have two young dc under three and it's fine plus cheaper to keep the wall. Don't have the door issue though!

We also squeezed in a sink into the toilet. The room is small - about 1m wide by 2m long.