Would you rather have...

[Karbea]

Help me decide on a couple of design decisions...

1. 5 beds upstairs, 1 or 2 ensuites, family bathroom. Downstairs large lounge, dining room, small loo off hall, kitchen diner with small sofa area, door to medium sized family room with smallish shower room and loo, and study off hall.

Or

2. 5 beds upstairs, 1 used as study, 1 or 2 ensuites, family bathroom. Downstairs large lounge, dining room,, small loo off hall, kitchen diner with small sofa area and then glass bifold doors to large family room with bathroom off family room.

Basically I have a large room off my hall that was used as a bedroom with ensuite, we could split the room 1/3, 2/3 and access the 1/3 from the hall (study) and the rest from the kitchen 2/3 or access the whole thing fom the kitchen. And block up the hall access.

Bathroom could be kept as is, made smaller or removed totally I suppose...

Thoughts????

I'd remove bathroom, turn that into a study (if big enough?) then have downstairs bifold doors to family room, with 5 bedrooms upstairs.

Bathroom with shower downstairs when you already have a small toilet room is overkill for me.

What about a utility room? Could that be incorporated to kitchen? Nice to have somewhere to shove clothes horse, etc.

O I forgot about the utilty room, yes I have one of those off the kitchen. The bathroom wouldn't work as the study as you'd then only be Able to access it from the family room, but we could knock it down and put up a partition to create the study.
The only reason I though to keep the bathroom was in case either of our parents ever need long term care, and then we could use it as a downstairs bedroom so they wouldn't need to walk up stairs.

I was 100% on the study downstairs and the smaller family room, until I spoke to an estate agent yesterday and he said people prefer upstairs home offices and a large family room with bifold doors would be a real wow factor... Now I'm confused!

Have a study downstairs not upstairs you have plenty of space for it downstairs.

Two ensuits is overkill. Have a nice shower, toilet, bath and double sinked bathroom and the same for the ensuite. Downstairs wc is a must.

I think we will probably have two ensuites either way actually, as one will be the one attached to our current bedroom and the other will be attached to our new master bedroom. I think it's nice to have an ensuite for guests.

So it looks like the preference is for a downstairs study and smaller family room??? Funny the estate agent said the opposite

I'd rather have a downstairs study. Would mean I could work and keep an eye on DS ether than having to use dining room as a junk space for all my cables.

Also, we found that it was less social - so we couldn't talk to each other when doing work; and often we put off doing things as we had to go upstairs.

Extra bedroom is surely 'worth' more than an upstairs study though?

The estate agent said if we were ever to sell it he would still market it as a 5 bed but with one currently used as a study, he said he currently had a 5 bed house on his books that had converted one room into a dressing room and said it was still a five bed but one used as a dressing room.

His view was if you were working from home people preferred the quietness upstairs rather than being near the nosy children.

I had thought it should be downstairs but he has confused me :S

Are you particularly thinking of selling? TBH I don't think either is preferable...it would entirely depend on the family what is important. To me downstairs study better...printer/filing cabinet etc to hand easier during the day....I know I would find it a pain to go upstairs each time if I wasn't working but needed something from there.

We will do eventually, so part of what we are doing is to make it as attractive as possible to most people.
It would work either way for us as we don't have children.
But this also means I don't know what people with families prefer - which is why I'm asking you lovely ladies ;)

I must admit to agreeing with the EA
When the children are older, an upstairs study away from the TV is preferable

I would go for the study downstairs. And having a downstairs bathroom next to it could be quite handy too, I wouldn't mind that. As you have said, can be handy for aged relatives, etc. It can also be quite handy to be able to bath the dc downstairs so you can keep an eye on them while cooking/laying table, etc.

discrete I thought that too, I thought if someone had it as a playroom/family room it could be handy for baths whilst cooking dinner or emergency loo runs when potty training etc.
Plus it could if need be, be a bedroom.

Good this is all so much harder than I thought it would be.