Creating an ensuite bathroom in spare bedroom?

[Fortunatepiggy]

We have a 3 bed semi. traditional layout family bathroom at top of stairs 2 double bedrooms and a box room. We also have a downstairs bathroom

My parents live far away and come and stay fairly frequently and will do this more now ds has started school. Long term I would like to have a loft conversion and dh and I move up there but in the meantime I want to try and make the layout work better. I would love to put a small ensuite in the spare room so that it's self contained and parents have privacy. They are of the age where they have to get up frequently in the night to use the loo and I know this worries my dm ( doesn't bother us but she thinks it wakes everyone and won't be told!)

So the space in the bedroom would be 170 x 130. Is this big enough to fit in loo sink and small shower unit? If not we could borrow space from the family bathroom which is right next door and needs redoing anyway. The wall between spare room and family bathroom isn't load bearing and could easily come down. I'm thinking as it's next door it would be easy to extend all the services and waste pipes. Our current family bathroom has a bath loo and large sink but I don't think makes the best use of space. Will try and attach diagram later

Any advice / experience of doing this welcomed

Does the current bathroom have a shower? If not, why not install a bath/shower in there?

I can't see how you'd fit a shower but fine for a loo and sink. A shower would be minimum 0.8 square, leaving you less than a metre for a loo and sink, and too tight a square to get into the shower. Fine to chop a bit of existing bathroom though.

Existing bathroom has a shower over bath with a screen

The other thought I had was to make a new door to family bathroom from spare bedroom to make it ensuite and block up landing entrance

That way we could access it when parents not staying via bedroom but would have to use downstairs bathroom when they were here.

Would mean we would lose access to bath as downstairs only shower

Might look a bit odd at top of landing too to have just a wall

Measurements of family bathroom and usable space in spare room combined is about 370 x 170

If you already have two bathrooms, i wouldn't do any more work on this.

Add an additional from bedroom but keep the landing also ( and have locks)

*additional door

If you've already got two bathrooms in a 3 bedroomed house do you really need another one? I wouldn't compromise the space in your second bedroom in order to fit in a tiny en suite. Unless not having an en suite would mean your mother refusing to stay, I wouldn't do it.

Also, it sounds as though your parents are quite elderly. My parents are in their 70s and my dad can no longer manage stairs so we've converted our downstairs study into a spare room and our spare bedroom.has become the study. You need to think about whether your parents will be able to manage stairs for years to come. If not, there's no point in creating a second shower room upstairs.

Firstly where has the 170 x 130 come from? Is there a way that could be changed (eg to 250 x 110 or anything really - just seems odd that you're only just thinking about it but you have definite measurements).

If you can borrow some of the 370cm (not the 170cm) from the family bathroom, that would be fine. We were also in a 3 bed semi before we extended and our family bathroom is now 260 x 170. As long as you can fit a bath on the short side it will still feel fairly spacious.

Remember that as your parents get older a small shower might be difficult for them so I wouldn't cram a tiny one in there. Would a wet room work?

I think it's definitely do able! As a student I had a sort of wet room shower that was small but functional, and my en suite now is about 200 x 150 with shower/toilet/sink and quite a lot of space.

I think it's doable I have tiny bathroom (smaller than my 'box room' but my shower is over the bath... But do you really want to own a 2 bed house with 3 bathrooms?! I think you'd lose alot of value but ofcourse if this is your forever home then this doesn't matter as much :)

It's 3 bedroom we would only lose a bit of the third bedroom

Long term if we do loft conversion we can get 2 more doubles and a bathroom or one big master and a bathroom but we can't afford the 50k to do this yet.

So I thought in the meantime spend 5k on sorting out the bathroom and accommodating parents. As they will be looking after ds in school hols I want them to feel comfortable when staying with us

The length of both family bathroom and proposed space in spare bedroom is 170

The width of family bathroom is 239 and of usable bedroom space 130 but obviously I could apportion these differently by moving wall

Attached a diagram ( not to scale)

What size is the bedroom? Can you move the door lower (as you've drawn it) so you could make the ensuite slightly longer? Then you could make it slightly narrower (width wise) and it wouldn't impinge on bedroom so much.

If you Google Ideal Standard Concept Space there is a brochure you can download which has various layouts with sanitary ware shown to scale - but obviously using their compact range (and associated photos) but its really useful - well I thought it was - to picture various layouts.

You say you have a shower room/toilet downstairs also.

Is there any way you could use one of your downstairs rooms as a temporary bedroom when the folks come to stay? A very good and comfortable sofa bed would be way cheaper and far less disruptive than making a third shower en suite. No stairs to climb either!

Just a suggestion, as I don't know your downstairs layout.

Mmmmm, so if you had your loft conversion with ensuite, you would then have 4 bathrooms? (Lot of cleaning!!)

We have a corner ensuite with a corner shower and the door on the bendy bit, works brilliantly in a small space.

www.thirty6bathrooms.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/THI_Design_ES2_Tech_380x410-2.png Just like this.

It was very simple for the builder to do as well (and not too much tiling.)

Plus the layout keeps your toilet on an outside wall

Ooh that looks perfect doctor!

No room downstairs as bathroom off kitchen

I really want them to have the privacy of their own bathroom from the bedroom so either by making an ensuite as doctor suggested or putting new access to family bathroom from the bedroom

Could you just give them a toilet and sink? Do they need a shower too if space is tight?
Don't try to cram too much into a small space, it ends up looking terrible and being no use to anyone

I'd look at the layout of your bathroom and put a door into the bedroom. We have a jack and Jill off our master ensuite - it works really well. Especially if you have longer term plans to put an ensuite in the loft.

If the sizes and plumbing worked I'd move the bath to the opposite wall, move the sink to the other side of the toilet and put a separate shower unit in the corner opposite the new sink location. Entry door from bedroom between sink and shower - you can get narrower than standard door if needed.

Good ideas on here thanks! I reckon we could afford a loft conversion late next year if circs don't change but I am keen to try and accommodate dps now as they are mid seventies and I worry how much more time we have with them

Also current family bathroom is a state and we also have a leak which is likely to involve ripping it all out anyway