very small single room + decent family bathroom or single room + small family bathroom

[kedy]

here is my dilemma: previous owners of our property made a bad job of creating a small family bathroom in the first floor of the house, which only has a shower but no space for a bathtub. They then created a family bathroom downstairs in the kitchen, which is not nice to say the least...So we would like to open up the kitchen but we will not have a good sized bathroom...Families with small kids, pets etc need bathtubs! Our builder had an idea to take some space (e.g. 50 cm) from adjacent single bedroom (3 m long, 2.06 m wide). But this room is already small. If we take another 50 cm, we will have a room of 3 m long, 1.55 m wide. We can still fit in the single bed and wardrobe and bedside table which is there already. So my question is, if it came to selling this house; would you prefer: big open kitchen, decent family bathroom but very small third bedroom; OR no bathtub, bigger third single bedroom?

Our house was similar ish. We turned the downstairs bathroom into a utility (loo, washing machine, tumble dryer, Belfast sink) and turned bed 5 (single) into a family bathroom, stealing a bit for a wardrobe for the adjacent room.

We have a loft conversion without bathroom but small master with en suite.

Works great for us.

Given your lay out I would make the current downstairs bathroom smaller and turn it into a utility/laundry room with toilet/ sink. Then would definitely steal space to make a workable full bathroom upstairs.

Actually you would have space in that as a utility room for an airer, lazy maid and leave the ironing board up...

Losing the downstairs loo would be a mistake IMHO

In a house that size I would definitely want a downstairs loo. Are you sure you're adding value with the current plans? I think moving the bath upstairs is a good idea, maybe keep the loo, make that room a bit smaller but don't lose it entirely and put the washing machine in there.

Random I was going to suggest making the downstairs bathroom into a utility room (I wouldn’t be without one) but was worried it was a step too far

Depending on size of bedroom 3, you could maybe take enough space for a bath from there instead of ending up with a tiny tiny bedroom 4.

I would also definitely want a downstairs loo in that house.

I do wonder if people have actually done open plan living before embarking on creating it, can be so very noisy and chaotic with younger DC!

Hi everyone, thank you again for your inputs.
@namechangedtoday15 that's an interesting idea! so we take only what we need, not more, hmm..the drawing being 2D is not giving enough info - there is an angle to the roofs of 1st floor bathroom and single room. So unfortunately can't put shower + bathtub that would have been ideal. The only place that a shower would fit would be the entrance.
@RandomMess yes you're right, we were thinking of having a row of long cupboards in the open plan kitchen so we would put the washing machine in there - it is not the most silent solution but had it in our old kitchen and it was the next best thing to a utility room. The layout does look very open plan - but there isn't enough light in the kitchen, the bathroom is blocking the light and the area leading to the garden is kind of too small for a table and it all gets a bit cramped.

In our open plan kitchen/diner/family space we have the TV and sofa in the dark part.

Would you be better off have your kitchen units where the bathroom is currently? Kind of rethinking the space from scratch?

Is the bedroom going to be a spare room or someone’s bedroom?

Couldn’t you take the space from bedroom three rather than four?

We recently had a loft extension in our 3bed. The builders at one point thought they’d need to move a wall of our box room to fit the stairs in (architect cocked up a measurement).

But the builder told us that it might mean the box room technically wouldn’t count as bedroom because it’d be too small. So if we sold the house it’d have to be marketed as a 3bed with ‘study’ or whatever. Which kind of defeated one of the potential future payoffs (increasing the value of the house as it’d be a 4bed).

In the end a stair company managed to fit the stairs in without having to eat into the box room so we didn’t have to explore whether the room size issue was true or a based on heresay!

Something to check though maybe?

*hearsay!

I would build a wall between front room and dining room.

Old dining room would now be kitchen open on to new dining space in old kitchen and on to family space on to the garden.

I would take out downstairs bathroom and then on the RHS I would have a loo under the stairs and a long narrow utility area / storage / laundry.

Would chip minimum out of bed 3 to get a bath upstairs.