Small ensuite and dressing area, or big luxury ensuite?

[Tanaqui]

I am changing a bedroom into an ensuite bathroom, so it is quite a big space! Would you split it into a small shower room, leaving a dressing area; or make a big luxury ensuite with bath and shower, but a bit of wasted floor space? Thank you!

Depends. What’s your other bathroom like? Do you have good wardrobe space at the moment?

Small ensuite with dressing area.

Provided you already have a bath in your main bathroom, I'd go with small en-suite with a dressing area.

Another vote for a small ensuite with dressing area. We've done something a bit similar - a v small walk-through wardrobe off the bedroom (approx 4' by 8') leading to a v small en suite with walk in shower (also approx 4' by 8'). Tiny but fab, and frees up space in the bedroom as we no longer need a wardrobe.

I would go for a better ensuing unless you need more space in your bedroom.

Oh, thank you- I didn’t expect answers so quickly! Bedroom is decent size, slightly bigger than the bedroom we plan to turn into an ensuite - there is room for wardrobes in there. Family bathroom is small however, with no shower (but we do have a shower downstairs). House is large cottage with low ceilings, beams, etc, if that makes a difference (I think a very modern streamlined style would look odd). Have been living happily without ensuite, but apparently it will help us to sell, so don’t want to just pick what might suit us best iyswim!

I think it really depends on the exact measurements and space available. The bare minimum is having a decent enough shower and enough wardrobe space.

I am going to say the opposite. Small and pokey isn’t a good selling point. We had a medium sized bathroom and a narrow dressing room with a wall of wardrobes. It didn’t work for us.

I now have fitted wardrobes in the bedroom (which is large) a chair and a footstool which gives us a sitting area. It actually feels and looks luxurious.

The en suite is our largest bathroom and has a freestanding bath, large walk in shower, long sink with two taps, loo and a lot of storage. It was the former en suite and dressing area put together. You can happily exist in a small en suite but it’s hardly wow if it’s not much bigger than a cupboard! I love my en suite.

Yes Bubbles, I am wondering if the “wow” factor would help sell. It’s a square room, so dividing would make two thinning rectangles which might not be great either- although there are two windows which would help.

Am studying right move!

I have got a dressing room you walk through to get to the en suite. I love the amount of wardrobe space it gives me - absolutely everything goes in there, including bedding and cases. It means that the bedroom is not cluttered with furniture. But, it was a long rectangular space, (24 feet by 11 feet in total) which leant itself to that design. If your room is square it might be more difficult.

If the dressing area were to be a walk in type of space, you'd need 60cm wardrobes on either side and at least 150cm in the middle so that 2 people can get their clothes and get dressed in there. That's a width of 2.7m. The length would need to be at least 2m so that you actually get 4m of wardrobes there and that's without any make up area or seating. Would that leave enough space for a decent ensuite?

Alternatively, the set up in the picture has been popular recently - that would hopefully allow for a good en suite, possibly with a large vanity for 2 washbasins + make up?

But you really need to start by measuring up and drawing up different options to see what fits.

We've just added a dressing room and ensuite. I have to say I absolutely love having both. We get up at different todo I can turn the light on to do my make up etc. It's been life changing! However I do think both need to be big enough to be useable spaces

If you already have 2 bathrooms then, unless you have loads of bedrooms, stick with a small ensuite.

Though, tbh, unless you do have lots of bedrooms, don't sacrifice one if you're just doing it to sell.

I think a dressing room might be more useful for you now, but the large bathroom is more likely to help sell it. Agree about the 'wow' factor. People like big bathrooms.

Luxury en suite all the way

Luxury en suite. Dressing rooms are a ridiculous thing to have unless it's a really large house and would decrease kerb appeal.

Struggling to see how a dressing room would affect kerb appeal.

If it just for sale then don't bother. Let the buyers do it to their taste.

How many bathrooms do you want to be cleaning? And why can't you get dressed in the bedroom?

I’ve got a big en suite OP. We have our house up for sale and next time I definitely would have a smaller en suite and dressing room.
If the house only has one en suite then I’ll probably make that the guest suite and do without an en suite for us altogether.
Over the years I’ve got sick of hearing DH on the loo...the romantic idea of an en suite disappeared long ago. TMI I know, but there you have it!!

are you adding it to sell, or are you adding to use and then to sell in the future?

You need a bath. If you’re having 2+ bathrooms, there should be a bath. If the option to split the ensuite would mean you can’t put in a bath, don’t do it.

Miaow, we've got a dressing area between the en suite and the bedroom. You get all your stuff nicely organised, there's an ottoman to sit on, a laundry basket, a dressing table where I do my hair, make up and choose jewellery etc. That way, our bedroom is super tidy and lying in bed we see a large painting, flowers etc instead of wardrobes. Much nicer if you've got the space.

we have a dressing area and en suite - I love the dressing area because it means the bathroom isn't directly off the bedroom so if you go to the loo in the middle of the night it doesn't disturb the other person as much.

We don't actually have any cupboards in the dressing room - it's a funny shape and is effectively only full height along one side, the rest the roof slopes and reduces the head height down to a couple of feet, so it's more of a glorified corridor with space for a couple of low cupboards/drawers.

We also have, which I love, the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom is a built in cupboard, and the door into the dressing room is a normal door - so you're not going through cupboards as it looks in the picture somebody posted previously, the cupboard is behind a proper wall with doors rather than just a run of cupboards. However it's great - it acts a another layer of sound insulation between the bathroom and bedroom.

if you didn't want to have the door to the cupboard in your bedroom, you could just have plain wall and then leave a gap that's big enough for a walk in cupboard rather than a full on dressing room to provide separation between the two, have access from between the bedroom and bathroom, so that you can still shut the bedroom door and access both the cupboard and en suite separately. You don't want to be in the position of not being able to get into your cupboards because someone is on the loo or having a shower! Also if you don't have great ventilation then it's not going to be great for storing clothes in case they get damp and mouldy.

The other thing to remember is that you don't always need to have straight walls. In my guest room, the small en suite has a shower at one end, the loo at the other, the sink in the middle. The width at the loo end is wider than the shower end - which is just the width of the shower cubicle. The door is on an angle and then the loo bit has straight walls again - so it doesn't take up too much unnecessary space. If it took a rectangle out that was the width of the loo end, it would be really intrusive - this way, really not too bad. So playing around and putting the shower or bath or a loo area that sticks into a dressing area or the bedroom can help you to play with the space much more effectively than thinking you have to have straight walls.

Thank you- lots to think about! It is mainly to sell Evening- all the similar houses in this price bracket have en suites, so we think it will help sell even if it doesn’t actually add value overall iyswim.

The door can’t go in the middle of cupboards like the pic above (or I would have been tempted to build big cupboards either side but technically in the bedroom so the bed space stays uncluttered, we had that in a previous house and it was fab), because of beans, so you will come in the main door and have bedroom on right, proposed ensuite on left - I will try to do a sketch! Thanks again!