loft conversion - better to go for 1 bedroom and lge bathroom, or 2 bedrooms with 1 small ensuite?

[abusybee]

we're thinking of doing a loft conversion in a 3 bed victorian terrace. We can have 2 decent sized rooms up there and most people seem to go for one really large bedroom and a big bathroom (about 10ft by 12).

But there is the option of carving out an ensuite shower room from the bigger room and then we could have the 2nd room as an office / guest bedroom.

I'm not too hung up on bathrooms so wouldn't mind this second option and I think it would suit us really well, but I'm not sure whether it would be a problem if we wanted to sell or rent the house out. The only other bathroom on 1st floor is quite small (but does have full size bath with overhead shower). We have a decent downstairs loo too. The existing bedrooms are all decent sized doubles but we have 3 children so potentially the second option allows them to have a room each AND we get an office / guest space.

Any thoughts on either option?

Why not ask an estate agent but I think I would do what suits me best if there wasn't much difference in their advice.

what are you losing space from for stairs etc ? I think 4 good size bedrooms would work better than 5 smaller ones. In a terrace I doubt you'd get much extra £ , shdul you seell, for a 5th unless it is a high demand area like central London.

Ah yes with 5 bedrooms you may be top heavy and not have enough reception romms to balance your house out. good p[oint

We are considering doing our loft (3 bed victorian semi) and I would fancy a huge master suite up there with a luxury bathroom.

How about you make it a definite office, so quite small - potential office or walk in wardrobe when you come to sell????

layout of current house is great for doing the conversion- -why we bought it actually - as stairs just continue up and you don't lose any space at all - feels really natural. And we've upgraded the boiler so no water tanks to deal with.

top heavy I'm not so sure about - Downstairs we have 1 reception, a kitchen, a utility, a downstairs loo and dining room. None are enormous but they aren't small either. And there's potential to go into the side return to make a really decent sized kitchen if you wanted - we might do this eventually if we decide we'll be here for a few more years.

Good idea to ask the dreaded estate agents.

sorry x-posted but MrsSpoon I am also torn with that concept of a haven for us, but with only time for a 2 minute shower then I'm not so sure we'll really use a huge bathroom.

I'm also wondering whether we stay where we are on the 1st floor and put kids up there, but then the thoughts of having a bathroom without universal access to my toothbrush to be used to clean the toilet usually wins out!

LOL, my DH doesn't want to go up to our loft conversion, he likes the bedroom we have but I feel for raising the value of the property that's what I personally would put in our loft even although we won't be using it. Our's is aparently going (if we ever do it) to be a playroom for the kids/guestroom.

Another idea, similar to Cargirl is to do the loft and put the walls up for a bathroom, run the piping whilst the distruption is taking place anyway, have the pipes capped off and hidden (I know you can do this with water pipes but not sure about the waste for the toilet) and use the room as an office meantime, then it can always be converted to a bathroom at a later date either for use or for resale.

Actually just to add to that as I am sounding far too certain about plumbing there, running the pipes is an idea but it would be best to seek advice about this.

Sounds similar to what we have. Got our attic done last year and went for a big bedroomand a smaller office plus a shower room which could have been made ensuite but we decided not as anyone staying in the upstairs room would be up there themselves and have sole use of the shower room anyway. The office is a godsend. Others in this area have gone for the big ensuite and then just had a space for a pc and a desk on the landing. It also looks really good but I like my office/study to hide away all my mess in.

We went for the one large bedroom plus bathroom in our loft.We are up there and it is slightly more peaceful as the boys all now have a bedroom on the middle floor plus their own bathroom.Dh works in a corner of the loft bedroom which is plenty big enough to accomodate this.
If I were considering buying a new house I think 5 beds and one bathroom would put me off tbh,that would feel like a potential for long bathroom queues in the morning.Specially when (eventually)I have 3 teenage boys.(I don't want to breath Lynx while I brush my teeth.)

you cna absolutely lay the pipes and not plumb anything in = that's what we did, so now we just have a lovely big bedroom in the loft now, and where the bathroom could be, is sort of an ensuite study!! we didn't put any walls up

but def could add an ensuite at a later date

think you have to think about what is going to suit your family the best and not think about when it's time to sell, etc etc

thanks for all the replies - mostly what is going round in my head anyway and i can't decide - can one of you just do it and I'll tell the builders this week!

Maybe I'll ask them about costs for laying the plumbing to the second room and capping it off as you've suggested.

sugarfree what we would end up with is:

loft - 1 bedroom with decent ensuite shower room, plus 2nd room we'd use as an office / storage / sofabed for guests

1st floor 3 double bedrooms, 1 small but perfectly formed bathroom (bath and overhead shower)

ground floor rooms as said before including a decent sized loo with sink (room for 2 toothbrushers)

So we'd have 3 loos and 2 showers - would you still be put off by thoughts of queues?

I would definitely go for the two rooms and small ensuite. As long as the 4 main rooms are good size, and it sounds like it, you won't lose any value or affect future selling potential.

We did similar, except without the ensuite in the loft. Our loft is now 2 good-sized rooms (each bigger than the 3rd bedroom we had before). You're lucky in that you won't lose space for the stairs - we had to lose some of the 3rd bedroom. So we now have 2 really good doubles on the 2nd floor as well as a large office space in what was the 3rd bedroom. In the loft we have 2 bedrooms which are each double-sized but with a small element of sloping wall.

Worked great for us - our 3 children now have a really decent bedroom each and the office is a massive bonus, especially since my husband is now mainly home-based with his job.

If you want to sell, you can market the second attic bedroom as a study cum playroom cum guest bedroom, or even say it has potential for a walk-in wardrobe!

Busybee,no,I wouldn't be put off.That sounds ideal

We have one huge room and a bathroom

The biggest benefit is that in the summer you get a through breeze. I have lived in one with two rooms in the roof before and they get very hot.

If I were you I would design it so you could partition off a smaller room in the future if you changed your mind

Personally I'd rather buy somewhere with a big master suite, a romantic hideaway! Seen so many 'top heavy' houses recently which is off putting. Even if you can extend the kitchen a potential buyer might not wish to do that themselves. So if you do go for the two smaller rooms option then I would definitely consider extending the kitchen ASAP.

thanks all for sage words as usual.

Countess do you mean the airfow is worse because the ensuite blocks off the only bit that would be possible to have a completely straight run from front to back of the house - not sure how to say this but i'm pretty sure I know what you mean. If so I hadn't thought of this and with these hot summers is a very good point..... maybe I'll ask about costs to lay plumbing to there to be capped off in addition to making the big bathroom too. They are going to put in some kind of rooflight thing that can open in the middle of the stairwell so that allegedly gives some kind of breeze through too but I think we'll need all the ventilation we can get.

Also countess I am curious if you have created a haven for you and DH up there or if you have stayed on middle floor - I guess it may depend how many children you have.

bed and bath handy for you an dp, child needing more space/freedom. guest room as they always spend ages in bathroom

abb
we sleep up there
we have one dd who sleeps on middle floor
and a giant dog who sleeps downstairs!

what I mean is we have the bathroom to one side, our bedroom is the whole length of the house so we get a through breeze tis lovley

thanks countess. Ours will be a different layout to yours then as we will have one L-shaped room room all across the front (where there is the potential to do the ensuite by chopping off the bit between the stairwell and the front so that would still leave a window towards the back and a velux all in the bedroom bit).

the 2nd bedroom (which could be the big bathroom) is at the back of the house over the back addition and has proper windows to side and back of the house. Maybe ventilation not going to be affected as much then.

Elsieandjoanne - thanks for reminder of the extraordinary time my MIL takes to get ready to do anything....

We're debating a loft conversion or an extensio. Our loft is so hot though, how does that work out?

all our neighbours say it gets roasting in the summer but so does our bedroom on the first floor so I'm hoping it's not much more roasting and they've forgotten that it gets hot everywhere at night!

Our company put in a central opening rooflight over the stairs for extra ventilation and also recommended we went for a window over a juliet balcony as you can leave that partly open all the time if you want (not entirely sure why you could do it with the Juliet window tho?)

I'm sure we'll be going with fans in the height of the summer (or moving the kids up there

Ours is hot too. We have Velux black out blinds which help block the sun and our builder recommended windows on both sides so we could get a through draft. It still gets very warm though