Why is there a window in the cupboard and what would you do with it?

[PaintingOwls]

I am baffled.

Saw this house and there is a window in the cupboard upstairs, you can see it on the floor plan. EA just said that's how the houses were built 🤨

Does anyone have a better explanation? Or any ideas what to do with the space if we did buy it?

Is it a walk-in wardrobe? Hard to tell from the floor plan. If so then surely that’s good to have a bit of extra light in there!

Ours has a window too. Never thought it was weird?!

Perhaps it was meant to be an ensuite but more space was needed for the hall and they’d already built the exterior walls by then?
No idea what to do with it though

Whitefishy

Just a cupboard!

I suppose we could use it as a wardrobe, but I'd worry about condensation etc affecting the clothes?

Could you squeeze a loo in there? I don't mind downstairs bathrooms at all, my old house had one but it is a very long way to go at night when you've got the squits.

TheStakeIsNotThePower

Hahaha, not a bad idea!

I think it might be possible, actually.

suppose we could use it as a wardrobe, but I'd worry about condensation etc affecting the clothes?

Is it double glazed? Old pantries always used to have windows to keep food cool. If it's double glazed, keep it open a crack to ensure good ventilatiom.

Odd layout.

Three bedrooms (and little windowed cupboard off Master Bedroom) upstairs kitchen and bathroom downstairs.

Shoe and accessories cupboard?

Walk in clothes storage - too small to be a dressing room?

I would suspect that that originally wasn't a cupboard or even part of the room, but has been taken from the landing, and that originally you'd approach this window as you walked up the stairs. Does that make any sense?

The kitchen is not upstairs?

Is it a fire escape? I remember years ago when my parents had their loft redone that they had to have a window put in that could open all the way out, they had theirs in a cupboard like that

onalongsabbatical

I would suspect that that originally wasn't a cupboard or even part of the room, but has been taken from the landing, and that originally you'd approach this window as you walked up the stairs.

Ooooh that would make a lot of sense!

My DM had one of those in her house. It was originally a 2 windowed bedroom with an alcove which was over the stairs. The alcove, and the window, were boxed in to make a wardrobe. It was where the cot went, when I was a baby, before it was wardrobed!

I've got a window in my wardrobe. Having a bit of airflow does help keep the stuff fresher.

looking at its position, it might once have been a WC, or designed with that potential. It is almost above the downstairs bathroom, so there will be plumbing below.

I once lived in an Edwardian house where there was a boxroom and a walk-in cupboard upstairs, which we converted to a bathroom and WC. There was already a bathroom and WC at the other end of the house, and a downstairs WC for the domestics off the scullery.

Only when I saw the work being done did I realise the original housebuilders had run the house sewers in the ground past it, and there was even a hundred-year-old vent pipe/soil pipe fixed to the wall, which the new WC was connected to.

Or, it could be there was originally another window directly opposite that cupboard window to allow light into the stairwell. My parents' 1960s house has that same layout upstairs. The window overlooking the stairwell is some kind of plastic, presumably for safety reasons.