Are these room sizes decent?

[EllisRoses]

Purchasing a 4 bed detached property off plan and I can't get my bearings of room sizes. The lounge seems plenty long enough, maybe slightly concerned about width. I was chatting to my mum about how happy I am to finally have a utility room and she replied it was a tiny one. I've been going off the floor plans and thought it was a pretty generous sized house? For a family of 4 plus a dog I'd hate to feel cramped?

I’m so sorry you feel this way, when you thought you’d found the perfect place and now you are having second thoughts.

But you know, for most people they have to make a compromise somewhere when buying a house. And this place has so many other things going for it which will make it a great place to raise your family.

The rooms aren’t spacious, but if you are smart with the furniture you buy and with some clever storage solutions, you can make it a lovely home. It will be what you make of it. There are so many ideas on the Internet with smart yet stylish storage ideas. I’m also a fan of decluttering as much as possible - even a huge home looks terrible with too much stuff. Simplifying makes life sooooo much easier with kids.

I think a key thing here is that this is a good builder - I grew up in a 4 bed 3 bathroom new build which ticked all the boxes but had small bedrooms and paper walls. The doors were cardboard and my brother and I dented and kicked holes in most of them . I would avoid that type of build like the plague. But a quality new build will be great.

Good luck!

That ‘master’ is a joke. If you allow for a double bed that’s far enough from the en-suite door, it’ll be quite far towards the other wall. Even if you have a divan bed with a wall mounted headboard to save every millimetre, you would only have space for a chest of drawers/dressing table opposite the bed. A wardrobe with sliding doors would be a very tight squeeze and impossible in your bed has a bed frame.
I wouldn’t pay 4-bed money for that house.

So have you only a tiny deposit and hence looking at help to buy? Will you be able to find the difference in 5 years’ time? I wouldn’t bank on selling at a profit as economy isn’t looking great + when potential viewers see that 2 bedrooms are doing the job of 1 just to fit in clothes, the won’t be paying top whack for it.

It's such a shame that people have made you disappointed with your new house before you've even moved in.
I think it will be fine, it's only the master bedroom that isn't spacious, but it's not tiny by any means,, the rest are fine, including the utility room.

Please stop worrying and start looking forward to making it your home, there is plenty of space.

It’s only the master bedroom that’s a tricky size. Personally I’d ask builders not to fit the en suite (put capped-off plumbing in place but not tiled nor bathroom fittings). Then use it as a huge walk-in wardrobe /storage area. You might negotiate a discount or an upgrade somewhere else, because I’d much prefer that to an en suite.

But really it’s a great house, especially for first time buyer!

I agree with @Saz12. The ensuite honestly looks like it was jammed in as an afterthought.
Pro's - 4 bedrooms, good location, gardens, affordable, detached, available, brand new.
Con's - some rooms a bit small.

Seems to me it need not be a show stopper. But the only question you asked was about the room sizes .

We were thinking we could possibly ask the developer rather than small bedroom 4, small master and en-suite to lay it out like this instead. We aren't sure though if we'd lose value doing it this way as you lose a whole bedroom.

Or maybe something like this if we wanted to keep the en-suite..

It is pretty small for a 4 bed- we have an individual non estate new build 3 bed at 147sqm but I know ours is large (the builder tried to get planning for a 4 bed but it was refused, hence being a bigger 3).

It means we have 3 large bedrooms and a large main bathroom. Our smallest bedroom for DD is similar to your Master and wouldn’t have worked for us. It’s barely a double really.

But you’ll certainly be comfortable there as long as you manage expectations about storage.

We have a quite similar house (bought from new) with a very similar lounge layout and size to yours. It's not too small but you'll find you won't be able to move your furniture around too much because of the positioning of the doors and windows in the room. But if you are happy to keep the big furniture (like your sofas) in the same place then that's fined

*fine

With the changed layout I think you’d be losing future buyers and value. Having a walk in wardrobe and en-suite off the master bedroom is quite a luxury and more common in houses with more bedrooms and square footage.

You could presumably do a full row of combined wardrobes / drawers opposite the bed (and not bother with night stands to make access easier to en-suite. Ikea PAX for example means you can increase the height to suit the ceiling and combine both drawers and wardrobe space.

@chloechloe

With the changed layout I think you’d be losing future buyers and value. Having a walk in wardrobe and en-suite off the master bedroom is quite a luxury and more common in houses with more bedrooms and square footage.

You could presumably do a full row of combined wardrobes / drawers opposite the bed (and not bother with night stands to make access easier to en-suite. Ikea PAX for example means you can increase the height to suit the ceiling and combine both drawers and wardrobe space.

If I can fit my king bed and a PAX sliding door wardrobe in I'd be ecstatic! That's the ideal. I can't bloody work out all these measurements without getting confused

Not sure if been said, but ditch the en suite? Another bathroom to clean. You have a downstairs loo.

We have a 4 bed persimmon Roseberry which is 110m2. Its absolutely perfect for the 4 of us we love it! I've put the type so you can Google and see the sizes. We have 3 good sized double bedrooms and a smaller one used as office/spare room. A smaller utility than yours too.

A king size bed is 150cm wide x 200cm long - that's a mattress/divan, no bed frame or headboard.
An ikea Pax wardrobe is 60cm deep (but other brands or made to measure could be narrower).
Bedroom is 3.1m wide.
So you would have 50cm left to walk past/stand in front of the wardrobe and you would need sliding doors. A bit tight but many of us have similar.

You would lose value if you got rid of the 4th bedroom. People on here are being ridiculous. You could totally fit a double bed in there. Not much else, but you could fit a double bed in two or three ways.

It also sounds like you don't need to put a double bed in room 4 as you have two children. So you don't need 4 double bedrooms anyway.

Honestly, people are weird and deeply insensitive on housing threads. I remember trying to buy a house and being almost in tears at one thread (not mine) where people were stating they would NEVER buy a house without a south facing garden and off-road parking. Different worlds these people live in.

Your second idea looks good.

Honestly, I would move in and see how everything fits first, and then decide if any furniture needs changing.

You have the option of putting the wardrobe in the fourth bedroom if it doesn't fit as you'd like at first, and then look at other solutions if needed. You might find it's absolutely fine. Don't do anything drastic at this stage, move in and you might have different ideas altogether.

if you are having trouble visualisations

Get an large a3 piece of paper,

draw in door opening ( eg 80cm door width is a quarter circle of radiis 8 cm)

If the room is 3.21 * by 3.12 then draw a square that is 31.2 cm by 31.2 cm

Cut out bits of paper.* For each piece of your furniture
Eg bed of 1.5 by 2.0 meter is a bit of paper 15 by 20 cm

Lay bits of paper on your room

Measure the gaps. So 5cm paper gap is 50cm, then Put two chairs back to back with a 50cm gap , which is quite fine to get in and out of bed and have a small bedside table for example

I think it would be a brilliant 3-bed with a proper master. The reason the builder makes it a dodgy 4-bed is that they can get more money for it with no furniture and naive buyers not able to see that they can’t fit a wardrobe in the ‘master’.

There’s definitely no space to do the wardrobes around the bed as per your photo.

And I agree that you should just draw everything to scale to help your imagination.

Remember duvets overhanging take up space, as do curtains and radiators.

I think that master bedroom is really tight to put a wardrobe in. I like your idea to talk to the developer to make the ensuite a wardrobe! Get the plumbing and ventilation laid and capped off though so it could be installed later. Also ask for a discount because you would save the en suite fit out costs!

I'd also move the door on bed 4 to the exterior wall so you can put a bed and wardrobe on the long wall, and a chest of drawers or desk as a bedside.

Is there really an exterior door off the upstairs hall?

I’ve about 60cm from side of bed to wardrobe, and it’s absolutely fine. I don’t think 50cm would be problematic (assuming you’re able-bodied...).

My living room is about the same width. It's absolutely fine, doesn't feel narrow in the slightest. Potentially yours might feel narrower because it's longer but there won't be an actual issue with space.

The utility is slightly larger than mine. Mine has a washing machine and dryer (separately) and one cupboard between them. You're not going to be throwing any parties in there but there plenty of space for us to sort the washing and recycling.

Your bedrooms are a bit smaller than ours but I do think ours are really generous for a new build. Bedroom 4 is still significantly bigger than my childhood bedroom (not in a new build, yes people, old houses have small rooms too 😱) and my DH's childhood bedroom wasn't much bigger than a single bed. We both survived 😁

I think drawing out your master bedroom to scale is a good idea. We personally opted for a double bed to give us more space (but we're both quite small and have never had a bigger bad anyway). If space is tight then sliding doors are an option, and Pax do a shallower depth wardrobe option as well. Fwiw, the non sliding doors on a Pax are 50cm.

The walk in wardrobe will make the bedroom tiny op. I’d not do that.

Either keep as is, or loose the en-suite and make that your wardrobe.

get some graph paper and draw it and cut out furniture to scale, you'll get a good idea of the fit. realistically though how much time do you spend in your bedroom? i'm sure you'll be really happy in a lovely, shiny new house