Upstairs bathroom

[Aloya1989]

Hi all! My husband and I recently bought a 3bed mid-terraced Victorian house and it only has a downstairs bathroom off the kitchen as seen in the plans with 3 bedrooms upstairs. We have two kids so we need the 3 bedrooms but want to add an upstairs bathroom but not sure how to do it.. I’m of the opinion that we move the bathroom to the small bedroom and do a loft conversion although I will need to check that it’s not going to cost more that the house is worth since we are only planning to stay here 3-5 years! My husband thinks we should leave downstairs as it is and just add a narrow showeroom in the middle bedroom. My worry is that this will make bedroom 2 feel like a large single as it already has a chimney breast and boiler cupboard not shown on the plans. It will also leave the house with a small showroom (right location but small) and a downstairs bathroom (wrong location but good size!). Anyone resolved this and what were the costs involved??

Thanks in advance

Alla

We moved the bathroom to the bedroom at the back and did the loft

You'll probably be able to fit in a bedroom and an en-suite in the loft space so you go from 3bed with 1 downstairs bathroom to 3 bed 2 bathroom. We even squeezed a study into the eaves in the loft.

I've never done a loft conversion that wasn't worth it in the long run

I did this years and years ago so the costs won't be comparable - so 2010 I think and it was about £55k in London but it will be far more now!

Building costs are very high at the moment.

I would get a few quotes for loft and shower room option and go from there tbh.

I think the shower room would still be useful if a loft room was put in again in the future.

If you're not planning to stay in this house for more than five years I wouldn't bother personally. I think the cost of loft conversion would be prohibitive and losing a double bedroom by doing it the other way would cost you when you come to sell.

Leave the bathroom downstairs whatever you do !!If you can afford to do the loft conversion with an en suite in the loft do it . But you still wouldn’t have a bathroom on the main floor and where would the stairs go ? . Do you need a full shower room or would just a loo and sink be an alternative ? You could get an en suite in the main bedroom perhaps ? The house is well balanced at present but of course you may well be in it for much longer than you plan so price up your options then decide !

Hi guys- thank you that’s really useful to hear what you would do. The second bedroom is long as so it could be subdivided to add a staircase/ showeroom @marymay62 where the door is shown. A shower isn’t necessary but since it’s a long room it could be added to look something like the pic I have attached. It would be more useful to have this than an en-suite as it would be usable and accessible for all but an en-suite would allow us to use the minimum space for an additional bathroom so I will get quotes for that as well. I’m assuming costs will come down to the location of the pipe work which is right at the back!

I wouldn’t bother as you’re not staying that long.

Your house is the exact same layout as mine.

I hated the idea of a downstairs bathroom at first. Was one of the first things I wanted to change.

However, after living here a few months, I grew to love it! The downstairs location means whoever gets up first doesn't wake everyone up, guests don't need to go upstairs to pee, it's easy to get cleaned up after being in the garden, one of us can bathe the kids while the other one cooks and we can still chat through/ be brought glasses of wine 🤣. When the kids are a bit older they can have a bath while I'm in checking distance in the kitchen. It's also great for damage control if there's any leaks or floods.

We've got our washing machine in a cupboard in there too. So really handy for doing laundry when kids are in the bath / putting things straight in the machine.

I'm not actually sure why people in the UK love an upstairs bathroom now.

Disclaimer: we do have an upstairs toilet too though

People love an upstairs bathroom becayse it’s easier to get to from bedrooms instead of traipsing all the way downstairs and through the house for a shower, or if you need thr loo in the middle of the night.

I’m surprised anyone doesn’t know that.

We split our middle bedroom and added a shower room. Love not going downstairs in the middle of the night for a wee. The room is 9'3" x 4'2" (I think!) shower itself is 1100 x 800.
We had to take out the chimney breast in that room, & the bedroom is small (9'3" x 6'8"). However we have a lot of 1930s houses locally which have upstairs bathrooms and a box room (8x6 is common, but we've seen some teeny ones) so it didn't feel out of place for the area.
If we were staying forever I'd have had a massive gorgeous upstairs bathroom but losing a bedroom would cost us £50k+ in house value as there is a big jump from 2 to 3 beds here (although appreciate this is not the case in all areas).
The most important consideration is where your current soil pipe is, it'll be cheaper if you can join on to that. We had to have a new soil pipe, but luckily the main pipe runs next to the flank wall so it wasn't too bad.

I'm keeping my downstairs bathroom too as it's ideal for the dog, I love having a bath, and it's obviously great to have a downstairs loo.

@CatOfTheLand where is the upstairs wc located and did u add it after you moved in?

Cost-wise is a little hard to estimate as it was done before the current prices hikes & FIL very kindly ran the hot & cold pipes & installed part of it for us.
With removing the chimney breast, adding the new soil pipe etc, stud wall and new doorway, the suite, radiator, tiles etc, electrics including an inline fan, replastering the ceiling, tiling (we went for herringbone so it took longer!)... I think it came to about £11k in total?

@AwkwardPaws27 looks fantastic!

Honestly as you're only planning on staying there 3-5 years I don't think you'd get your money back from a loft extension. Also if your area is anything like mine you'll likely have to wait up to a year before a decent construction company can fit you it.
I think I'd probably live in the house as it is for a while before you really decide about adding an extra bathroom anywhere. Loads of people manage to live in a house with only a downstairs bathroom - you may find you just get used to it.
It's bound to be a cheaper option to fit a small shower room to the bed room - perhaps you could investigate removing the chimney breast to get extra space?

I would personally put the bathroom in the third bedroom and turn the downstairs bathroom into a utility but that's not what you want as you'd be left with two bedrooms without the loft conversion.

I think you should either:
Put the bathroom in the third bedroom and do the loft conversion. I think with a loft conversion at the right price and done well, you would get your money back.

Or

Leave the bathroom as it is downstairs.

I don't think chopping the second bedroom up is a good idea at all. If I viewed your house in 5 years and the once double bedroom was now a single, I would notice and it would put me off.

I would keep the downstairs bathroom as it is if you’re only going to be there 3-5 years. It’s not only the cost of labour and materials that are sky-high at the moment, it’s whether you’d be able to find three builders to give you a quote and one of them with availability within the next six months. Especially bearing in mind winter is round the corner and no one is going to want to be doing a loft conversion in winter.

Like @CatOfTheLand, we had a downstairs bathroom for 20 years and it was great for all the reasons she says. I was mostly on my own with the DC so being able to have them in the bath while I was cooking was brilliant! We didn’t have another toilet either.

And we sold our house within 5 days back in May to a young family so they obviously weren’t put off either.

I wouldn’t bother to be honest. I have a downstairs bathroom and it’s not a problem at all, I agree that it’s easier to wash up when coming in from the garden.
Loft conversions put me off a house as they feel claustrophobic unless they have dormer windows rather than velux but then you are creating a difficult to access piece of flat roof.

I see where you would put it - that’s a good place . It would give you one double and two singles I guess - ok for a family? Cheaper than a loft conversion. But I agree with everyone - live in it for a while and see how it goes. I think you will have to anyway as builders are so busy ! Also maybe depends on the kids ages - are you trailing up and downstairs with them to the loo at night ? Or are they teenagers who have long ‘faffy’ showers so no one else can use the loo! It must have been simple in the days of outside loos ( your house would never have had an inside one when built which is why it’s downstairs I guess ) and a chamber pot under the bed, tin bath by the fire . Now there’s an idea .....😂

It might be helpful to add the room sizes (the image is too blurry to read them) - our rear bedroom is larger than yours I think (11'7" x 8'8") so we still have two doubles plus the 9'3" x 6'8" single.

@Bluntness100

People love an upstairs bathroom becayse it’s easier to get to from bedrooms instead of traipsing all the way downstairs and through the house for a shower, or if you need thr loo in the middle of the night.

I’m surprised anyone doesn’t know that.

An upstairs toilet solves the wees in the night problem and I'd rather shower and bath downstairs to keep upstairs cleaner, especially the stairs, and have an extra bedroom upstairs. In previous houses with upstairs bathrooms the sound of the pipes and shower would wake me up.

I also like not having to take as much laundry up and down the stairs. And there's never any wet towels in bedrooms or on beds.

It won't work for everyone, but it works brilliantly for us, and I'm surprised more people aren't open to the idea.

Sorry this is a terrible picture because I'm breastfeeding right now 🤣 so done one handed on phone

Was like it when we moved in but our back bedroom ends at the blue line - so don't have a long corridor - and toilet/sink in in the red box.

If I had your house I'd be tempted to add a shower/toilet in the nook in the second bedroom

I'm really interested in this thread because I've been thinking if we should move our bathroom upstairs to get more living space. But while the children are young I'm finding it really useful as is.

I also like to use bath water for plants so it's saved me carrying buckets of water downstairs too 🤣

Really not for everyone, but I learned to love it quickly and see it as a bonus.

For us, it's made upstairs feel more private when we have guests. I don't have to worry about tidying upstairs or people trying to sneak a peek at bedrooms (unveiling my laundry mountains and unmade beds!) any time they need the toilet. I have VERY nosy relatives though who would go through drawers etc if left to wander 🤣

Very useful for play dates too because I can lock the stair gate if I don't want bedrooms trashed.

Because of the proximity, we can also put the baby's high chair in the shower after he's eaten and hose it off.

Our bathroom acts as a mud room and laundry too because of where it is. We keep the cats' litter tray in there too.

When my DC were little I loved the downstairs bathroom too. I agree that a WC & decent upstairs with or without a shower if it still leaves a decent size bedroom can be an inexpensive solution.

I wouldn't sacrifice the bedroom space for it. Then there's the cost of materials and labour at the minute, plus the lack of builder availability and the fact you're not planning on staying there for long. A lot of mess, hassle and money for something you might enjoy for what, two years, before you move again, and there's no guarantee you'll see the money back on it the way prices currently are.

It's something that comes up on Property Ladder a few times (we rewatched some a few months back). Sarah Beeney said if you can do it without sacrificing bedroom space it's never a bad idea, but that you have to bear in mind that this is a very standard layout in many areas, and it often doesn't put buyers off as much as you might assume it would. At the end of the day, you guys bought it didn't you?