Loft conversion - 1 bedroom/1 big bathroom or 1 bedroom/1 box room/1 toilet

[canadianinldn]

We have a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom semi detached small Victorian terraced house. As the ground floor has a kitchen extension (long kitchen galley), there’s a big bathroom on the first floor on top of the kitchen extension. We are now planning a loft conversion as we need another bedroom/bathroom when we have guests over and if we have kids. Please note I also love my clothes/bags and would like to have a walk in closet one day. The question: 1) loft conversion to be a big bedroom and a big bathroom 2) loft conversion with bedroom, a box room for my walk in closet, a smaller shower room. I am leaning towards 2, but my friends are saying 1 and I don’t understand. Pls give me your advice 🙏🏻 I’ve attached pictures of some possible layouts.

I'd go for whatever you'd make most use of, so sounds like box room for your clothes.

FWIW it's a lot of money to spend just for occasional guests, so perhaps delay until you know whether you will have kids and what you might need then?

You won’t want the children in the loft either. I used to live in a three story Georgian thing with one bedroom and one bathroom on the middle floor and then two bedrooms upstairs. We never touched the two bedrooms upstairs and I had three children.

We would use the loft bedroom as our main bedroom, the box room as my dresser, loft toilet as our toilet. The kids/guests would use the first floor (which has two bedrooms and one bathroom).

I think in this case the big bedroom works best (other options look a bit cramped). Normally I prefer the flexibility of an extra room (office/dressing room/bedroom as needed). I would however avoid an option which leaves the master bedroom with velux windows only. I like rooms you can look outside the window of. I am presuming you plan to put a dormer at the back of the house?

We did a loft conversion in a similar house to yours.

I would go for a smaller bathroom with shower and loo. If you make the bathroom smaller can you fit in cupboards for your clothes in that space? I actually used mine it as a drying space, and I know the people that bought it from us planned a washing machine.

Alternatively, if you don’t have a box room can you put in a ton of wardrobes in the loft bedroom? How often will you have guests? If not often then you would still have access to your stuff the majority of the time. Don’t forget the eaves will be dead space, so make that storage as well.

When we did ours there were a few things I was really glad we did.

We put a skylight in the front roof, and a Juliet balcony at the back. Because of insulation regulations lofts can get rather hot, so we wired in a fan in the bedroom. This meant in heatwaves, front and back windows could be opened for a cross draught.

The final thing we did was put in a bubble skylight at the top of the second set of stairs. The extra light it provided on the first floor landing was lovely.

It was great for visiting family who came from abroad and were with us for minimum 2weeks at a time. We weren’t on top of each other, and the bedroom was big, airy and roomy enough to take a sofa as well as the bed.

I'd do a bigger bathroom where the closet is and then open the bedroom so it's bigger but I don't have a lot of bags and shoes. Focus on what would work best for you.

One thing I'd mention is that if you do have children, you'll probably want some space for the baby to be in your room for a while. The current layout looks a little cramped one you add in a cot, even with the type that clips next to the bed. Also, if the bathroom and kitchen at the back of the house, plumbing might be easier (cheaper) with the bathroom back there.

Such different perspectives!! Thank you for the feedback! Also thinking about whether a 3 bed/2 bath or 4 bed/2 bath would be more attractive sell in the future, which also sways me to having the box room instead of the big bathroom. Feed by Autumn has a loft conversion exactly as this on YouTube.

And yes would be getting an L shaped dormer loft conversion

I think I would go for the bigger room plus separate bathroom. Difficult to tell without sizes but otherwise you have two bedrooms that look really small? The master bedroom in particular looks too small. We live in a similar house although have three bedrooms on the first floor. We are hoping to convert the loft into two small bedrooms and a shower room. But when we sell the house (and when living there ourselves) we will style them as guest room and home office. I think with 2 bedrooms on the first floor you need to have a grander master in the loft. Otherwise, if needed, could you style a first floor bedroom as the master when you come to sell, and have one of the smaller loft rooms as a child's room?