Understairs toilet in open plan layout

[agentscully]

I’d welcome your views on this.

A second toilet would be valuable in our house of 4 but the only place we can have one would be under the stairs.

This would open into our open plan living/kitchen/diner so not much privacy at all.

Having just had family/friends round over christmas i can’t imaging any one of them feeling comfortable going to the loo whilst we’re all hanging around the same area.

So, should i knock this idea on the head? Bearing in mind we can’t have one anywhere else.

Thanks for your help

Guests definitely upstairs, ideally we’d have two loos upstairs and not one downstairs.

What about elderly or disabled guests who can't get upstairs? I can no longer host my parents here as I don't have a toilet my mum can access (she can't do stairs). I really regret that; a downstairs loo would be amazing.

I’m not sure why so many people are bothered about hearing someone else go to the toilet?? Everyone does it , it’s just a natural function…… some people are just weird

My friend has this arrangement and people seem to happily use the loo. I wouldn't want to do anything more than a pee but surely in 99% of cases that's all you are going to use a friends loo for.
You could have the extract fan come on with the light to help mask any noise ?

It's fine, I'm in another country but our downstairs loo is like this, the scale of the house is large so it doesn't bother anyone

We're in a terraced house & have added the under stairs toilet on the lower ground floor - as otherwise it is 2.5 flights of stairs up to the only other toilet. It's not ideal of course, but it works fine. It's good for people with reduced mobility, for DCs coming in from the garden, & more generally it's great having two.

Is the loo space big enough to have

1. Door into sink/ coats area
2. Door into toilet area

If so, you'd have 2 door between living area and toilet.

@CranberryPecan yes i remember the same situation with my grandparents at my parents house. I think it’s just for how we live right now i’d prefer everyone to go upstairs.

@SoSweetAndSalty Good idea!

@S0upertrooper no it’s not, the space is quite small.

Could you change the access so that you access the loo from behind the stairs- so where the line of cupboards are in your pic? You may need to build a false wall under the stairs and have the loo facing you as you walk in, and maybe get a loo with a sink on top?

I wouldn't want guests/strangers (ie trades people) wandering upstairs to use the facilities in my house. I'd rather they used the downstairs cloakroom if they must...even if it was under the stairs in a open plan layout.

At a previous house (a lot larger than our current one) where there was no hallway as such, we installed a cloakroom directly off the kitchen and it was fine. It was at the garden end of the kitchen where we had a sofa, so not near the food prep/cooking/eating area of the space.

When we purchased this house four years ago there was no second toilet, ground floor or otherwise. Although there's only two of us at home we've really missed having a cloakroom on the ground floor and I absolutely can't wait to finally get one installed in the new year. We've actually altered the layout to enable us to fit one in, building a stud wall at one end of the living room to create a new rear hall where the back door is and the cloakroom is based there too.

We'll be adding additional insulation/soundproofing but, tbh, I'm more excited at the prospect of finally having a second toilet again than worried about noises!

This is incorrect.

I’d have the downstairs loo. I wouldn’t want guests traipsing upstairs to use the family bathrooms (partly because they’re often a mess).

How old are your DC? I can see how this works with small children but less so with teens so it may not work in the 10 years plus you stay there. I love open plan but I would always keep one separate room with kids so you can have different spaces when they have mates over / are watching tik toks etc.

@Zonder Sorry my post isn’t very clear. We’ve kept a large front room separate as we know we will want to us it occasionally.

I think we will keep to the plan of having the space as a downstairs loo.

Have been looking at crittal style room divider/wall (for hallway/ open living space) which might give us the best of both worlds.

Thanks for all the replies.

Oh that's good OP.

We have this although our kitchen isn’t open to the double reception and we’ve got a 3rd loo in the shower room in loft conversion.

It’s an absolute god send with potty training toddlers and if you need to go quickly whilst looking after the baby. I don’t regret it for a second! I do always offer guests the option of going upstairs though, it’s about 50:50 those who don’t care versus those that do!