Would you rather a ground floor bedroom or an extra living room?

[hiccup88]

We have an extra room on the ground floor that can be used as an additional living room or a bedroom. (See the lower right corner of the attached photo). On the upper floor, we have 3 bedrooms (2 double and 1 single) and a master bathroom.

What would you prefer to use the space for if it was your house?

If I sold this house as a 4 bedroom (3 upstairs), would you consider it so?

It's irritating when these are listed as 4 bed. Why not list as 5 bed and include the living room?!
But some people do, so nothing to lose I guess.
For me, it's a 3 bed then if someone wants to put a bed in any downstairs room that's up to them.
Most houses near us have 3 upstairs then at least 2 downstairs reception rooms often also a study though so I wouldn't be expecting them to be marketed as 4-5 beds

The boot room opens to the side of the property, which allows it access to both the garden and the front of the house. I love this side access and use it every day!

No you can’t market that as a 4 bed. I hate clicking into house listings only to see one of the ‘bedrooms’ is downstairs. It’s a reception room. However, I wouldn’t buy that layout anyway because I’m sick of my own open plan living/kitchen space and wouldn’t buy anything without a door on the kitchen in future.

It would make a good occasional guest room or room for elderly relatives. But I wouldn't want to have to go all the way around the house to get to the loo in the middle of the night. Any chance of a door into the boot room?

I'd probably set it up as a study/playroom/2nd living space with a good quality sofa bed/daybed for guests.

I assume you have a proper bathroom upstairs so the downstairs shower isn't your only bathroom?

I know it's a bit off-topic, but care to share your thoughts on open plan kitchen-dining-living? We haven't pulled the trigger yet and can still make changes!

I'd make it a downstairs bedroom!

3 bedroom
Even with the small shower room downstairs, you only have 1 full size bathroom upstairs. You can’t have 4 bedrooms as it’s off balance

I would use it as a living room or playroom. Your other living space is all open plan so not very big living area if you catering for 4 bedrooms ( ie 5/6 people living there possibly).

I would make sure the utility area fits all laundry stuff also, as open plan kitchen with washing machine or dryer going around is very noisy. And you need coat and shoe storage in there as no hallway?

2 adults + 1 child but might have another child in the next few years. We're a fairly young family but want to future-proof as I don't want to do this over again! haha

A downstairs room is always a reception room. I hate it when I look at 4 bed houses and see that the seller has listed a downstairs room as a bedroom. Of course use the rooms in whatever way you wish, but I'd suspect the majority would not count an additional downstairs room as a bedroom when looking to buy.

I’d want a downstairs loo, love the big boot room.

If you want 3 beds plus study you’d search for a four bed and be very happy to find this.

We’re in the process of having a ground floor bedroom built for a family member with mobility issues. If we ever decide to move, which I doubt, I would expect to list it as a 2nd reception/optional 4th bedroom. I’ve seen that done quite a lot locally and it’s really useful for people searching online for more flexible space or maybe a ground floor bedroom for similar reasons to ours.

Ours has an ensuite as well, but if we were to sell we would take advice on moving the doorway to make it into a general ground floor shower room. I suspect that would attract more potential buyers than a self-contained bedroom/shower room. Although, actually, I’ve spoken to a couple of estate agents recently who said that demand for ground floor bedrooms/annexes is increasing with more multi-generational living these days.

Yes! Very possible to have a door to the boot room from the space in question. It could look something like this:

We have a similar room which was a playroom when the kids were smaller and is now a second living room, handy for when the teens have friends over. It's always had a sofa bed in it and is also used for guests as we don't have a spare room.

I think with open plan living, it's really handy to have another living space.

I know it's a bit off-topic, but care to share your thoughts on open plan kitchen-dining-living? We haven't pulled the trigger yet and can still make changes!

My 2p on this is that open plan is fine when kids are very small and you want to keep an eye on them, but when they get a bit older and all want to be doing different things, it's a nightmare. You might have one trying to do homework on the family PC, one wanting to watch TV/play Xbox and one doing music practice, all in what is effectively the same big room. Being able to shut the door on other activities that are noisy/distracting has always been one of my essential criteria when househunting.

We did something similar to our house and used that room as a playroom with an ikea sofa bed. Now kids are grown up it’s used as a second lounge/tv room. And guest bedroom. It’s great for when visitors stay as they don’t need to come upstairs. Only thing I wish we’d done was shorter access to the downstairs loo/shower as ours is like yours and when my parents got older and were staying in there a closet loo in the middle of the night would have been better.

The living/dining bit being open plan is fine for us but I would much prefer the kitchen to be separate. We do have the living and dining bits divided using a sofa and a sideboard.

I hate not having the separation of cooking smells and kitchen noise from everything else. Having guests for dinner and having the cooking mess on show. Right now I’m sat at the table listening to the dishwasher and there’s no way of making that quieter, I guess you could put yours in the utility but that’s inconvenient for putting dishes away.

Rooms rather than open spaces is also better for managing heat flow and if a fly comes in it’s easier to trap in one room!

It’s not a bedroom. I would feel irritated if I viewed this needing four bedrooms and finding this was one of them.

If you leave this as a reception room then the open plan works great.

I think if you are in process of planning this, I would make sure part of the utility room provides a decent ensuite shower room. Then you've got a downstairs bedroom arrangement that would suit some families perfectly.

Could even push the boat out and have a small kitchenette area too. Then it would open up even more options to include air b and b.