Two bedrooms into one?

[CherryBlossom321]

We live in a four bedroom house, family of four. Currently, one daughter has a double bedroom and the other has a single next door to what is currently used as an office. We recently converted our garage into an extra reception room downstairs, which is large enough to accommodate the things we use in the office. Neither of us work from home; it’s really used for kids homework and occasional study for myself.

My daughter is starting to struggle for space in her room now she’s getting older, and I’m wondering if it would make more sense to knock out the wall between her room and the office (both singles) to create a big bedroom for her, and move the desk and computer into our large second living room downstairs?

Has anybody done something like this? Any regrets? What kind of cost would we be looking at?

If the rooms are next door could you just let her have both. She could use one as a bedroom and one as a study / chill area. Or give her the smallest room as a dressing/storage area to free up floor space in her bedroom?
I don’t know about the cost of knocking the rooms together but suspect it might devalue the house if you come to sell if it goes from 4 to 3 bedrooms.

If it's a modern house it's likely to be a stud wall that can easily be moved. So can you make one room smaller and the other a bit bigger by moving a dividing wall?

Surely just let her use both rooms as she wants? I wouldn’t knock together as will reduce the number of bedrooms and therefore house value

If you're planning to sell soon I wouldn't bother with the hassle and expense of removing the wall then replacing it again to sell.

But if it's your long-term home I do think it's definitely worth doing. You should make the house work to your own needs - decent size rooms for both children.

I like the idea of letting her use both rooms.

I had grand plans to turn our smallest bedroom next to the master into a dressing area with double pocket doors separating the spaces. By keeping the two room separate it gave me far more storage space in each room as I wasn’t losing two walls.

It was also much cheaper and still gives the flexibility of the dressing room being easily turned back into a bedroom if required.

I think we’ll be here for more than another 20 years. It would certainly be an expense saved if we just give her both rooms, maybe one as a dressing room, I like that idea. Thanks.

If you are living there long term, Make changes that suit your family and what they need just now.
You might find the value between having 3 large doubles compared to 2 doubles and 2 singles isn’t huge.
You can put a stud wall back before selling anyway.

We did this last year. Took out the wall between 2 rooms.
One room was the original house and the other part of the extension added later.
So The wall was thick as it was the original gable wall and we had to put 2 concrete beans/lintels in place. Cost us £2000.
We put a cupboard opening into the hall where one of the doors was.
In later years we can put a stud wall in if we want to sell/need the rooms separated.

We bought our house whilst it was still being built, and we had the 2 small bedrooms changed into one larger one, so we have 4 doubles. Don't know what impact it will have should we come to sell , we've been here 25 years and the arrangment has suited us over the years. so if it works for you, go for it.

If you can take a walk down without too much expense then you can put one back in.

I'm a big believer in using your home the way you want it rather than worrying about a future potential sale price.

How old is the house? If it is relatively modern then the floor boards are usually giant chipboard sheets that they just lay over the entire floor and then they put walls up on top. Removing that type of wall is relatively easy but you have to think about the services that run through it so electric cables for sockets/switches and pipes for plumbing for radiators. There will be a gap in the ceiling which will need to be made good. Any builder can do this type of work for you and arrange a plasterer to come in.

You will need a new floor covering again due to the gap and I would leave the original door for the 4th bedroom in place so that it can easily be converted back to a 4 bed should you need to. I would knock it through, more space, more options to move her room round should she want to.

Thinking ahead and age dependent using that downstairs room as a place to have computers for homework is a much safer place than in their bedrooms. Far easier to monitor and cut access to at night when you go up to bed. We have a study downstairs for the children who are now late teens. My friend has an en-suite so never has to leave her bedroom, she needed some painkillers at 2am so had to go downstairs to get some, she realised her 12 year old son was gaming with his mates in his bedroom where his games console was. He had an alarm set every night to wake him up. And no my children couldn't do that because we have the house alarm set on a partial set and if someone goes downstairs the alarm beeps, a lot.

My parents and PIL’s both did this , they knocked through from the biggest bedroom to a small room next door to make a dressing area/overall much bigger bedroom. In both cases it did make the houses harder to sell even though my DF offered to put the wall back. If you don’t plan to move them I think it’s a good idea.

It was built in 2008.

Thank you everyone, I think we’ll get a quote and decide from there. If we do, I think keeping both doors is a good idea so we can always replace if we want to sell in future and it ends up being a limiting factor.