Renovations - downstairs bathroom only and no hallway upstairs.

[Poppie2023]

Hi Mumsnetters,

Help please

Is it possible to get an upstairs bathroom (see floor plan below) that all house members can access independently without going through bedrooms? Has anybody lived in a property like this and managed to do this?

I tend to be drawn to period properties with character, but so far, i've seen quite a few where the only bathroom and toilet in the house seems to be commonly situated downstairs. Upstairs has a third room off a bedroom which people seem to either use as a dresser room, office or on-suite. I know there are period properties with upstairs bathrooms but they just seem few and far between.

Are these period properties worth the compromise?

If you turned the stairs around, then you could make bedroom 2 smaller and create a corridor down to bedroom 3. You could leave bedroom 3 as a bedroom, or turn it into the main bathroom. You would have to see how much this cost as to whether it would work for you; living in it plus resale value, and check the ceiling value of the street.

Thank you @Swifey40. I've been raking my brain for ideas and didn't think of that at all. 🤗

My house is the exact same dimensions. I have winding stairs which has made my bedroom 2 L-shaped. Am assuming this is a terraced house? Bedroom 2 would end up being a box room if you changed stairs around to accommodate a passageway to get to new upstairs bathroom. So effectively 1 and a half bedroom house.

Depending on the location/value of the house, I don’t think it’s going to be worth trying to force a communal upstairs bathroom out of this layout without serious expense and as mentioned before, reducing the size of what are already fairly small rooms.

I would be tempted to turn the dressing room into an en suite, have the back bedroom as master (assuming it’s for a couple or small family), and spend money doing a side return extension downstairs to create a home office space as well as kitchen diner. I’d then only have a cloakroom downstairs too - I think most of the time people rarely use a downstairs shower unless it’s their only option.

My main bathroom is downstairs, albeit immediately at the bottom of the stairs and it's never been an issue. There is also am ensuite upstairs.

Be careful about changing the stairs as it might not meet modern building regs
I’d put a shower room in part of the third bedroom and use the rest of it as an office/dressing room

See the storage cupboard, depending on the floor level and at least 800 wide, I'd pinch a bit of space from both bedrooms either side and turn it into a jack and Jill wetroom. You'd need to pinch a bit more from one side more than the other probably to fit in a loo and that loo might need a macerator/pump to get the waste to wherever it needs to go. Sliding or pocket doors. Look at tiny houses for inspo.
If you have a bit more money then maybe go up into the loft instead. Or just make the downstairs bathroom totally gorgeous.

You can do a "jack & jill" bathroom (like a shared en-suite with two doors) in the space currently labelled "storage"

Edit to add @OttersAreMySpiritAnimal - great minds think alike!