How to make this property reach its full potential?

[Queenieoh]

Morning all!
I'm hoping to put an offer on this house for me and my family to live in (DH and two DCs). The current layout has one big pass through bedroom upstairs (which they've marketed as two bedrooms) additional small double and a tiny bathroom. Downstairs there's a bedroom with ensuite near the living room and then a study off the kitchen and utility which again, they've marketed as a bedroom.
The location is great and garden is lovely so we feel that there is potential to improve this floorplan and make it a lovely family home. Ideally we would like to add a principle bedroom and ensuite upstairs, a good size family bathroom and have the children in equal sized rooms.
Any ideas?!

That seems such a bizarre layout for a family home but obviously worked for them.

Do you have a budget for renovation? It would help with suggestions.

It is a weird layout, but location is great and garden is really lovely. We've seen a lot of houses that are great inside but location and garden aren't so good.
Budget would be around £75k all in.

I'm pretty sure this is a chalet style house. For example, it looks like the only windows in Bedroom 2 are rooflights shown on the floor plan as dotted rectangles.

It also looks like the Living Room and Bedroom 3 may be a later extension with a thicker external wall separating them from the rest of the house.

If this is a chalet style house then you won't have a lot of space to do much in the bedrooms upstairs under a sloping roof.

"Ideally we would like to add a principle bedroom and ensuite upstairs, a good size family bathroom and have the children in equal sized rooms."

You're not going to get all that upstairs in a chalet style house underneath sloping roofs.

How many bedrooms are you after?

Bearing in mind how much space you lose with sloping roofs I would suggest the cheapest way may be to use bed 1 and bed 5 as the two DCs rooms. (Bed 4 really does not look like a bedroom and seems to be much more a study as you said.)

Is the existing bathroom not big enough as a "family bathroom"?

I would suggest using Bed 5 as the principal bedroom and then constructing either a family bathroom or a bathroom to be used as your ensuite in what is now bed 2. You obviously won't be able to use the whole space as you will need to leave a passageway to bed 3, unless you use the whole of bed 2 as your ensuite rather than a family bathroom

ps Frankly, I don't really like chalet style homes and, if it were me, I would look to turn it into a proper two storey home.

Sorry - I meant to say, use Bed 3 as the principal bedroom

I guess you might be able to build above the utility - the flat roof looks dodgy as it is

As @Digimoor says maybe over utility I depends on foundations. Your going to struggly with that roof
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145515443#/?channel=RES_BUY

Yes, I think that's the only way to go isn't it? Probably create the same extension over the other side of the house and maybe rejig the rooms downstairs somehow. I think the old budget would be stretched though! Appreciate your feedback all! 🙏

the key is to move the stairs. If you move them to the other side of the hall (so that they rise up from the back of the hallway) and move the front door to where the bay windows are then you can create a hallway to access the bedrooms separately. This would cost less than 75k and leave you money to extend and create an en-suite if you wished. I would then make bedroom 4 into a lovely snug (or office if you need one).

P.s. having seen the link you would need a dormer extension to achieve the corridor to the bedrooms. Personally I would do that the whole way along the front of the property so that you then had room to incorporate a small en-suite into the master.

p.p.s if you don’t need 4 bedrooms at all, then turn the downstairs bedroom into part of the living room by either taking down the wall or putting double doors, you could move the hallway door so you had sight lines from the kitchen (because the stairs would have moved) and change the door for the bathroom so that goes onto the hallway for a more practical downstairs bathroom.

You don't need to move the stairs to put that corridor in upstairs to bedroom 3. It might cause an issue for escape routes for bedroom 2 though so you might need to look at the building regulations for bedrooms?

You’re right but I only realised after seeing the property online that it’s a dormer giving the extra floor space on the landing. I think I would still move the front door to give a better entrance and moving the stairs would mean you could create a sight line through the downstairs rooms if you didn’t need bedroom 4, which would be nice with young kids.

This is real food for thought, thank you! It always seems harder to imagine making the changes when you're emotionally invested in something, doesn't it? Having fresh (and neutral) eyes on it has been very helpful.
@TerrifiedOfNoise The dormer extension seems the most sensible way of doing it. We'd be tempted to keep the downstairs bedroom so we can potentially have doors to the garden. I agree line of sight for little ones is useful, but as they get older having some separate spaces will be good for them (and us) too I think!
Thanks MN! A huge help, as ever.