Converting small bedroom into an en suite

[QueenBing]

I have a 4 bedroom house with a bathroom upstairs and a separate toilet downstairs in the utility room. The bedrooms are all decent sizes; 3 are double bedrooms and 1 is a single bedroom. I’m thinking about knocking through from a double bedroom into the single room to create an en suite and dressing area. Most new builds have an en suite master bedroom so that’s what I’d be competing with when I come to sell, however my house is a 1960s semi with large, spacious rooms and I don’t know if I’d be massively devaluing the house by sacrificing a bedroom for an en suite. It would be much more practical as a family home with an en suite (I have DD14 and DS12 so not moving for a good 8-10 years). When I bought the house, the garage had been converted into a separate lounge but for some reason it couldn’t be classed as an extra bedroom because of building regs. This is something I need to look into because if this room could be classed as another bedroom I would still be able to sell as a 4 bed with 2 bathrooms and 1 WC. So would the en suite be a decent idea or just a waste of monet?

I think ultimately you need to choose what works best with your own family, considering this is your medium - long term home. If you want to sell in 10-plus years’ time, you’ll have a whole lot of equity in your home as it is, basing things on whether you could possibly get X then if you added or removed Y now seems a bit cart ahead of horse. Having a home which you love and where you feel comfortable should be the goal.

Worth keeping in mind that building regs or not, a lot of young families in particular won’t consider a downstairs bedroom to be a proper bedroom, so don’t make a decision thinking that getting sign off for the garage conversion will create an extra saleable bedroom.

Is the room you want to convert near to the existing bathroom? The soil pipe is going to be the complicating factor (I believe they need planning permission) and I think it would be less of a headache if your soil pipe is close at hand.

We have a 4 bed (one ensuite) and when the children lived at home used 3 bedrooms as bedrooms with the single room as the office. Having 2 showers was brilliant in the teenage years! As your bedrooms are probably much bigger than new build bedrooms I think having 3 doubles won't be a problem when you eventually come to sell - you might convert your loft to give a 4th or see if you can create an extra bedroom (perhaps also with a small ensuite) in the converted garage by bringing it up to spec.

Oh and having a 2nd bathroom is really useful when you need to do any work in the other bathroom! Good luck!

Do you want an en suite? If yes then do it if no then don’t. Use the room in your house the best way for you. Especially if you’re not moving for 10 years.

By the time I sell, the mortgage will either be fully paid off or will have a year or two remaining on the term so I’d like to be able to move with as much money behind me as possible. I just don’t want the value of the house to be affected in a negative way.

Is the room you want to convert near to the existing bathroom? The soil pipe is going to be the complicating factor (I believe they need planning permission) and I think it would be less of a headache if your soil pipe is close at hand

Yes, this is the starting place.

The room I want to convert is on the front of the house, the bathrooms are on the back of the house (main bathroom and toilet) so I’m assuming the soil pipe is on that side too. It’s as my kids are getting older that I’m realising how useful a second bathroom would be, especially when DP stays over and there are 4 of us wanting showers!
There’s scope to separate one of the double bedrooms into 2 single rooms, a neighbour has done that and it looks great. Converting the loft isn’t really an option, you can only stand up in the middle of it but it’s carpeted out with spotlights in the roof and we have loft ladders but it just doesn’t really get used for anything. It could be used as a nice chill out space.

An en suite would be so useful and I would actually love one but not if it would devalue the house. I can cope without one!

This is what I need to have a look at. However, if it’s not an impossible task to get an en suite in and adapt the soil pipe (or whatever you’d do) I think I’d do it and im
pretty sure I’d get planning permission if needed.

Don't know what it's like near you but there's quite a difference between the value of 3 and 4 bed properties here. In 10 years time I expect the price to have risen but not as much as a 4 bedroomed place would have.

we converted our box room into a lovely en-suite. It was at the front of the house and the soil pipe was at the back. I can’t remember how they sorted it but they did. And conn3cted the en-suite to the existing soil pipe. I still miss that en-suite. Our new house the en-suite is much smaller….I don’t like it anywhere near as much.

but at the same time we did a loft conversion. So didn’t lose a bedroom.

thing is if there’s a room in the garage that could be a study or whatever you aren’t losing people who would be using the small bedroom for that. I’d convert it if that’s what you want.

it might be worth posting a floor plan to see if there are other options.

This is my concern. I live in a lovely village very popular with young professional families so a 4 bedroom house is desirable. There are a few new build developments nearby and the 4 bed houses are so expensive!

Yeah I think getting the building regs sorted for the garage conversion will make a huge difference. Like you said, people can then decide what they use the room for (office, bedroom, family room). I think the en suite would be a huge plus for the practicalities of family life.

Losing a bedroom will definitely devalue the house and no, a downstairs room is not a bedroom unless it's a bungalow.

To put a bathroom at the front of the house, you will need to put a soil pipe out roof the front of the house (which could also impact saleability if not house price). You would then need to dig a trench around the house until you can connect into the existing sewage pipes.

The other alternative is a macerator and then you could run a pipe internally but they are very noisy when in use and get jammed up easily and need someone called out to clear any blockages.

Can you add a plan because there might be somewhere more sensible to add an ensuite? Do you want a loo, shower or both?

I appreciate that you don't want to devalue the house, but pretty much any change you make will suit some people and put others off. You will be appealing to a different market, that's all.

Also bear in mind that in 10 years' time the overall picture in your village might be very different. There is likely to be a lot more building of the type of homes that developers are going for now, ie as many bedroom as they can possibly cram into a small footprint. You will have 3 good size bedrooms with the possibility of converting to 2 big and 2 small. Presumably your other rooms are a good size too so I think your house will still be very marketable.

Don't forget that if you lose a bedroom you will likely drop a council tax band.

Not necessarily. It goes on value, so it may or may not fall into a lower band, however, my understanding is that when you already own the property and are wanting it rebanded because of works done the council will only revalue when you sell, not during your tenure.

I'd be inclined to use the loft space, that way you get a master in the loft with an en suite and will have a 5 bed house rather than 3, still be worth more

I think if you house has 3 double bedrooms, and a garage conversion for an office, then it's big enough for a family of 4 with WFH. The ensuite is very useful with teens and that's why all then new builds have so many bathrooms. We have three showers for two teen/tween girls and it's bliss without them fighting over bathroom time.

Is the 4th bedroom like a box room? Or is it a fairly decent size suitable for a family of 5? Personally, I'd prefer two showers with 3 large bedrooms and an office downstairs.

You can put in macerator toilets that use small bore pipes rather than the big soil pipe, not sure how acceptable they are for selling on or how well they work long term, but might be worth considering. Or you might be able to run the soil pipe under the floor if you start with a raised toilet, you don't need a great deal of fall (depending on how the joists run, etc). I don't know what's wrong with a downstairs bedroom particularly for a teen. It's probably insulation and damp proofing you will need to do to get the garage up to spec, or windows. Is there a room above the garage? If so foundations should be OK.

I would rather have a 4 bed and no en suite tbh, I think you could be devaluing your house.
Lots of people need a home office now so would be looking at 4 beds to use bed 4 as the office. Do you have a study downstairs?

It depends if you want to sell in the next 10 years or not I guess, if you don't and an en suite suits your needs more go for it.

Could you add a shower to the utility room instead?

@Acc0untant our house was rebanded when we converted a bedroom to an ensuite. We had been living there for some time.

I was wondering the same thing.

I’d absolutely be looking into what would need to be done with the soil pipe. You probably know already but it’s not just a small pipe (like a water pipe) that you can run through the house, it’s a massive pipe to take all the waste from the toilet away and needs to go into the sewer or connect to an existing soil pipe. If your planned en suite room is far away from the existing loos then this is likely to be possible but is likely to be a big job as you’ll probably need to create a new route to the sewer rather than connecting to the existing pipe. It would probably be much easier to do an extra bathroom close to existing toilets etc. But definitely get a builder to give a view/ estimate for a couple of options.

There’s no way I would use a macerator (which replaces the need for a massive pipe)- I had one once and it was a nightmare. Really noisy and unreliable. Everyone I know has said the same.

I don't feel comfortable for my 13 and 10yo to sleep with a window open downstairs. They are girls so maybe parents of teen boys feel differently.

We did this - in order to get a wheelchair accessible bathroom upstairs (we have a lift). The soil pipe was a very expensive part of the works - it had to go all around the house under the floorboards to avoid an ugly monstrosity on the front of the house.

For us, the work was near essential so we went ahead but I'd get quotes before getting your hopes up - it's more expensive than you might think. It was very easy to get a rough price quote from an architect.