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?

The big white pipe is the soil pipe- as others have said you’d either need a new one on the front/ side of the house (and link it to the sewer) or you’d need to link it to the existing soil pipe through the house but this might mean raising the loo, going under floors etc or building a new soil stack going through one of the downstairs rooms.

Pipe image below

I would never buy a house with a macerator toilet - they are gross - constantly getting blocked and expensive to fix.

Personally I would much rather have a home office than an en suite, and a small room would be ideal for that. I see that an extra bathroom is useful for teenagers but it sounds like you have the downstairs space to add one there.

I'd vote for ensuite, would not buy a house without one.

Around here decent 4 beds are highly sought after so they definitely go for a higher price . In saying that it's your family home and you need to live in it. Unless you plan on selling in the immediate future then you need to do what works for you right now you can't be ruled by "what ifs"

Agree with adding shower to utility room. I had a d\s loo installed and added a shower and the washing machine. Smaller house than op with three beds and no separate utility. I have all the showers i need now and retain all the bedrooms. No extension either, used up some of the massive wide dead space in the hallway. Im older now so house is future proofed also.

A 4th room that isn't a bathroom is a lot more flexible than a bathroom!

It can be an office, a gym, a dressing room.

Could you use it as a dressing room for now? You could go really luxe!

The easiest and most reliable way to get an extra loo is to plumb in either above ( which is presumably what has happened with the loo in the utility?) or back to back. So you would take the water through from the existing bathroom and route the soil pipe either directly or into the existing loo. ( a plumber would explain this better). So the ‘en-suite ‘ would be part of whatever bedroom accesses the bathroom most directly.

I have done this and it is not too disruptive. The ‘en-suite’ is long and thin but with a shower blocking one end it’s functionally okay. Do not have a macerator , especially with non adults in the house.

I'm assuming garage is situated exactly below bedrooms here and hoping the utility with loo is next to garage too - ignore comment if not.
Is there any scope, when you convert the garage to comply with building regulations - which I think is the most important job of all to add value - that you can extend at the rear of the garage - so nearer the soil stack than front single bedroom - to also add an ensuite to a bedroom above, as well as add a downstairs shower room or wet room with loo to the garage conversion?
This could then give upstairs en suite plus a very useful downstairs facility that could be used for an elderly relative/as a guest suite etc - I think that could add immense value and saleability appeal to the widest of audiences.