Where would you put a fourth bedroom?

[Elisheva]

I live in a small three bed Edwardian terrace. I have three dc and although I was sort of hoping the the oldest would leave home before the youngest needed her own room that was never really going to happen!
So I need to create a fourth bedroom.
Options:

1. Partition the largest bedroom. This would be difficult because of where the door is and the large window across the front wall. Would end up with two tiny rooms, approx 6’ x 7’.
2. Bathroom is currently downstairs. Move it upstairs, which would make the middle sized room in to a box room, and put the bedroom where the current bathroom is.
3. Turn the front room into a bedroom. Currently the front room/dining room are knocked through. This means we’d be left with just one small room downstairs which wouldn’t be big enough for both a table and sofa.
4. Put a sofa bed in the front room and I keep my clothes etc. in the bedroom, but sleep downstairs. Possibly I could create a sort of separate storage ‘room’ for my stuff so the bedroom would be entirely dc’s.

I can’t afford an attic conversion or an extension. I think the front room would be the easiest and cheapest, but where would we eat?
Has anyone done anything similar?

If the bedrooms have high ceilings, I’d partition the front bedroom with bunks like the picture from @Chewbecca. there is a UK company that sells the bunks and they are easy to remove if circumstances change.

if that isn’t possible, then see if partitioning off the front half of the lounge works. That depends on exactly where the bathroom is right now.

Dividing Bedroom 1 could give you two bedrooms much bigger than your first post suggests. You could create a tiny hall where the door is which has two doors, one into each bedroom and divide the room so that each has a window. I think that makes the room on the left about 8x8 and the room with the chimney breast about 11 x 6.

Do you have a garden? Perhaps a garden room might work for the 18 year old if they want more independence? Cheaper than an extension

My cousin did this. A garden room for the oldest boy.

It has worked brilliantly for them.

Sounds to me like it would be the thing that makes your money go furthest.

She has 30,000.

That s not nothing and would def cover a garden room.

Would it be feasible to remove the wall between bedroom 1 and 2, and then repartition so that you have three equal sized rooms for the kids? Bedroom 3 is then yours.

Although the rooms will be a bit smaller, I think that would leave enough of your budget for some space saving furniture….

OP, below is a link to the UK Tiny Homes that you can explore and definitely within your budget. Amazon has a lot of high ratings on these, and they keep coming out with more and more models, as they're stand-alone if you fit within the dimensions typically under 19.8m long and 6.7m wide. They are prefab, so it's possible to move them once you no longer have a necessity for one.

UK Amazon Tiny Homes

Bedroom 1 is a decent sized and could be split using the bunk bed idea.

https://funkybunkbeds.com/product/room-divider-bunk-bed/

Then the 2 boys share as they well share a first. But the problem is the windows are off centre so one works end up with a much larger room than the other (the smaller might be too small and not be feasible).

I’m assuming you are and your daughter are sharing the bigger room? Then a temporary partition starting from the window and moving towards the door. Attached a very bad picture.

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But why is DS’s “need” for his own space greater than yours or DD’s? The boys have had a turn of their own rooms for a while, they need to share so that you and DD can have your own space. DS may not be leaving home but might he be leaving part time to study?

Sharing and bunkbeds is what would happen in most families with more children than bedrooms and its something which is regarded as normal by the world outside of MN.

These are amazing! But I have nowhere to put one.

It’s not, but if I can find a way for everyone to have some space then that is what I’m going to do. DS is not going to university.

I’m wondering if I could steal a small chunk of the middle room to make a hallway for the doors to the split room.

That would probably work. Though is a more permanent change rather than a ‘temporary’ stud wall that could be removed relatively easily for when you only need 3 rooms again (or want to sell).

A builder should be able to give you quotes for both and you can then weigh up the pros and cons.

If the windows are correct on the plans partitioning the large bedroom will be tricky

I’d probably replace the corridor at ground floor adjacent the dining room, put the wall back to make this a seperate room again and make the dining room a bedroom.

This is what I’d do. Both rooms are a perfectly decent size and minimal building work/ expense. I would take out the chimney breast though to make the most of the space.

I’d estimate the rooms in the plan above would be about 6 x 11 foot (the long room to the right) and about 7.5 x 7.5 feet (the square room on the left). Basically fine for single rooms. And some additional storage on the landing if needed.

If I was in your situation, I'd go with option 3 (turn the front lounge into a bedroom) by creating a stud wall that runs parallel with the current dividing wall.

That would be the quickest and cheapest solution. You'd still have one shared living / eating space and everyone should also have their own private space (with you getting the big bedroom upstairs).

Depending on where you are in the country, this might not negatively impact your potential sale price (if / when the time comes) as BTL crowd around us would see this as perfectly acceptable to market as a 4-bed.

I definitely wouldn't move the bathroom. Very disruptive and fraught with potential problems.

Keep as much of your £30k towards a potential house move in the future.

I’d wondered about taking out the chimney breast as that would make it a much more usable space. But I thought it was a very expensive and messy process?

I’m never going to be able to afford a house move, so we need to make the best of what we have!
We’re going to swap our ‘living’ and ‘dining’ rooms over this weekend to see if it is realistic to have just one downstairs room, with the plan to put in a stud wall that runs across from the edge of the chimney breast.

I think it depends on the chimney! I’m assuming you don’t have an open fire or anything downstairs? I think it would cost a few grand to have it removed and you might need to take the actual chimney off the roof (or sure it up from beneath), but I think it would be less than moving a bathroom and changing plumbing. Especially if you do a bit of decoration yourself. It might be worth getting a couple of quotes depending on how your experiment goes this weekend.

Our chimney breast removal and stud wall, creating a second doorway, plastering and making good skirting etc (when dividing the middle bedroom to put in an upstairs shower room) was around £3k, 5 years ago. It was all done properly with sign off from local council etc to say the correct supports where in place in loft for the chimney etc.
However if it is an adjoining wall with neighbours you'll need to go down the party wall route which will add costs.
It was very dusty/sooty despite not having been used for decades, but the builders did keep spread to a minimum.