Creating an upstairs bathroom in a Victorian terrace without losing bedrooms

[ineedanupstairsbathroom]

We live in a typical Victorian terrace, 3 beds, bathroom is at the back of the ground floor in a single storey extension which completely blocks any change to the kitchen layout, so no making the kitchen flow into the garden, because the bathroom is in the way.

So, thinking about creating a bathroom upstairs. We can't do what some people do and lose a bedroom alas, since we need 3 bedrooms. Loft conversion not (economically) possible as house has London valley roof, loft would need to have mansard roof and sidewalls built, would be prohibitively expensive. The main soil pipe is in the corner between the current smallest bedroom and the back bedroom.

See attached picture. Left hand drawing shows "as-is".

Middle drawing shows what our neighbour has done - drawing by a different estate agent lol, excuse the slight differences - the houses are identical apart from being a mirror image - I have reversed the layout of the neighbours house so it matches ours. Basically, turn around the smallest room and extend into the upstairs toilet, steal some space from the largest room and make the inside space (with no window) into a bathroom.

Right hand drawing shows an alternative idea, removing the need for complex inside plumbing, since the smallest area (for bathroom) has a window and access to outside wall close to the soil stack. Obvious downsides are that the front bedroom is more compromised, and the bedroom in the bottom left is an unusual shape, not helped by the current chimney stack.

Anyone done anything like either of these? Any thoughts? Or do we just have to accept that this house can't do what we need it to? Still dreaming of a knocked through kitchen diner made from the current kitchen and downstairs bathroom, with French windows opening out on to the garden lol!

Have you looked online to see what neighbours have done?

i think B is best.

@Waawo when we did structural renovations, we had about 25 examples we could steal ideas from, via the local planning portal, for other houses on our street.

We have a similar house, but longer, so the back bedroom starts further back, with a bit of hallway before you go in, and the bathroom is on this level, on the left off that hallway.

I'm no architect, but it looks as though your neighbours' stairwell setup is different to yours. Do they have a longer hallway on the first floor?

I'd look again at your ground floor - it might be easier to swap round the kitchen and bathroom, so the bathroom is between the kitchen and the rest of the house. Then it would have a window out onto the side return. Is there any chance of extending the kitchen out a little into the garden?

well, next door house has had the wall between the hall and lounge removed (completely open plan), this means there is space to bring the stairs forward (which they have done) and change their pitch, so yes, the turnaround of the stairs is probably slightly different too

We had a similar house what we did was knock the kitchen into your ground floor bathroom put French windows at the back it was fabulous. We built on top of the single storey extension so the back bedroom became 20 foot about but stole about 6 1/2 as you entered that room on the left with the window at the side to make a bathroom.

Yes this means that you might not be able to do B because your stairs might still be going up where their door into Bed 3 is. You could still do something similar but you’d have to have the door to Bed 3 where the door to your proposed bathroom is, and then make the bathroom shorter and longer and cut into Bed 1.

Unless your neighbour has a macerator toilet this is what I would do- I wouldn’t go for your plan because you’ve got very odd shaped bedrooms and no master bedroom. If you wanted to sell to a couple or older people without kids this could really affect how desirable the house is.

I think C is a good option, but I might make the wall between the two new front bedrooms staggered so that each one has a zone that is wider.

this version has a small bed2 with a decent window and a larger but narrower bed 3. then in the middle you get a space that could be a utility (stacked washer / drier to get them out of your kitchen) or a small home office (desk in a cupboard style).

are the ceiling high or do you have space to go part-way up into the loft? if bed 3 was a teenager, they might love having a mezzanine bed. if you can raise the ceiling just 2ft or 3ft into the loft, that can give a teen a really cool room.

Not sure how the plumbing works on option B, but if you can make it work then thats the most sensible for how your home feels.
I think option C is too much of a compromise with your future house value in mind, and also won't be nice to live with.

Can you share the downstairs floor plan?

My house is exactly same layout as drawing 1. Previous owner took a slice out of the RH side of bedroom 1 - as you look at it - to make the bathroom using existing door, and then put another door in immediately next to it as the new bedroom door.

It makes the bedroom a little bit snug but is definitely worth it for having a bathroom upstairs.

This is the classic terrace headache, the one bathroom stuck in the back extension blocking the kitchen-diner you actually want. I'd gently push back on treating the downstairs one as the problem though. A ground-floor loo or shower is the bit loads of people pay good money to add later, so I'd think twice before designing it out entirely.
If you keep that and add a small shower room upstairs instead, the brief gets a lot easier. You don't need a full family bathroom up there. A compact shower room can often tuck over the stairs bulkhead, or use your option C window-and-soil-stack corner, without carving a bedroom into a weird shape.
What's the ceiling height like on that landing? That usually decides whether the bulkhead idea is a runner.

Thanks for all of your comments. There is no easy answer of course, because without an extension, there's no way to magic the space!

@Melarus mentioned "can you look at the ground floor" - that did set us thinking about the problem statement. We said "need to create an upstairs bathroom" which is a solution not a problem - we don't NEED an upstairs bathroom, we've lived with downstairs here and in the previous house. The REAL problem is "need the current bathroom to not be blocking the kitchen leading into the garden". And we want to create a kitchen/diner. And we currently have a lounge/diner. How many dining spaces does a small terraced house need?

See attached image of the downstairs layout. We're toying with thoughts of reinstating the wall between the lounge and dining areas, and turning the old dining room into a fabulous bathroom - is that a terrible idea?

Not 100% convinced about your dining room idea, but here's what we did. It worked for us because we wanted indoor bike storage, which the space opposite the bathroom is perfect for. But it could also be used for laundry, pantry, linen closet etc.

your kitchen windows are less well placed. If you can move one, you could have whatever width bathroom you like, but that may not be easy.

The door to the side return turns into a window. The wall between kitchen and bathroom goes, with a steel beam in the ceiling. (Of course I don't know if this is possible in your house!)

NB I can't draw doors so you'll just have to imagine those. You'd need a door to the kitchen for fire regs, which is why the blue wall is there.