Any ideas to make this floor plan workable for a dog household?

[gimmeabalcony]

This is a beautiful house but it’s “upside down”, so the bedrooms are on the ground floor and the living spaces on floor one.

We have a dog and just trying to figure out how we could remodel to make this work for life with a dog, as currently we wouldn’t be able to let him out without going through a bedroom!

We need to keep 3 of the 4 bedrooms for us and the DC, one bedroom would need to be used as a study, and we’d convert part of the garage into a second study.

Oops now with floor plan!

Is it built on a slope?

Steps from terrace to garden?
go out of the front door?
use the bedroom with garden doors as study + dog room?

Are you sure you don’t come in on the first floor? As I can’t see an entrance on the ground floor that isn’t through a bedroom?
if you mean garden access for the dog - you will have to either sacrifice the third smallest room to be an office with a door to the outside and a dog bed area

or get an outside kennel and run? Dog only comes inside in the evenings?

edited for a spelling mistake

I would put a door to the outside from the smallest room and make that the study/dog day room. The room next to it would work but then one DC gets a tiny room while the other has a big room and you have a suite - that isn’t going to work long term

Presumably the garage is at ground level. Can you secure the front of the house, so the dog can go out of the front door, then round?

Are there no steps down from the terrace?

Sorry I have probably described it badly. Yes the house is built on a slope. So the living areas are on the ground floor and the bedrooms on a “lower ground” floor I suppose.

The dimensions of bed 4 are not large enough for it to be split in any way. Steps down from the terrace would be fine in summer but I’d worry about them being slippery in winter as our dog ages.

We had this. Turned one bedroom into a utility room and built six steps into the garden.

@gimmeabalconyDogs are ok with steps and if he’s that doddery a dog won’t be running around anyway. When they are old they just mooch about. Try non slip steps. Easy enough.

I don’t think the PP was suggesting dividing bedroom 4, just put a desk and a dog bed in it and add a door to the outside? Then it’s the study and the dog day room.

We've seen a few like this recently and also have dogs - it seems like we're forever looking at changing layouts.

I don't like the idea of changing/ losing a whole room for this. To me the easiest solution would be the garage. Even if you had to get a new door with dog panel it's going to be much cheaper and easier than knocking through a wall. And does the dog really want to go down to the lower floor every time it wants to go out?

Outside - non slip steps as previously commented. Or cut away at the bank and provide a slope for the pooch? It could even be on a diagonal to lower the angle and to look nicer (obviously I don't know the external layout there - none of that might be possible!)

I like @Chocolateteabag 's idea. But also, we looked at house just like this when we were looking for a new home. I thought in some ways it would be fine for hosting, for making the most of daylight, etc., but I suspected I would never get used to the lay out.

We have a holiday house with this layout. In fact living area on top floor of three floors (ground, first and second). Dog didn’t care! We didn’t let him out on the terrace but took him for good walks and never had issues. At home we have a big garden and he didn’t play around in it much. Preferred walks and then a sleep in his basket.

Yes this was what I meant - make it the office and dog to garden access point

Where is the front and back door? Surely a Dog Stopper could work.