Location of bedrooms

[Conor]

Hi. We have a dilemma. Currently our design has three bedrooms on our top floor (1.5 story house with basement). It's not quite working as two of the rooms are quite small. We're thinking of having just two bedrooms on top floor (master and a large second room), and the other two on the lower ground floor. We've no issues with this as we've no kids... but concerned about resale. For those with kids, would having a floor separating you and two kids rooms be a turn off for buying a property? We'd prefer to keep the main ground floor living space only.

Reason for this rethink is I'm toying with the idea of making the mezzanine full width across the back of the house, so we'd lose 1.5m off the back bedroom. We really have no need for 4 bedrooms, but we kinda do for valuation and resale. Don't want to make the house my bigger than it is and we're already pushing limits with the planning 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Conor

[Ferdinand]

For some, that would be a usp ?.

 

Can you point us to a plan you have posted?

 

Is there a possibility of reconsidering the roofline?

 

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

Where are you?

Here in the Highlands that would be considered entirely normal.

[Conor]

8 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

For some, that would be a usp ?.

 

Can you point us to a plan you have posted?

 

Is there a possibility of reconsidering the roofline?

 

 

See above edits.

[recoveringbuilder]

That’s what our house is, two upstairs are both the same with dressing room and en-suite and two downstairs, one with en-suite and the other has the main bathroom next to it.

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[Mr Punter]

It is often good to have your own space and some 'adult' space where the kids / teenagers are not TOO close.

 

Same for wrinklies, guests etc.

[Ferdinand]

I thank your idea could work OK.

 

However, looking at the plans, I would say that you can get bigger bedrooms where they are.

 

At present Bed3 and Bed4 are approx 10sqm and 9sqm, plus the roofs are into the roof. Your wet room is 8sqm and your laundry is 3sqm.

Plus there is all that whatever it is around the flue.

 

I would suggest a look at replacing the wet room with a pair of en-suite shower rooms between the 2 beds. 2 sqm or so will be ample for each of those with a nice big shower say 1.2*0.8.

 

Then take the laundry out of where the wet room is now if you need it up there, and that leaves you at least 4sqm to boost each of 3 and 4  by 20-25%. Is that enough? You might even be able to nick a little from the 2.2m wide mezzanine.

 

You would get 2 larger, similar but interestingly different, rooms, with equivalent facilities.

 

 

If that staircase is steeper than 40 degrees, I would nick a foot or two of space and make it less than forty. That is my hobby horse, but you will not regret a relaxed staircase.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Ferdinand

[eandg]

For me it'd depend on the age of the kids - I wouldn't want mines (2 and 4) on a separate floor but as they get older then that might well be advantageous. I'm of the view that you should build a lovely house that works for you and if you do that then there'll be plenty more who it'll also work for if and when you come to sell. And if the alternative is wee bedrooms then as a prospective buyer I'd be thinking it's no different to a Persimmon house. 

[AliG]

I do like the design of the house.

 

I don't think that bedrooms the ground floor are a problem. If you had a young child they could be next to you up stairs and older children could be downstairs.

 

When I was a teenager this was a big positive to the layout of the house my parents bought.

 

I would, however, be worried about losing the TV room downstairs which is a nice feature. I would also be concerned re having the mezzanine all the way across the upper floor. Between this and the vaulted area around the stair, you have already lost around 25 square metres, taking this up to over 30 square metres is a lot of space to waste if it is limited. A big hall is nice, but this may be too much relative to the house. One thing that could work I guess is moving the bedrooms downstairs and making the mezzanine so large that it becomes the TV room, this may or may not work for how you live, it would be noisy and have people travelling through it.

 

As @Ferdinand says though you probably could do better on the upper floor. Bed 3 is shown as 2.45m wide ex the wardrobe. This is just unusable as a double bedroom. By the time a duvet hangs over the side of the bed you would not have much more than a foot down each side. I like the idea of an upstairs laundry, we have one, but personally I would look to move it and put the Bed 3 wardrobe there. Then you have a 3.1m wide room. This would require moving the flue, can it not be horizontal and go out the side rather than up through the house? I have 2 gas fires with horizontal flues, but tbh by the time I had spent money getting the gas supply to them, getting the flues installed etc they were a lot more bother than they were worth. That flue will be very expensive and will need unsightly inspection hatches along its height.

 

I think you could either put the washing machine in the boot room or steal some space off the dressing room if you really want it up the stairs. It also looks like there is a laundry chute down to the boot room so I am a little confused. I like the large bathrooms and would keep them, but the dressing room seems unnecessarily large to me  if you need space for an upstairs laundry. Of course you may have a lot more clothes than I do!

 

Out of curiosity why the feature wall and corridor in the master bedroom? I sometimes see this design when there is a dressing room or ensuite behind it, but this just seems to create a wasted space as these areas are separated by a door.

 

 

[Ferdinand]

Only brief as I am just about to swan off to interact with the savages of Timbucthree, ie Manchester.

 

Looking a bit more widely at the plan, which I really like the feel of - esp. the basement and courtyard which reminds of that very early UK passivehaus under the barn in the Cotswolds from GD, I would perhaps consider some element of interchangeability between top floor beds, guest bed/study, and TV room - such as to support:

 

1 - Kids upstairs now and potentially in the basement later when they start playing trombones or drums needing a bit more freedom. That would be divide up basement, give kids more space, and create parent-snug elsewhere say on GF, but that undermines my point 2 a little.

2 - I like studies to be on the ground floor. I think they (and the TV room) are semi-public spaces and need to be available for visitors rather than locked away. Plus be near the door for callers should there be a home based business. Perhaps studios and writing nooks or craft rooms are different.

3 - Future granny flats etc - which would to my eye naturally fit in the basement.

 

That all depends on which extra items make a TV room for you, and how you will live.

 

Just thoughts.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

Edited June 20, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Declan52]

My youngest does gymnastics at a fairly gd level so a simple walk across the room to turn the light out ends up being a roll and a flip and a loud bang when she lands. If some one would have given us the option of a floor separating us I would have bit your hand of. 

All kids are noisy so a bit of space will be a good thing. 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

My youngest does gymnastics at a fairly gd level so a simple walk across the room to turn the light out ends up being a roll and a flip and a loud bang when she lands. If some one would have given us the option of a floor separating us I would have bit your hand of. 

All kids are noisy so a bit of space will be a good thing. 

2 way light switching would have solved that.

 

Our layout with the stairs in the middle of the house works well, it means our bedroom is one side of the stairwell and our daughters bedroom the other, so well separated from a noise point of view.

[joe90]

14 minutes ago, ProDave said:

If some one would have given us the option of a floor separating us I would have bit your hand of. 

 

My only regret with my new build is that sound transmission between floors is worse than I thought it would be even with 100mm sound insulation in the ceiling void, if I could do it again downstairs I would double the ceiling plasterboard or sound bars or sound block plasterboard.

 

17 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Our layout with the stairs in the middle of the house works well, it means our bedroom is one side of the stairwell and our daughters bedroom the other, so well separated from a noise point of view.

 

Yes, my stairs and landing separate “our” bedroom space from the other two bedrooms/bathroom and it works well.

[Conor]

Thanks everybody, very helpful.

 

A few things that will be changing from that version of the plans:

1. Laundry room is gone, space then available for either bedroom. Chute gone.

2. Fitting washer and drier in to the main bathroom and losing the bath.

3. Stairs being moved over to other side.

4. The downstairs guest bedroom will be a dark, quiet TV room, but with the accessible bathroom staying for future proofing.

5. Considering a full size basement - the cinema room would be a large guest bedroom, we'd fit in another spare room, then rest of footprint would be storage and gym) games area. We won't be building the garage. Rather put that money in to a full sized basement.

 

Because of the area and size of plot, 4 useable bedrooms are essential. Wish we could build a smaller house!

[puntloos]

FWIW I’ve been toying with this whole ‘resaleability’ point, and I do wonder if it is that big of a deal. In particular, sure, doing cool things might turn a few people off, but in general I think you would get within 10% of your target almost regardless what you do in such details. Is 10% really worth not doing the things you want to do?

 

For one, I think ‘number of rooms’ is a really archaic concept, since modern families simply don't have that many kids anymore.

[Ferdinand]

35 minutes ago, puntloos said:

FWIW I’ve been toying with this whole ‘resaleability’ point, and I do wonder if it is that big of a deal. In particular, sure, doing cool things might turn a few people off, but in general I think you would get within 10% of your target almost regardless what you do in such details. Is 10% really worth not doing the things you want to do?

 

For one, I think ‘number of rooms’ is a really archaic concept, since modern families simply don't have that many kids anymore.

 

But we do mainly have parents, changeable requirements, sometimes blended families and boomerang kids. And homeworking.

 

We also move house half as often as 20 years ago, and social care services will be a mess for the next generation .. in all probability. Any ne,w arrangements that come in will take 25 years to bed in.

 

Personally, though single I have a parent living with me in a 50:50 house but  future arrangements I have in mind include a possible girlfriend, possibly with her own kids, or potentially up to 2 .. possibly disabled as we are town centre .. lodgers to keep the 5 bed house used and funded as I eventually retire. And some of these could happen in nearly any order. Or I could move ... or even move and be half here and half somewhere else. Or as a diabetic I hav3 to be resilient to going blind.

 

Most of this was in mind when we bought it 7 years ago.

 

Within that we have to navigate compromises ==> As much flexibility as is reasonably practicable. But just what we do is for each of us to reflect.

 

I find Number of Rooms a more flexible concept than Number of Bedrooms. Mine is huge kitchen plus 2 bathrooms plus a conservatory and integral garage and 6 others which can be anything from lounge to office to bedroom. 

 

Ferdinand

Edited June 26, 2019 by Ferdinand

[scottishjohn]

could also be a positive for older folk  having bedrooms downstairs thinking years in front when they won,t like stairs?

 certainly its in my mind for the new build.

If you still going ICF --then you could have a concrete 2nd floor easily --then noise will never be problem