Rotating Staircase

[Ellem86]

I viewed a house this morning which is about ?25k under budget. I absolutely love it but the only problem is that the bathroom is accessed via one of the bedrooms. I've managed to find the floor plans of another house on the same street which has direct access to the bathroom, achieved by rotating the staircase by 180 degrees and creating a hallway through one of the bedrooms. Attached are some floorplans for the house I want to buy and for the other house on the same street. Does anyone have any idea how much rotating a staircase and putting up a stud wall would cost? Are we talking circa ?5k or circa ?25k? Is this a crazy amount of work and would we be better off holding out for a house that has already had this work done? I'm trying to get hold of a builder but would appreciate any input in the meantime!

[EPB]

I'd like to get some idea of the cost, too.

[Jules-and-Boo]

maybe put an ad in the Business section too - you're more likely to get relevant attention

[keano77]

Looking at the second image plans, where the staircase seems to be in the dining room, why not consider instead of reversing the existing staircase put a spiral staircase in the bottom left-hand part of the dining room to open onto your new landling and extend bedroom 2 to 8'10x 11'10long. Should money allow you could even make part of bedroom 2 en suite as you'd be next to the bathroom.

Costs? Spiral staircase, joists repositioned, gas and water pipes diverted possibly, electric wiring diverted possibly, huge gap where existing staircase removed (wall made good, floor made good). New carpet for dining room. En suite? Plus numerous other things that will crop up.

My guess ?25k minimum, allow ?50k but consider added value for future.

Can't think of a simple way to put in a downstairs loo from the plans

[rendelharris]

Could you maybe extend the cupboard under the stairs back to the side wall and install a lavatory and shower in there, knocking through a new doorway for the living room off the entrance hall, and treat your upstairs bathroom as an ensuite? If you Google you can see some amazing solutions for that sort of space. Wouldn't be cheap, particularly with knocking through a new doorway, but I'd imagine a lot less than respositioning the stairs.

[red devil]

What do you mean by ''off the entrance hall'' rendel, the bottom of the staircase?...

[rendelharris]

red devil Wrote:

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> What do you mean by ''off the entrance hall''

> rendel, the bottom of the staircase?...

Yes, assuming there's a doorway's width between the front door and the foot of the stairs - which presumably there is as there's room for the dining room door. In fact that's an odd configuration, isn't it, normally two up two downs like that have the reception room doors both leading off the "hall" (I know it sounds a bit grand for that size space but can't think what else to call it) - maybe if the OP is lucky the original doorway might be there blocked off, which would save a lot of time and money.

ETA whoops my mistake I assumed front door was at foot of the stairs. But my idea could still work, just have through doors at the foot of the staircase and extend the understairs cupboard back to the external wall.

[red devil]

Ok, the problem with that (for me) is that you have to walk through the living room in a diagonal direction (around furniture) in order to get to the dining room/kitchen area. At least with the current layout there is a 'corridor' of clear space that you walk through. Some people don't even like doing that and will build a stud wall to separate the living room and create an entrance hall.

A downstairs loo is always a plus though, so what might be possible is to put in a new staircase with some winders at the bottom, so where the current door to the staircase is, that becomes the first riser/tread of the new stair. This should mean that the current understairs cupboard gets deep enough to house a WC and still keep the existing door between living and dining.

I think it's also worth looking at the possibility of adding an ensuite shower/wet room to the front bedroom by pinching a bit of space from both bedrooms, thus ending up with two ensuite bedrooms. It means losing the existing bedroom built-in cupboards, but they look a bit measly anyway.

I would also check whether in the future a loft extension was possible, if so plan what you do now so that it will incorporate the loft, the main issue being where would the staircase up to the loft go?

The main bathroom directly off the rear bedroom is a common problem with these 'two up, two down' houses, ultimately it comes down to the occupier and how they see themselves living there. There usually has to be a compromise of sorts. The current owner obviously didn't mind the compromise of walking through a bedroom to get to the bathroom. If you rotate the staircase you end up with a much smaller second bedroom, in the example shown they ended up with a single bedroom. It was a compromise they were prepared to accept.

Estate agents plans aren't that accurate, the OP would be wise to go back with a tape measure, mark out the corridor (say 800mm clear) and dividing wall (100mm), and see what space would be left for the second bedroom.

The OP needs to decide what is most important to them, but also remember that one day they will have to sell, so best not to come up with a too idiosyncratic solution...

[Huggers]

our house was like this- as were many Victorian houses where a bathroom had been tacked onto the back bedroom.

Originally you walked through quite a big bedroom to a big bathroom.

the doorway to the bedroom was almost as soon as you came off the stairs with very little landing.

Our house has left hand front door and all rooms to right, so we created a new bathroom, much smaller, at the top of the stairs to the right with a corridor to the left of it leading to a back bedroom.

I now rather wish we had made the bathroom even smaller as the bedroom is a bit bottle-neck.

[Ellem86]

Keano - A spiral staircase would save loads of space but I would be concerned about having a spiral staircase as a main staircase for accessibility reasons.

Red Devil and Rendelharris - Thank you both for your input. The estate agent's plans are not that accurate and do not show that there is already a winder(ish) staircase in place and there is definitely not enough space for a loo under the stairs. The current owners are elderly and struggling with the stairs. They decided that trying to somehow fit a toilet in under the stairs was too much work and that is one of the reasons they are selling. Re loft extensions, I checked online to see if any other houses on the road have been granted planning permission for loft extensions and can't see that they have been. I suspect that the pitch of the roof is not high enough but it could just be that nobody has been interested in a loft extension so far. It's something I'll definitely ask a builder to look at.

I agree that we have to decide what is most important to us and, for me, having a bathroom with a separate access is very important both now and in the future should we decide to sell up. A second single bedroom is fine with me on the basis that it is intended to be a small child's room and every two bed house we have viewed so far has had one double and one single room.

Huggers - I hadn't considered just moving the bathroom! I think that would be a very good solution, especially if we took out the built in wardrobe in the double room and used all of the cupboard space as part of the bathroom. The main issues would be adding plumbing and having no window in the bathroom (assuming the window would then be in the hallway) but I am sure adding plumbing would cost less than repositioning a staircase and we can come up with a solution to deal with the lack of ventilation.

A builder doing some work had a look at the floorplans and thought it would cost circa ?30k to reposition the staircase and refit the bathroom. A property developer friend thought repositioning the staircase would cost ?10k-?15k. Both estimates were given with the caveat that it could cost more or less depending on the house. Now just trying to line up a builder to come to a second viewing with us during the week to do a proper estimate.

Thank you all for your input.

[red devil]

Ellem86 Wrote:

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> Huggers - I hadn't considered just moving the

> bathroom! I think that would be a very good

> solution, especially if we took out the built in

> wardrobe in the double room and used all of the

> cupboard space as part of the bathroom. The main

> issues would be adding plumbing and having no

> window in the bathroom (assuming the window would

> then be in the hallway) but I am sure adding

> plumbing would cost less than repositioning a

> staircase and we can come up with a solution to

> deal with the lack of ventilation.

Could the bathroom not be relocated in the corner of the plan that has the window looking down the side return?...

[Ellem86]

>

> Could the bathroom not be relocated in the corner

> of the plan that has the window looking down the

> side return?...

I assumed that if the bathroom was located in the corner with the window it would then be too narrow but I think it's worth measuring it on our second viewing.

It's strange how the mind works - the more I have to do mental gymnastics to find a way to change the layout the more I want the bloody house!

[red devil]

The width of the bathroom doesn't have to be constrained by the width of that wall. For example of you extended it by about 300mm you then create a natural 'alcove' along the blank outside wall of the current bathroom, which you could use for floating shelves/built-in cupboards etc for toys, clothes etc...

[Jeremy]

25K sounds a lot, when you consider that you can do a loft conversion for not a lot more (including full staircase, removing of joists/struts, considerable steelwork, plumbing, electrics, etc.).

[Huggers]

stick a window in the ceiling, isn't that where the roof to ceiling relationship is very close? also, yes we gave the bedroom the back window and the bathroom got the window on side return . run the corridor the other side if its the wrong side or add a new small bathroom window- cant be that expensive- in the wall.

[Huggers]

much less than a loft conversion. we did this swap AND a loft conversion. we have two bathrooms now,very useful. the bathroom swap, using existing baths etc buy putting up new partition walls was about three grand.

[Ellem86]

Thanks to everyone for your input.

We went to view the house again yesterday evening and brought a friend who used to be a builder. We took our tape measure with us and were happy with the size of the small bedroom after putting in a small hallway. Also had a look at the neighbouring houses from the garden and a few have put in dorma loft extensions so the pitch of the roof probably isn't that much of an issue.

We're going to put in an offer ?10k below the asking price to take account of the works. Fingers crossed it's accepted!

Huggers, the house is mid- terrace so we would not be able to add a window in any of the side walls. I think there would be drainage issues if we just switched the bedroom and bathroom.