How much difference does it make to have 2 vs 2.5 vs 3 bathrooms?

[Anonymous]

what would q3 be for 2.5 bathrooms

[Anonymous]

I personally think the ideal is "a toilet for every butt" which would argue for 3.5.

But realistically, I think 3 would be good. One for you, one for the kid(s) and one for guests, which one of the kids could also use most of the time.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 people and 3.5 bathrooms and honestly it’s bliss. Each person has their own bathroom plus there is a main floor powder room. We weren’t looking for a house with this many bathrooms (our last had ONE) but the house that fit in other ways had 3.5 and it’s bathroom paradise.

If you can stretch, do it. if you can’t, maybe just rough it in at this point so you can add it later.

[Anonymous]

4 bedroom 2 bath is fine, 4/2.5 is better.

But if the planned addition includes another bedroom, I think 3 full bathrooms is the minimum I'd look for with 5 bathrooms.

[Anonymous]

Make a rule to have one full private bath to each bedroom

[Anonymous]

In our house of 7 bedrooms We have 7 full baths and 3 half baths . You want the half baths so people don't need to use the full bathroom designated for the bedroom. We also have 2 half bathrooms on the main floor that functions as a family and guest powder room so the kids don't mess up the guest power room. We find this works well for us and there isn't a need to to share bathrooms.

[Anonymous]

In you case I recommend 4 full bathrooms and w half baths

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In you case I recommend 4 full bathrooms and w half baths

one half bath

[Anonymous]

Regarding the question of kids spending more time in the bathroom as they get older, one way to address this is to shift certain activities into bedrooms. Give kids dressing tables and mirrors in their bedrooms, and make it clear the bathroom is just for stuff that requires bathroom plumbing (and not for stuff like blowdrying hair, applying zit cream, experimenting with eye makeup, practicing school photo faces, etc.) and you can absolutely get away with fewer bathrooms than one per person. I have successfully shared a bathroom with a teenage girl by giving her a dressing table and a full length mirror in her bedroom.

[Anonymous]

Our new home has 3.5 bathrooms, with one of the full baths being in the basement (along with a connected bedroom). It is really nice to have that extra bathroom - we have two children so no sharing of bathrooms. We were fortunate that the house came that way. I am not sure how much it would cost to add one from scratch but I doubt you'd regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As with anything else it's a question of cost and priorities and goals. Everyone's money is finite.

People have different goals and priorities. I like travel and savings so allowed for that, not going 100% max loan on house which would have made me feel 'house poor' with lower peace of mind.

Op what is the approx value of the property now? And cost for the addition with no bath? And with one full bath? And with half bath only?

And what is the approx appraised value after the build, with no additional bath? With adding another full bath, or another half bath?

And how long to you expect to hold on to this property before selling it?

Posters may be able to advise what they would do based on those financials.

For your question on space use, we are a family of 3 with 4BR/3BA (and other basement space that could be full BR) and for me personally it is a ton of space. We barely use one BA. But other people are different and have different priorities.

Editing to add, all this space I have and that most posters in this thread described is much more space and BA than many people in the world have, or in the US. Even I walk around IKEA and see small cute apartment showrooms there and that is how many in the world live.

Part of the above "costs" question for your specific property will depend on the costs and setup to add the additional line. (If it were me making the decision I'd definitely want to know the exact quotes. My guess is that the difference between adding the full bath and half bath won't be much, as once you have the additional line, adding tub/shower is minor cost.)

Agree, I would go with full vs half bath. Yes, it’s a luxury to have more than one bathroom for a family, but most of our lives are luxurious in a multitude of other ways- garbage disposals, dishwashers, garages, central air conditioning, etc. Sibling relations will be better with a bathroom for each of them.

[Anonymous]

2.5 is the minimum I'd consider if I was buying a house for a family. Half is downstairs for guests and fulls are upstairs for the family.

[Anonymous]

We have 2.5 and converting the .5 to a full so DH can have his own shower.

[Anonymous]

When we added a second floor with two tweens (boy and girl), we added 4 bedrooms upstairs with two full baths. We also have a full bath in our basement.

As part of the reconfiguration of our main floor, we kept a full bath - which is connected to our family room and makes a decent guest suite. It also came in handy when my kid had surgery and couldn't do stairs for a few weeks. It would have been OK as a half bath, though, but not as nice a suite.

I wouldn't be happy with less than 3 1/2, though. Of course, I grew up in a family with 4 boys in a house with just one full and one half bath. (Unless you count the emergency tree out back - boys! )

[Anonymous]

Do you ever have guests? That's the main reason to add another full.

Otherwise, I would just add a powder room for when you have people over for dinner or whatever. So much easier than needing to tidy up your own bathroom or subject them to the kids.