Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to have a full bath on the main floor and as part of a recent renovation we replaced it with a 1/2 bath. We had two upstairs though so hard to say if we would have used it if it was our second bath. In ten years we'd used the shower only once, and mainly used the shower to store stuff. We moved the full bath to the basement, where there had been only a 1/2, and now it gets used quite frequently.

As to the dining room question I guess it depends on your lifestyle. We use ours a lot so we put a priority on a big dining room. In fact cutting the full bath to a half bath on the main floor bought us some space in the DR, which was good.

There isn't anywhere upstairs to add a full bath, even a small one? Our architect was pretty creative about use of space so you may want to consult a professional on this.

We have an excellent architect - although we do not have plans at this stage, we have just discussed it in detail. There's definitely space if we reconfigure the existing layout. We don't want to do that, partly because our house was built in the 1890s and we want to keep some of the original features but also because of financial considerations and because we need to live there during this work. If we put a bathroom in the second floor addition it would significantly reduce the space for the third bedroom and would also be back to back with the existing bathroom which seems strange to me. (Unless we moved the existing bathroom which again, would just increase costs significantly.) This will be a good quality addition rather than a boxy closed in porch with ugly siding (as is common in our neighborhood), but I don't think we will be able to increase the budget and disruption necessary to put another bathroom anywhere else. Unfortunately we can't build on more than 60 percent of our lot, so we don't have the space to increase the size of the proposed addition.

Anonymous wrote:

We lived through a big renovation that included every room in the house (except for the hall bath upstairs, which had been done previously) and it was unpleasant but do-able.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to have a full bath on the main floor and as part of a recent renovation we replaced it with a 1/2 bath. We had two upstairs though so hard to say if we would have used it if it was our second bath. In ten years we'd used the shower only once, and mainly used the shower to store stuff. We moved the full bath to the basement, where there had been only a 1/2, and now it gets used quite frequently.

As to the dining room question I guess it depends on your lifestyle. We use ours a lot so we put a priority on a big dining room. In fact cutting the full bath to a half bath on the main floor bought us some space in the DR, which was good.

There isn't anywhere upstairs to add a full bath, even a small one? Our architect was pretty creative about use of space so you may want to consult a professional on this.

We have an excellent architect - although we do not have plans at this stage, we have just discussed it in detail. There's definitely space if we reconfigure the existing layout. We don't want to do that, partly because our house was built in the 1890s and we want to keep some of the original features but also because of financial considerations and because we need to live there during this work. If we put a bathroom in the second floor addition it would significantly reduce the space for the third bedroom and would also be back to back with the existing bathroom which seems strange to me. (Unless we moved the existing bathroom which again, would just increase costs significantly.) This will be a good quality addition rather than a boxy closed in porch with ugly siding (as is common in our neighborhood), but I don't think we will be able to increase the budget and disruption necessary to put another bathroom anywhere else. Unfortunately we can't build on more than 60 percent of our lot, so we don't have the space to increase the size of the proposed addition.

When you look at house plans many bathrooms on the second floor are back to back - much easier for the plumbing. Ours are certainly back to back but one is in the MBR and one in the hall.

I would still go with the half bath on the main floor and add a second floor bath when you've got the budget for it.

We lived through a big renovation that included every room in the house (except for the hall bath upstairs, which had been done previously) and it was unpleasant but do-able.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to have a full bath on the main floor and as part of a recent renovation we replaced it with a 1/2 bath. We had two upstairs though so hard to say if we would have used it if it was our second bath. In ten years we'd used the shower only once, and mainly used the shower to store stuff. We moved the full bath to the basement, where there had been only a 1/2, and now it gets used quite frequently.

As to the dining room question I guess it depends on your lifestyle. We use ours a lot so we put a priority on a big dining room. In fact cutting the full bath to a half bath on the main floor bought us some space in the DR, which was good.

There isn't anywhere upstairs to add a full bath, even a small one? Our architect was pretty creative about use of space so you may want to consult a professional on this.

We have an excellent architect - although we do not have plans at this stage, we have just discussed it in detail. There's definitely space if we reconfigure the existing layout. We don't want to do that, partly because our house was built in the 1890s and we want to keep some of the original features but also because of financial considerations and because we need to live there during this work. If we put a bathroom in the second floor addition it would significantly reduce the space for the third bedroom and would also be back to back with the existing bathroom which seems strange to me. (Unless we moved the existing bathroom which again, would just increase costs significantly.) This will be a good quality addition rather than a boxy closed in porch with ugly siding (as is common in our neighborhood), but I don't think we will be able to increase the budget and disruption necessary to put another bathroom anywhere else. Unfortunately we can't build on more than 60 percent of our lot, so we don't have the space to increase the size of the proposed addition.