Extra Bedroom Downstairs or Nice Laundry Room

You cannot legally call a space a bedroom if it lacks certain things, like a window egress and a closet. If you do not have a window that can be crawled out of, you will be restricted from calling it a bedroom in a resale. Personally, I'd make it a laundry room.

I'd hate to have the laundry in the basement. I'd never want to wash clothes!

It's a shame that the bath and bedroom downstairs aren't back to back. You could expand the bathroom and put put a laundry room in it, with a nice laundry closet.

Why not talk to an architect with home design experience and get some plans drawn up?

What would work for me with a larger family is to have another full bath. We make do with 2 full baths and a 1/2 bath.

I have the nicest laundry room I've ever seen. It's ridiculous. The original owners must have loved doing laundry. It has two huge windows, sunny, and enormous. For me, total waste of space. While I loved it when we looked at the house to begin with, it's pointless. I am in and out of that room.

I keep saying I'll put an office in there or something, but really - do I feel like sitting with piles of dirty laundry. No. So it's just a big room with washer and dryer. Space better used for actual living (in my opinion).

People often keep those basement bedrooms for home offices, guest rooms (or combo of those two) or even home gyms.

I'd be more inclined to enlarge your bathroom down there, keep a bedroom, and convert an upstairs bedroom to an office or something. Give someone a full bathroom. Depends on your family though.

Good luck :)

I would consider adding another full bath, with that many bedrooms.

there's no right or wrong answer for this. it depends on what would suit YOUR family best, or if you're renovating in preparation for a sale, what your realtor suggests would make your home more marketable according to the stats in your area.

my laundry is downstairs. it doesn't faze me one bit. i like it down there because there's plenty of room and i don't want to sacrifice the space in our upstairs (we have a rancher), and going up and down stairs doesn't bother me. maybe when i'm older it will.

so for US, keeping your downstairs bedroom intact would make more sense, especially since we've cannibalized our 4-bed home into a 2-bed one, so don't have as much guest space as we'd like.

but we're not you.

does your downstairs bath have a shower? if not, that's something to do for sure.

so the only thing you need to figure out is if you need more guest accommodations, or if having the laundry upstairs would significantly improve your regular round of chores.
khairete
S.

In terms of resale value, a bedroom is going to increase the value of your home a lot more than a nice laundry room would. The best renovation I can think of in this situation would be to add a full bath to the downstairs bedroom (there must be plumbing nearby to tap into if you were going to move the laundry there). Because a 4-5 bedroom house should have more than 1 bath/shower, IMO, and preferably more than 2 toilets.

ETA: Yes, also what Veruca said. My thoughts only apply if you can legally call this room a bedroom.

I would not have my laundry room in a basement for any reason. I like my laundry room on the main floor.

Who wants to lug laundry up and down stairs?

ETA: I don't have a basement so its non issue for me. My laundry area with laundry sink and extra fridge is at the door which goes out into my garage. This is the door we use the majority of the time because we park in the garage.

There are a few select homes in my area with a basement but still... Around here, the door going from garage to inside is usually the laundry area.

I lived in a house that had the washer and dryer in the basement. I hated it. Now my laundry room is on the first floor which is better but I would prefer that it was upstairs on the second floor.

If space permitted I would do it all. A full bath, a guest bedroom and a new laundry room.

If possible get a designer or architect to take a look at your space and discover what they can come up with. Even senior students in these fields are options as resources for this endeavor.

Whatever decision you make enjoy your new space and keep us posted.

Depends on your lifestyle I suppose. Are all of your bedrooms full, or do you already have a guest room upstairs? Do you think you would spend time in the laundry room folding and ironing if you had a nice space? If it was me I would rather have the extra bedroom to use for guests, or make into a play room, music room, sewing room craft room etc. I am only in the laundry room long enough to put a load in and take a load out. I prefer to fold on my bed and watch tv while doing so, or iron in the living room. I don't mind the laundry being with the furnace and hot water tank. If I did have unlimited space and money I am sure I would like a nice big organized main floor laundry room, but I don't.

i have my laundry in the basement and i hate it. so if it were not already down there i would not move it there. i would take an additional bedroom over laundry anyday

How many people in your family?
Are you looking to sell your home soon?
Do you do the laundry? Do you want to carry it all over the house? We have our laundry on the 2nd floor, with the bedrooms.

I would not have a 4 bedroom home with 1.5 baths. That's unreasonable to me. Especially if you have company or more than 2 people in the house.

Have you talked to an architect or designer? What about a real estate agent? If you are looking to flip the house? You need to talk with a real estate agent how KNOWS the area you are flipping.

It really depends on a lot of factors. Are all of the upstairs bedrooms occupied, or could one serve as a guest room if needed? Do you have frequent overnight visitors who would appreciate having a dedicated room?

If you think it would be used regularly as a bedroom, either by your immediate family or visitors, then a bedroom would be nicer. But if it would be empty most of the time, then make a nice laundry room, since you do laundry all the time.

When you say 1/2 bath, do you mean just a sink and toilet? Or do you mean a 3/4 bathroom, which also has a shower, but no bathtub. If it was me, and I had only a true 1/2 bathroom, I would expand the bathroom and add a shower.

Do you plan to move in the next five years? Do you have frequent guests? If not, do whatever makes the house the most usable for you. If moving is a possibility on the horizon, I would ask a realtor what impact moving the laundry room might make on the value of the house.

It depends on if you have any use for the bedroom as a bedroom, office or private space. If no one ever stays in there or uses the room for anything, a more pleasant laundry room might be nice for you.

The basement-laundry angst comments crack me up because that's a the most typical arrangement in single family homes where I live. People don't have upstairs laundry unless the house is a new build with that in mind, or there has been a retrofit or an addition to the house, which is great for the elderly/disabled.

Ask the person who does laundry! I do all our laundry as a single mom of three and I burn quite a few calories lugging laundry bags back and forth from second floor to dank, dark basement...it's fine. I like people's nice, civilized upstairs laundry rooms too if they have that type of house. Ours has no room for that upstairs. It completely depends on the house inhabitant's family size. Sounds like no one's really using the downstairs bedroom, so for the current family, it may be nice to move laundry upstairs...but to sell the house I'd keep the bedroom maybe..in case a bigger family, or one who has lots of guests wants to buy it.

Laundry area and other.

You already have enough bedrooms unless you have more kids that either live there or come home to visit.

Wow I really appreciate the responses .. I need to clarify sorry... This is a flip and there are 4 rooms and 2 baths upstairs .... One room and half bath in basement and a large family room .. This room does not have a closet at the time and a high window so should I keep it as a room ( play, spare etc) or a nice laundry room... It's all exposed at this time so running plumbing would be easy at this point... Just wondering if another room or a nice designated laundry room would be more appealing .. Thanks