Renovation advice - should we or shouldn't we?

[greatreader]

Hi fellow mustachians,

We're a family of 5 (two adults, and three kids under age 6) living in a 3 bedroom bungalow that's around 1275 square feet. We love our little house, but there are a few issues that are driving us just a bit crazy. We're now exploring renovation possibilities with a design-build firm, but I feel like it's easy to lose perspective quickly. We need advice (and maybe a facepunch) from the mustache community.

Our current problems with the house:
1. The door to the backyard is located in the third bedroom, in such a way that the bedroom is basically a hallway in the warmer months (7-8 months a year around here,) making it difficult to also use it as a bedroom (because of the narrowness of the room and the placement of the back door.) As a result, we have all three of our kids sharing the second bedroom. They love it, but as they get bigger there won't be enough room for their beds and clothes. Also, it's annoying for me to walk through the bedrooms six or seven times to keep an eye on the kids while making dinner (which happens pretty much every night in the spring and summer.)

2. I'd like to have an ensuite bathroom. It's a want, not a need, but it would be so nice to be able to wake up to shower in the morning without all three of them waking up at the sound of me waking through the hall. Because, you know, as soon as they wake up they start needing things, and I'd love to shower in peace.

3. The front hall is tiny, and it often seems that there's not enough room for everyone to get ready to go outside in the morning, especially in winter when everyone has a snowsuit, boots, rainboots, and rainsuit, all of which might be needed on any given winter day. (Welcome to Canada. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.)

So... the un-mustachian answer is to rip off the roof and put a full second storey on top of our bungalow, getting us a four bedroom, three bathroom house of about 2500 square feet (huge!) The extremely mustachian answer is to give ourselves a free attitude adjustment, be ecstatic about our luxurious home, and train ourselves not to yell at each other when we trip over yet another pair of snowpants every morning. But what would you do? Something in between? Please help!

[Sonorous Epithet]

Seems to me that it's not a space problem you have, but a layout problem. 1200 sqft and 3 bedrooms is plenty for a family of 5, but if all the rooms are arranged like a labyrinth, you're going to feel restricted.

For the back door, could you add a second door to the back yard somewhere else in the house that would make more sense, like a kitchen, or garage? If the door was treated like a wall and you had to go around the front of the house to reach the back, how inconvenient would that actually be? (By taking away a door, you're giving yourself a bedroom.)

For the front hall, would you actually get any more space to get ready by adding a second story? Could you simply ditch some furniture in the hall or room closest to the front door to make room? If you are tripping over clutter, how many non-snowpants items could you get rid of to make room? Maybe just change the attitude and enjoy the morning dogpile. Sometimes it's nice to have circumstances dictate that you cozy up with your family in the morning.

For the bathroom, if your kids slept like rocks, would it even be a problem? If your lightest sleepers were in the 3rd bedroom (let's say that there are no back door shenanigans any more [snicker]), would that alleviate the problem? Could your SO run interference to give you shower peace? Another solution will just be to wait. Eventually your kids will be older and more self-reliant, and will get to that age where they'd rather sleep in that wake up and bother you.

All of these problems seem pretty measly to justify adding space.

If you simply picked up house and moved to a similarly priced house nearby, you might be able to find something with a better layout. And believe me, moving will be less disruptive than renovating.

[Argyle]

Don't add a second story.  I agree: if you're going to go to a lot of expense and trouble to have more space and a different layout, move.  For one thing, the massive hassle of adding on a second story will have you regretting your choice for years.  It will take months and months during which normal life will be hellish.  And the last couple I know who added a second story ended up divorcing at the end of it.  That's how stressful it is.

I've been there with small kids waking up when you go to shower.  Two solutions: 1) they are not allowed to come out of their rooms until X o'clock.  Enforce.  2) This problem will be solved within 5 years without major construction.  At a certain point they generally become late and sluggish risers without your having to do anything.

About everybody putting on winter things near the front door — that would be the case even if you had a second story.

I'm not clear on what you mean by having to "walk through the bedrooms six or seven times to keep an eye on the kids while making dinner."  How would having another story solve this?  Wouldn't you have to go upstairs to keep an eye on them if they were up there?

In any case, kids change so rapidly that you will have a whole different set of problems in a few years.

1250 square feet is workable for 5 people, though potentially tight.  If you find it's too tight, look around at what else is for sale nearby.

[greatreader]

Thanks! I'll try to respond to one item at a time:

Sonorous Epithet: There's nowhere else that we can add a door to the backyard that wouldn't cause the exact same problem, unless we tore down walls and changed the layout. The three bedrooms are across the back of the house, while the dining room/living room and kitchen take up the front half. Changing the layout is a possibility, I suppose, which would give us a hallway from the dining room to the back door, and one of the questions on our mind is whether that's worth it. Going around the house from the front door doesn't work for me and my parenting style - I like to let my kids run in and out freely in the summer, but we live on a busy street and I want to know that when the gate is closed there's no chance that they'll end up near the street.

Argyle: we've looked at tons of houses for sale. There's very very little that meets our needs without being excessively large (as in, 3500 square feet) and expensive (as in 1.4 million dollars.) Also, with land transfer taxes, staging for sale, and the actual moving process, it will end up costing us about $80K just to move. That's money we could put into a reno. Even if we built a whole second storey and reconfigured the first, that would still put the value of our house around 1.3 million, which is less than we would pay to buy a new house. That's the major problem.

The reason the entryway problem would be solved by adding a second storey is that by gaining room upstairs, we could move things around downstairs to create a small mudroom for all the snowpants and such. It would mean moving the stairs to the basement (we'd stack 'em under the stairs to the second floor,) and would take our front hall from 7 X 5 to 10 x 12 feet.

And yes, if my lightest sleepers were farther away from my room, the shower thing wouldn't be an issue. Then I'd only be really annoyed once a month for about 4 days, when I actually NEED the children to not be in there while I'm peeing. I suppose that would only last until menopause, but I'm only in my mid-thirties...

[plantingourpennies]

We live in an 1100 sqft 3/2, though there are only two of us.  There have been different times when we've talked about putting an addition on the side of the house giving us a 2 car garage with a master suite up top (with killer views of our lake), adding square footage, enlarging bathrooms, but largely keeping the house as a 3/2, maybe 3/2.5.  But the reality is that we don't need the extra space and have precisely 0 desire to pay for the utilities and extra taxes that would go with it.  Ugh.

Instead, we're updating our house little by little and changing rooms so they are more functional, feel larger, and flow better.  It helps that we started with a pretty efficiently designed layout that leaves most visitors wondering if we're lying when we tell them how small the house actually is.  We learned that our house was actually originally built for a local artist which makes some of the elements make sense, but he really cheaped out/went with 80's styling on some of the finishing items.  Updates to the flow in just a few spaces will definitely make a big difference to us living there day in and day out. 

Do you have a sketch of the layout anywhere that we can look it?  Is it possible for you to move doors or walls to rearrange bedrooms and make the flow from inside to backyard work better as the kids grow? 

Just to give you an idea of how our floor plan layout works in our small house, feel free to take a look at the diagram here: http://www.plantingourpennies.com/looking-for-a-home-dont-ignore-small-houses/

If we ever have kids, there's a distinct split in terms of "kids rooms/bathroom" and "parents room/bathroom", which I think is nice and not too common in smaller homes.

[nereo]

You mentioned a design-build firm.  Have you asked them specifically about what they could do in terms of changing the layout without adding the second story? Moving non-load bearing interior walls around is often surprisingly straightforward.  If they're urging the second story could that be because they'll earn far more money?
Give them the constraint of keeping all exterior of the house the same (except moving the door) and see what they come up with.

[jpo]

Might be worth looking at the No So Big House series before you reno.

[Sonorous Epithet]

Could you perhaps share your floorplans?

[greatreader]

PoP - I'll try to attach a jpeg of the main floor layout. It's a scale drawing, but to give you a sense of size, the house is 50 feet long.

Nereo - the design-build firm has presented several possibilities, and they're not pushing any one solution... but we want opinions from mustachians, not from everybody else in our lives who can't figure out why we don't want a five-bedroom, five bathroom, two-car-garage kind of house that would cost us an extra $500K!

Okay, here's the pic:

[greatreader]

jpo - I love the Not So Big House books - have devoured them all!

[plantingourpennies]

Just a quick thought - will look more at the floor plan tonight. 

Does the side yard connect through to the back easily?  Or is the side yard (on the right) a nice usable space?  It looks sizable, though I don't know how close you are to the next house.  Could you swap the window and door in bedroom 3 and then carve out a tiny hallway to the door to the side yard?  (From which maybe a nice path of pavers through to the back?)  You could even fence/gate them separately depending on how much you want them to flow all around the property when they're small. 

It would leave bedroom 3 as small, but give that bedroom to the gender there's only one of (assuming you have both genders in your trio).  The two same gendered kids could share the larger room. 

[plantingourpennies]

Oh, I'd probably also tear down the walls separating the dining room from the kitchen and hallway and make one big open space.  Less formal, but I generally hate long hallways that feel like tunnels. 

[greatreader]

Which side yard? You mean to the right of the drawn area? That's not a side yard - that contains our garage and a very small (tiny!) space where the air conditioning unit and gas lines live. Aside from that small area, the space between our house and our neighbours' house is just under two feet. We don't have enough space on that side for a gate, sadly.

[totoro]

While not totally ideal, could you just put a door out to the back yard in the dining room and turn the existing door in the bedroom into a window/wall?

Also, you have a closet by the front door - could there be a better use of space there for shoes/snowsuits?  If it bothers you I suppose you could try to use the dining room as a mud room with some floor to ceiling cupboards if there is room.  Each kid could have their own. 

[plantingourpennies]

How do you get to/from the garage?  Just via the front door?

[totoro]

Sorry - should have checked before posting my identical unworkable idea. 

Converting a garage into a bedroom may be a very inexpensive option fwiw if you don't actually need the garage for your car due to bylaws.

Also, it would be helpful to see the garage layout because from what you've posted a door into the garage from the dining room and then another door to the backyard from the garage still sounds like it could be workable.

[greatreader]

We get to the garage by leaving our house via the front door, going down the steps, and walking over to the garage door.

I love the idea of having a side door for backyard access, but the small distance between our house and the property line means that we use a combination of our property and the neighbours' properties (on either side) to access the back. It works just fine, but we can't fence that area in.

[greatreader]

I've added in the garage for the sake of clarity.

[plantingourpennies]

What about moving your bedroom to the front (where living room is currently), perhaps adding that extra bathroom you want, splitting the 3 back bedroooms and dining room area into a large open area with separate sections for dining and lounging/play.  A sectional facing the living area that faces out into the backyard might be a decent way to do the split visually.  Then put the door to the backyard off of the living room.  I'd do sliders or French doors to have nice open views into the backyard, but I'm not sure how that works weather-wise in Canada. 

It's a less formal layout to have it open like that, but I think perhaps a better use of space as well as more privacy for you and the kids as they get older.

[greatreader]

Wait, we move our bedroom to the front, and the kids' bedrooms are where?

[Simple Abundant Living]

Looking at your floor plan, I personally would gut it and add a 2nd story.  If you are wanting to stay in the house, I think you would be so much happier to remodel it.  I would make a mudroom and have an open great room/kitchen on the main level with the master bedroom (put a stackable W/D on the main floor too.).  Put three more bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs and you have a house for growing children plus a house you can empty nest in (Master on the main level).

Sorry, I know it's not the mustachian answer, but a poorly designed family house just makes me sad.  :(

[plantingourpennies]

You could either put them in the current spots of parents bedroom and the one currently labeled kids bedroom, or I would prefer to split them to the sides.  Say with currently labeled parents bedroom becoming one bedroom and another bedroom in the spot of bedroom 3, though you might be able to make it wider.  Then have a big open area that includes current labeled kids room, hallways, and dining room and use a sectional to partition the part that's hallway/kids bedroom into the living area and have dining stay in the same area, just without walls.  Taking out the walls/hallway means you don't have to duplicate walking paths around the dining room table and in the hallways. 

[greatreader]

Mrs Greenstache - thanks. That option is still on the table, if we can't find a Mustachian one we like.

PoP - that's an interesting idea... will think on it a bit more and do a few drawings... see what the Mr. says.

[greatreader]

The "front entryway" rooms are: the actual entryway, a front hall closet (very inconvenient to use, but we're working on it) and the stairway to the basement.

[greatreader]

The basement is currently where we have a big playroom for the kids. Since we can't spend as much time outside as we'd like in the winter (we were down to minus 30 Celsius for many weeks, and it was too icy to run and play) that's their playground for a full third of the year (and even beyond that.) Aside from that we have some storage, my husband's "lair" where he does his volunteer work and plays video games, and my workshop (for sewing and woodworking.) Oh, and the laundry room.

[greatreader]

The basement is accessed from the main floor, in that little space between the kitchen and the entryway.

[peaceandprosperity]

As someone who has done the "pop up" and doubled our sq ft space I can speak to what that is like.
The first thing to know is i made the decision to do this pre-Mustachian. I still believe it was an "investment" as much as a living upgrade that was planned long in advance, but i do not think i'd have made the same decision in 2014 as i did in 2012.

The deets: 1300 sq ft home. 2 adults, 2 kids, one dog, 2 cats. We bought the home on 5 acres in a rather tony rural neighborhood known for the quality of life (state parks, Scenic river, Ski hill) and schools of course. I grew up in the country and lived for many years in the major metro (both of them, they are twins) and i just felt drawn back out to the country.

House was not the draw of buying the place, the property was. So we bought it for 270K but had to add improvements to bring it up to code. Septic, railings, a few other things. It was a pre-built Wausau home from 1970. Life there was generally pretty good. Despite the 30 mile commute, i could work from home most days. But it felt really claustrophobic, esp with our very long winters. We talked about building out, building up. We even had some builders recommend demolish and replace which sounded very wasteful.

The house needed a new roof and new siding so we took those costs into account as we would have had to spend them anyway.

We finally saved up half the money (70k) and I took out a 401k loan for 50K to start the project. Then ended up taking out a Home Equity line of credit for another 30K. 150k to add another 1450 Sq ft. (added a bonus room over the garage for my office). Just over 100 dollars per sq ft. (the HELOC is paid off and the 401k is half paid off).

The pros are that we have all the space we could ever need and the house value has gone up to comparable with the neighborhood value which means our resale value actually matches about what we put into it plus mortage/equity.
The cons are that the house value goes up and therefore so do the taxes.

We would find it very hard to leave this place as we are quite attached. However, we have also locked ourselves into the house for a while yet. That's really fine with me because i can still live a fairly frugal lifestyle with this house payment and build up equity. If i could do it over again, I would probably just live with it, re-arrange the inside space, put a serious chunk of cash into the basement to add good lighting, dry it out, and do a walk out basement. I think we could have made it without the pop up addition. and I'd be likely 100K richer now. That's my contribution to this question. I wish you the best of luck in your decision.

[Argyle]

It would cost you $80,000 to move?  That's a lot.  Can you list what the expenses would be?  Is housing in such a way in your area that people really stage houses?  Around here people laugh at that idea -- houses sell plenty fast without being staged.

[Zette]

Could you add a mudroom by building out the front entrance as far as that part of the living room that is jutting out?

[greatreader]

MizMustachianGeek - thanks for sharing your experience. It's very good to hear from someone who's been there.

Argyle - Where we live, there are two land transfer taxes that you pay on the value of the house you are purchasing (one is provincial and one municipal.) Considering the prices of properties that we would consider buying, we're looking at about 50K just in taxes, nevermind other costs of moving.

Zette - that part of the living room juts out about 2 feet. We've considered enclosing the entire front porch (6 feet by 10 feet) but that probably wouldn't get past zoning because they're pretty strict about front setbacks around here. But we never considered just a 2 foot bumpout... thanks for the idea!

Lhamo - I love that idea. I adore attic spaces. I keep telling my husband that I want to just cut out the ceiling in the kids' room, put a ladder on each of three walls, and build each kid a loft space with enough room for a bed and some shelving.

[deborah]

Which way is south? It looks to me like your house has orientation problems at the moment. Does the dining room have a window? And is there room on the kitchen side of the house for a walkway from front to back?

[greatreader]

The garage, dining room, third bedroom are all on the south side of the house. The street is to the west of the house (front entry and living room.)

There's no room on either side of the house, at least not to fence in a walkway. Our house is only about a foot away from the property line.

[Thegoblinchief]

You've gotten good advice. I've got 3 kids in a 2/1 that's 730sqft. Layout of the main living area helps.

We have a corner lot, so the yard is accessible from both doors. I've never bothered fencing it in. Didn't have the money to fence it when they were young, and they're old enough (8,7,4) to play unattended for long periods now.

How handy are you and DH? A design-build firm can be helpful for making sure everything is structurally sound, but what about doing the finish work yourselves? Even if it's just painting, that can save a ton.

[zolotiyeruki]

Bunk beds are an amazing thing.  We currently have all four of our boys (ages 9,5,3, and 1) in a single 14x11 bedroom, with room for one more.  We have two sets of bunk beds plus a crib, and there's plenty of room.  With the right furniture, you can make it work. (And furniture can be a whole lot cheaper than renovation, especially if you do it yourself or look for stuff on freecycle/craigslist/bookoo/ReStore)

That being said, here are a couple thoughts:
1)  Figure out where your load-bearing walls are.  You might be lucky, and have no load-bearing interior walls, but I wouldn't count on it.
2)  If you stick with the 1275 sq ft you currently have, you'll have to be creative and limit your expectations if you want an ensuite AND three bedrooms AND a living and dining room.
3)  The hallway leading from the kitchen to the bathroom and bedrooms is wasted space.

Could you possibly give us an update with dimensions of the rooms?  Are there any closets?

[greatreader]

Thanks! We have one bunk bed (actually a low loft bed, given the ages of our kids, with a toddler mattress underneath) and it's given us a bit more room, but another bunk bed in there would be extremely tight. Our bedroom is 13 x 11. The kids' bedroom is 9.5 x 13. The third bedroom is 8 x 16. There are two closets, both of which fit inside the 8 x 16 space of the third bedroom. I agree that the hallway is wasted space, although it does provide some excellent sound insulation when we entertain after the children's bedtime.

The load bearing walls are the one between the living/dining room and the kitchen, and the one between the dining room and the back hallway.

I hear you on the expectations. We're trying to work on that part right now.

[greatreader]

lhamo - I suppose it's doable, but you might be surprised at how hard it is to get a contractor to quote us on building a dormer. It's like pulling teeth!

[momo5]

well, this isnt very moustachian maybe, but better than building up

could you move the kitchen to the bedroom with the back door? then the space that is now the kitchen could become a bedroom and maybe take some of that space to help with your entryway tightness?

I can sorta relate to poorly designed homes, while mine is fairly large (ok, a behemoth at over 3000 sq ft) its a very poorly laid out ranch. we are constantly tripping over shoes/etc and two people cannot both pass through our entryway at the same time. our back door is also poorly placed and for some reason I will never understand, the laundry room is in the center of the house and we have to walk through it to get to the bedrooms. my dh very much wanted to build a second story but thankfully I got my way on that one.

things do change as the kids get older, their stuff gets bigger, their bodies take up that much more space, etc. BUT they also do outgrow the need to watch you pee. and while my kids were the lightest sleepers on the planet, there is no waking my teens now. they also do learn to occasionally pick up their snowpants. and they do not require the same level of supervision while they are outdoors.
our kitchen is small, we dont all fit in it, I was planning (pre MMM) to redesign it and my mil mentioned that the need to all fit around the kitchen table (we do have a dining room table big enough for us all) is quickly outgrown. and its true, my older kids are on their own schedule, on the nights that we do eat together we can eat in the dining room. and as much as it upsets me, my 10 yo ds says his favorite thing to do is to eat breakfast sitting under the table. surprisingly, my kids get very upset when I talk about redoing the kitchen. they think we have a cool kitchen (circa 1972) and that its cozy. sometimes taking a long view is helpful.

and if the kids like bunking together maybe you can add closet space in the bedroom with the door and let them all stay in one room. iirc, the duggers keep the kids clothes in one communal closet near the laundry room. there is no rule that clothes must be kept in the bedroom.

[zolotiyeruki]

Funny you should mention the twin-over-toddler bed.  One of our sets of bunk beds is exactly that, except that 1) I built it! and 2) the extra space under the larger top bunk is a dresser!

Alright, I've taken a bit more of a look, and had a couple more thoughts:

1)  If the bedrooms stay at the back of the house, you're gonna have an exterior door in one of them.  It might be possible to carve a narrow hallway using some of the master bedroom and the middle bedroom, but that's really squeezing the bedrooms and leaving you with more wasted space, IMO.
2)  If you can limit the wall-moving to the "rooms without plumbing" (everything except the kitchen and bathroom), that's gonna be a lot less expensive.  But you probably knew that.
3)  Here's one scenario:  change the window in the middle bedroom to a door.  Replace the door in the long, narrow bedroom with a window on the same wall, just located further to the north.  Now there's enough room to place two sets of bunk beds along that south wall (if you're planning on having a fourth.  Who knows?) or bunk beds plus a twin.  Now the kids are further from the bathroom, and the exterior door is no longer in their room.
4)  Here's another idea:  change the window in the middle bedroom to a door.  Remove the door in the long narrow bedroom (wall it off).  Put a new window in the south wall, about 4' from the south east corner.  One bed (or set of bunks) goes against the east wall, the other goes in the southwest corner (with the long side against the south wall).  This is more space efficient than the first scenario, and leaves more room for dressers and/or desks along the south and north walls.
5)  In either of the first two scenarios, you can gain a dozen precious square feet fairly cheaply by relocating the door to the narrow bedroom about 3 feet northward.  That way, the door does not take up space in the bedroom when it swings open.  Neither scenario addresses the issue of "how do I get to the back yard without going through a bedroom at all?", but they do provide more separation than you currently have, increase your physical separation, and minimize the cost.
6)  If sound is an issue, you may consider blowing insulation into the walls between bedrooms.  Also, solid core doors with minimal gaps at the bottom are great for sound isolation.

I've attached a mockup of the scenario in thought #4.  Then I mocked up what I *think* plantingourpennies is saying.  The issue there is that you'd be cutting in to load-bearing walls, so you'd need to make sure you do things right.  Also, it means that everything must be accessed through the kitchen, which might become an issue.

[greatreader]

Zolotiyeruki - wow! Lots of ideas to work from... I like the turning the window into a door thing, but an FYI - we can't put a window in the south wall. It's too close to the property line and would violate building code. But I like the idea of the bunk beds across the south wall.

Lhamo - the dead space serves a couple of functions: 1. allows for windows in the dining room and bedroom (see my comment to Z above) 2. Houses the a/c unit and the gas lines  3. Okay, there really are only two. We've thought about building into it, but I'd hate to lose the natural light, and besides it would involve breaking out masonry walls.

[greatreader]

Momo5 - yeah, the layout kind of sucks. Moving the kitchen to that back corner would mean running lots of new plumbing over there, and it's on the opposite side from the main drain stack. Not sure how that works. But I guess you're right that we could move the kitchen to the back - in the space marked parents' room - and then put a bedroom where the kitchen is, as well as a bit of a mudroom. I might really like that idea! Will have to draw it out and see how it looks. Thanks!

[greatreader]

How about this? Nice entertaining flow, small mudroom, turn garage into a bedroom, and voila - a four bedroom bungalow where I can cook and watch the kids outside at the same time. Thoughts?

[zolotiyeruki]

Zolotiyeruki - wow! Lots of ideas to work from... I like the turning the window into a door thing, but an FYI - we can't put a window in the south wall. It's too close to the property line and would violate building code. But I like the idea of the bunk beds across the south wall.

Lhamo - the dead space serves a couple of functions: 1. allows for windows in the dining room and bedroom (see my comment to Z above) 2. Houses the a/c unit and the gas lines  3. Okay, there really are only two. We've thought about building into it, but I'd hate to lose the natural light, and besides it would involve breaking out masonry walls.

After posting that last night, I realized I hadn't accounted for the west-facing window in the narrow bedroom.  That would mean that even if you remove the exterior door entirely from that room, and don't replace it, you'll still be ok from an egress perspective.

How far are you willing to go in terms of renovations?  Are you willing to gut and replace the whole layout?  If you're willing to go as far as moving the kitchen and bathroom, then we might as well start with just an outline of the house and start putting walls wherever we want :)

[greatreader]

At this point, we're discussing just ripping off the whole roof and putting on a second storey. Not super mustachian, but we could afford it and we'd get to build exactly what we want. Might also involve moving the kitchen and/or bathroom, but we're not sure yet. What we don't want to do is spend $150K to move around stuff in our main floor and then realize that it's not really that great after all.

[Zette]

I like where you're going with the Move Kitchen plan. Which would you rather have, an extra bedroom or a private master bathroom?  If you make the current bathroom the master bath, you could eliminate most of that hallway between it and the dining room.  Put a bathroom where you've marked bedroom 2 (in what used to be the kitchen), and use the remaining space for a den/office.  The mudroom seems awkward, you'd be tracking snow, etc to get into it, so I'd add that space to the den.

[Daleth]

Sonorous Epithet: There's nowhere else that we can add a door to the backyard that wouldn't cause the exact same problem, unless we tore down walls and changed the layout. The three bedrooms are across the back of the house, while the dining room/living room and kitchen take up the front half. Changing the layout is a possibility, I suppose, which would give us a hallway from the dining room to the back door, and one of the questions on our mind is whether that's worth it. Going around the house from the front door doesn't work for me and my parenting style - I like to let my kids run in and out freely in the summer, but we live on a busy street and I want to know that when the gate is closed there's no chance that they'll end up near the street.

Can you sketch up the layout and post the picture? Many brains make light work of solving layout problems...

[greatreader]

Daleth - if you scroll up in this thread you'll see the layout as an attachment to my post, somewhere in the middle. There are actually a few versions floating around, but one says "existing main."

[Daleth]

Daleth - if you scroll up in this thread you'll see the layout as an attachment to my post, somewhere in the middle. There are actually a few versions floating around, but one says "existing main."

Oh, I see. Sorry, I missed it.

Put an exterior door in the dining room and you have a way for the kids to get to the back yard without going through anyone's bedroom. Obviously that door would take them into the side yard, not directly into the back yard, but it's FAR better than losing that bedroom. I also think having the bedroom be the way to the yard will hurt you on resale, whenever it comes to that. In contrast, a door from the dining room could be really nice; maybe you could put a patio or deck there, and double doors instead of a single--it could be very pleasant, as well as giving you back a bedroom.

I also love Zette's idea of how to fix the bathroom situation. Here's what you could do:
- Move the bathroom sinks 90 degrees so that you can put a door directly from the master BR into that bathroom, and get rid of the current door into the hallway.

- Use the hallway that looks vertical in your floorplan (the one leading from the master BR to the kitchen) and part of the dining room to make a small (shower only?) full bath for the other two bedrooms. This would mean that when you come out of any of the bedrooms, you need to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen (and obviously put a door on the "top" wall of the dining room instead of having the door be on the "side" wall). It's a far more efficient use of space.

- You might want to put the master bath sinks onto the wall that the current bathroom door is on, for two reasons: (1) then the plumbing is in an interior wall instead of exterior (so even in the worst winter it won't freeze), and (2) you could hook up the sink and/or shower in the new bathroom to that same plumbing stack so you wouldn't have to pay for an extra plumbing stack.