I've been following the posts and just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone. I feel ten times better reading this thread. Such good points here and encouragement! Merry ann: I like older homes as well! I doubt I'll ever have this thing I have so far seen mostly on television or read about here: the master suite. LOL. I know they exist in old homes--just not in my price range in NYC! Corkie: Thanks for empathizing! My tub, sink and toilet are sort of a darker beige, with the toilet seat an off-white. I have thought of putting in a new white sink and toilet, and reglazing the tub. The shower and wall tile is actually not half-bad: a very neutral beige. The floor also isn't bad (brown 4 by 4 tiles with off-white diamond insets), but it's such a small room that maybe instead of replacing cracked tiles we might think about updating there with new, lighter tile; that wouldn't be such a big deal and the agent thought that was maybe the single improvement worth making. There is a light soffit over the sink with a florescent light. We've talked about getting rid of that and putting in a new wall-mounted fixture over the sink. (The agent thinks we can just leave the soffit.) If we can keep the changes small and inexpensive, without TOO much disruption, might do it. I have to say I was surprised the agent said not to really do anything, so this makes me think twice about the advice on those TV shows you're all talking about, too! Chasezone: When we repainted the medicine cabinet white and replaced the knobs with "poreclain" knobs, that made a HUGE difference, all for about $5. We're lucky that we already got rid of the wallpaper when we moved in! Roselvr: I hear you about # of baths. It really hasn't been so bad for two adults and a small child; only recently has having just one bathroom become more of an issue, now that my toddler also needs the toilet! In the end, we may limit the updating to decluttering, cleaning, a fresh shower curtain and window treatment, and new floor tile. Depending on cost of those things, then we might do new light fixtures. May not bother with replacing the sink and toilet and reglazing the tub, though I should add the sink is part of a huge wood vanity with faux "marble" countertop; that vanity covers up a radiator, too, so if we replaced the vanity with a smaller one, we'd have an exposed radiator unless we covered that with something else, too. Cosmikat: Thanks for the reminder that there as many different buyers as there are houses! To everyone, thank you again for your words of wisdom.

Many thanks to everybody who answered, you have all been very helpful in clarifying my very muddled thoughts. Here is a hopefully clearer description of the situation: The house is a 50's ranch style, with 3 bedrooms and a hall bath (4.5x8.5 ft) clustered on one side of the house, and the kitchen, office/den and another hall bath (4x9 ft) on the other side of the house, with a great room in the middle. We plan to stay in this house as long as we can, but we are in this city for my husband's work, and if something happens (although unlikely with his kind of job), we know we'll have to move somewhere else; therefore, we'd like to make updates to the house while keeping resale in mind. Our (excellent) realtor said that for resale we should have an ensuite. After reading the comments, I have to clarify with him if he thinks a lack of ensuite will narrow down the market significantly, or if we 'simply' would not get the best price for the house. Most houses in the area are old (in the whole city actually), and we saw plenty without ensuites. We saw two of the neighbors' houses, and they did not have ensuites. This is what we considered: 1. Redo the bathrooms with the existing footprint (not that we have room to change anything inside), but we can go far into making them pretty, 2. Add a door from the master bedroom to the hall bath next to it, and close access from the hall. This I think would be a bad idea, not only because the people in the other two bedrooms will have to go across the house to the other bathroom, but also because the master bedroom will end up with windows on two walls, three closets on another, and two doors on the fourth side. Not restful. 3. Add another bathroom next to the master bedroom where the closets are, with one closet door transformed into a bathroom door. This bathroom would be 4.5x12 ft, although it could go to 5x12 if need be (but no more, because we'll hit a big window), which will have a shower but no bathtub. We talked to a professional who said it will fit fine with the caveat that the toilet will likely be the first thing you see in front of the door because of the current clearance requirements. 4. Build an addition. This again I think would be a very bad idea, since it would be blindingly expensive and the house is already on the higher side of square footage for the surrounding area. We will of course fix everything that is broken. The interior doors are the original 50s doors, hollow core dark wood look with lots of scuffs and holes, and they were cut short to fit the now non-existent carpet, so I would qualify changing them as fixing what is broken (and they bug me every time I look at them... ). The windows are a perk; we are still divided on those. I tend toward option 1, while my husband is going for option 3, although he agrees we do not need another bathroom. The reason I feel ill equipped to make this decision is that I'm originally from Europe, and even after so many years here I feel mildly perplexed about the North American love affair with bathrooms. Our previous rental was built in the last ten years and had a huge ensuite which I didn't like. I found it hard to keep as clean as I thought it should be, and it was so large I felt as if I was doing my business in public. Given the bathroom pictures on Houzz, I'm clearly in a minority. Your comments help ensure that I don't miss anything that might otherwise be obvious, so thanks again. And extra thanks to whoever makes it to the end of this post...

I'll be a contrarian. I would never knowingly rent a room with a shared bathroom in the hall. That would be a complete pass - I don't even like having to use a hallway bathroom in a sleeping situation in which I would share with friends and family because if I need to use it in the night I would have to wake up more/get more decently dressed and I hate having to shlep stuff to take a shower or perform normal grooming stuff in a bathroom. I don't have the horror of viewing a toilet from a bedroom that some houzzers seem to have. It certainly wouldn't bother me on a temporary basis. I have a master bath in my home and I can't remember the last time I actually shut the door. I don't have issues with smells or humidity but perhaps that is because my Toto washlet has a built in deodorizer AND I have an excellent Panasonic fan which runs based on ambient humidity levels. I don't generally even have condensation on shower doors or mirrors after exiting let along huge amounts of humidity wafting through my bedroom. The question really is one of economics. There is a cost to installing the bathroom and OP would need to decide whether they would make up the expense by having increased rent and/or renting it out more frequently. Certainly any prospective renter would see a picture and determine whether they wanted the ensuite with a curtain in the room or use of a bathroom in the hall. Also resale value is a red herring. At such point that OP wanted to sell it would be relatively inexpensive to convert the bathroom into a closet if having the ensuite in that room was a negative.

I get bathrooms to bedrooms to an extent. But excess is just money. Kitchens and bathrooms are always reliably more expensive than other rooms. Kitchens have been doubling for a while too. Couple sinks, couple ovens, couple fidges, coolers, freezing drawers. Couple islands worth stuck into one. Cooking vs show kitchens. There are of course some more mundane reasons to have doubling, but a lot of it is just design to spend more money. Excessive bathrooms are design doubling to spend more money. Show bathrooms like there are now show kitchens in some homes. It's smart business from a sales standpoint. It can be difficult to start a trend of excessive wants are actually desirable needs- but if that ball can get rolling it can generate a lot in sales.