Agree. Birds but mice, rats, cutworms if any in the soil, and I wouldn't rule out squirrels or chipmunks either if you see them around. They can climb anything. A pic would help as the type of damage is usually a good clue to who did it. Dave

I have a 1300 sf home and want to add a second bathroom to the main floor (it is a single storey ranch with an 8' basement). picture #1 shows the whole house (not exactly to scale). I want to add the bathroom to bedroom #1. picture #2 shows a close up of bedroom #1 with the new bathroom. The measurements on picture #2 are accurate (picture #1's measurements are not, sorry). Other houses in the neighbourhood are a bit smaller, and so the homeowners have decided to put the second bathroom in the basement. My house is bigger than the others in the 'hood because the previous owners put an addition on the back to create a large(r) master bedroom. You can see the addition as the bump out at the top of the page in the picture #1. What I'd like to do is use that bumpout space to put in a second bathroom instead of finishing the basement. That bump out has a crawl space through which to route plumbing. I don't want to finish the basement because I worry about mould problems. One thing to note is that the bathroom I'm proposing eats away at the bedroom space so I was thinking that I could bust out the closet at the bottom of the second picture to add an extra 29.5" and make the bedroom ~13'3" long x 10'8" wide, which is an acceptable size by neighbourhood standards. The new bathroom would also swallow the window so I would need to add a window along the right-hand wall in picture #2. Could you let me know of this layout is ok and if not, could you provide suggestions on how to improve it? Thnaks.

I like it. I don't think the dining room is too far away. It is only steps through the living room. I like a pretty, formal dining room. This plan gives you the separation for a formal dining room along with the openness of the living room to the kitchen that you want. Consider a seating island in the kitchen for casual eating. With regard to the doors that bother you, it looks like you could put a hallway wall between the living room and bathroom/bedroom that will separate those rooms from the living room. It will close off the dining room a little. It's a trade off.

I think Jennifer Hogan's suggestion is a good one, if there is no possibility of converting the attic to bedroom and bath in the future. I imagine taking out the stairs is relatively expensive. So the question would be would that be enough to make that very small room back into a bedroom? Would it add about three feet to in width? I would add a window to the smallest bedroom. The only other thing I would do is move the entry to the main bedroom down the hall or use that space for a linen closet and move the entry close to the other bedrooms and the stairs.