Hmmm. I’m sorry to say that I think your house would look better without that balcony. It looks like a triple decker apartment building as opposed to the stately Victorian it could be. So I would give up the door, put the bathroom in the alcove, and the closets behind the door against the stairwell.

You could extend your upstairs roof to cover what is now the balcony and front porch -- enclose the area above the front porch (without adding back a balcony) to make it part of your new master bedroom. In lieu of a master bedroom "suite", however, just add the equivalent of another powder room beside the current full bath, creating either a bath&a-half upstairs or a jack&jill bath so you could keep plenty of closet space in the master bedroom. It is unlikely y'all would have enough water pressure to use a shower and run a bath at the same time anyway so why spend money on that.

So here’s what I came up with which comes with a lot of “ifs”. If you could shorten the closet leaving the window exposed and move the bedroom door down, you could get a nice expanse of wall space to put the bed on. Leave the balcony door and put your bathroom there assuming it meets all the clearances you need for code. Then do a pocket door or a barn door to the bathroom. And ignore the door swings, the program I use kinda has a mind of its own lol!

Thank you all for your comments. JudyG, thanks for the heads up. I do see after some reading that it's not a four square. But are you sure it's Victorian? To me it looks too austere to be a Victorian. It's possible that lost original details were more ornate, but the remaining original details seem fairly simple, including the lap siding, interior window trim, and the front window on the first story.

greenfish1234, thanks for your honesty! Are you saying that I should get rid of both the door and the railings (so that it's no longer a balcony)? Or just the door? I am hoping to change the railings to something more beautiful when the budget allows. I think the replacement railings and posts make my porch/balcony unattractive, but some other balconies in the neighborhood have the original railings, and they are beautiful.

suezbell, the thought of adding more living space is attractive, but I'm sure that would be out of our budget.

Nancy, I like that plan but unfortunately I can't move the door to the bedroom to that location without losing the bathroom in the hallway. Also, I would like to keep the door in the alcove and add the bathroom there, but I'm afraid it would seem bizarre and off-putting to future buyers to have an exterior door in the bathroom (although I don't intend to sell the house anyway, and I suppose I could always change it to a window at that time).

I am curious about the space shown in the right hand area directly behind the alcove. I thought your stairs were going up the exterior wall of the house so are these closed in attic stairs? With storage space underneath that could be used in the bedroom or bathroom?

Lyndee Lee, yes, the stairs shown in the diagram above go to the attic, and thanks for the idea of using the space underneath them. I had not considered that.

You could also recess a storage cabinet into the space over the main staircase as long as you don't intrude I to the required headroom underneath. You could store quite a lot in a cabinet that starts about 3 foot above floor level and goes the 3 foot width of the staircase, maybe 18 inches deep.

From the underneath side, you could slant the ceiling from where the current edge is at the same angle as the stairs back far enough for the cabinet. Or, just go back say three steps and make a second level ceiling. I have seen both methods used in older houses to use that storage space. Depending on the layout of windows and light fixtures, one of those approaches might work for you

Try to take a pic of your neighbors balcony? I can’t find examples of your kind of house (i Have heard them called Greek revival because of the forward facing gable and also Victorian because of the era, despite the lack of embellishments) with a balcony like that. It seems like a later addition and becau of the kitchen I am assuming it was because the house was turned in to apartments. But either way the current balcony construction is shabby. If you are redoing the facade some day maybe revisit It but only after you have put budget toward details that would get you closer to this...omg it is so hard to find good examples of this house. There are only a million where I live, but here are a few imperfect ones:

The really important thing is the treatment of the porch and the gable. Don’t skimp. But i think you should lose the door.

Lyndee Lee, I am having trouble envisioning the two options for storage space underneath the attic stairs. I was thinking of just finishing off the space like a little room, and putting a cabinet door in the wall to access it.

greenfish1234, I completely agree about the importance of the porch and the gable. We are going to remove the siding from the eaves this weekend, and I hope there will be some original detail there to give me direction. I'm still going to try to save the door for now, but I can always lose it in the future if it doesn't look good after the porch is done.

What do you think of this plan?

This plan is much cheaper to create because we could hopefully reuse the kitchen plumbing, and the current window could remain next to the toilet. The pink rectangles would be built-in cabinets for clothing and shoe storage, and the orange storage space would be accessible from within the cabinet. The bathroom would have a pocket door. I think the bathroom would be up to code, but would it be too narrow for comfort? The narrowness of the bathroom is my only problem with this plan.

I really like this plan, the flow is much better. I don’t find the narrowness of the bath to be off-putting. It’s an old house, they have small bathrooms. This adds so much function, and the fact that it’s cheaper is a huge bonus!

I've only scanned the comments and may have missed something, but a simple solution is to move the closet(s) to the interior wall adjacent to the steps, and shift the balcony door to the right side window. Leave the interior alcove door where it is and convert to a bath. This leaves you with a small master suite with access to the balcony.

Thank you both for the comments above. RappArchitecture, that would make the bedroom nice, but I don’t think the exterior (in original post) would look right. Please feel free to let me know if you disagree.

The doors won't align, but I'm not sure that's a problem. The balcony door could also be under the attic window in the center, which would actually make the bedroom space more usable since all the circulation would be on the left hand side.