Can you post a floor plan? You won’t be able to get any good responses until you can provide a bit more detail.

Do you need all the bedrooms for your family members or is one a ‘spare’?

One is spare for us. Definitely a family neighborhood though. The school district is the best in town, so I am considering that for future resale other families may have more children.

I have both down and up laundry. Its due to our lifestyle as major gardeners, homestead with 8 fur kids! And also 4 kids. We gave up a shower but that was because the tub room just really needed to be spa for us - we work that hard. And also the shower on the main level is way better for the dirt to stop. Both baths are just so elegant. The laundry steels from the bath but faces into the hall. Not sure you like that or can do with your water supply but be careful on your machine space - I planned great! But then yet another inch was needed at the end. I had it but that was because of the door clearance.

I like the laundry to be on the same floor where I will be spending my time while I do it. I wouldn't want to be going upstairs every time I need to move it along. I prefer to carry the basket up and down once, versus going back and forth.

Find another solution - I wouldn't want to give up a bedroom or a bath in a neighborhood with great schools.

Steel in the hall from the 4th bed only, do a stacking. Worry about vibration. :)

Is there an option for a laundry chute and/or a dumb waiter instead? If you do move the laundry upstairs don’t forget to consider where the dryer vent will go-you want the run to be as short and horizontal as possible, so the dryer would be best placed on an outside wall.

Losing the third bathroom might be ok, but losing a bedroom will almost certainly reduce your home's value. That said, if you plan to be in the house for many years, do what works for you and your family.

In your area are 3 or 4 bedroom homes more typical? If 3, then losing the bedroom might not affect your resale value.

We bought our home with 4 second floor bedrooms and one had been converted to a laundry room with a huge closet framed out with wooden doors that swung open to reveal the washer dryer. One condition of the sale was that we had the washer dryer relocated back to the basement where the original hookups were because we were expecting our third child. We removed the huge doors and when we replaced the carpet with cork had the pan removed. The water hookups can be hidden by decorative items on the dresser and although the huge framed closet is not ideal for furniture placement, without doors it works for a kid room. If you convert in a way that allows it to go back to a bedroom I don’t see the problem.

Some good points have been made. I understand not wanting to haul a laundry basket up and down the stairs, but do you spend most of your time upstairs, and so doing laundry coincides with that? Otherwise, as partim said, you will be running up and down stairs a lot anyway. Regarding resale, I am a big proponent of making your home suit your tastes so it is indeed a home, not just a house. My previous two houses had the option of a 4th bedroom being a sitting room off of the master, which I chose. Both houses I had to convert the SR back to a 4th to maximize resale. I enjoyed having the sitting room, and it was worth it to me, but it sure was a pain both times. As long as you have figured out what makes you the happiest and you know the pros and cons, that is what ya do.

I think I'd lose the small bathroom, of the options presented (again, not seeing the floorplan). But I would see if there's a way to create an access from the hallway rather than through the bedroom to which it's attached.

Is the master closet built out or do you plan to build it out? I have seen laundry in the closet and I love that idea. How easy would laundry be then!

Good things to consider. My only experience with laundry on a floor that did not house the bedrooms was with two basement laundry set-ups that was for me torture. Otherwise we have lived in homes with laundry on the second floor with all the bedrooms. Here is a floorpan of the second floor I put together to give you all an idea of what we're working with. The current master suite was an addition on the back of the house in the 80s, it needs a little updating but otherwise we're not going to do much there. I like the layout as is. Interesting thought about laundry in the closet. I had never considered that before. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Something to consider certainly. As an aside, the current master closet was likely an original 4th bedroom converted to the closet and hallway for the master addition.

I personally would convert the small bathroom. You can close off the door that leads to the bedroom and make the laundry room more of a reach in laundry closet. We've lived in very family friendly neighborhoods with excellent schools and most would prefer an upstairs laundry. We also had a mudroom/laundry room in our previous home off the garage- I really disliked that because it felt that all the dirt was coming in to the clean area (chicago). That space ALSO had the only main floor powder room, which I HATED! We ended up knocking that out to make a larger mudroom/laundry and added a powder room in the center of the home.

^what calidesign said. I would do stack washer dryer too. Easy conversion except not sure how to get water, dryer vent and drain there? That could limit your options. When our kids were young, we put a stack washer dryer in a kitchen corner on outside wall. We taught our kids how to do laundry very early on. When our oldest son went to college, his first call was “Mom, none of these kids know how to do laundry!” We sure got a laugh out of that. We did have a few pink shirts but good learning. Lol

In looking further, I suspect your cheapest option due to water, power, drains etc is to use the small bath. Just cap existing infrastructure for resale options.

After looking at the actual layout, it's almost a no-brainer. Leave the bedrooms and convert one of those bathrooms to a laundry room - if that is truly your desire...Best Wishes!!

I would convert the small bathroom. I am trying to get used to a home with main floor laundry and find it very inconvenient. It was a trade off when we bought this house, and worth it. But having lived for 24 years in a home with a 2nd floor laundry? Oh, I miss it. Take the time to do a great job waterproofing and prepping. Retrofit the shower drain. Tile the floor. Make sure your shutoffs are nicely accessible, especially if stacking — then consider a rear access to shutoffs and a duct clean out. That’s going to make a perfectly positioned laundry room. Anyone with kids buying your house down the road will appreciate having upstairs, I suspect.

I think that losing one bathroom would be a mistake--three bedrooms sharing one bath wouldn't work well with teenagers. And what if some of the bedrooms were occupied by two children? I suggest that you consider giving over part of your master closet to a stackable washer and dryer as suggested by K R.

Neither. Carve an alcove from the hallway into the master closet, find space for it in the huge master bath or leave where it is.

I agree with Yvonne that losing a bedroom bathroom and having 3 bedrooms sharing one quite small hall bathroom is a mistake.

I don't understand these crazy houseplans with huge master bathrooms & closets that shortchange all the other bathrooms and often the bedrooms, too. Just the master bathroom is larger than two of the bedrooms!

I'd increase the depth of the hallway closet opposite the staircase by stealing portions of the 13'-3" x 10'-11" bedroom and its adjoining closet (marked 2'-2"). I'd set the appliances side by side and install some shelves or cabinets over them. If that closet were about 50" wide, you could install compact (24" wide) appliances; for standard appliances (27" wide) you'd probably need about 56". That location would be very convenient.

-- amateur

Having just sold our home and now beginning to build our next one, we have learned the following from our real estate agent and our home designer.

1) 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms on the second level are ideal for families seeking a two-story home. Each bathroom does not require a tub. As long as one upstairs washroom has a tub, you can remove it from the other washrooms. Could this be a possibility to save you some space?

2) Laundry on the upstairs is ideal as that is where the vast majority of your laundry will come from. Having said that, I have 2nd-floor laundry in my current home and I constantly bringing my baskets down to the main level to fold it while I watch TV. The easier solution would be for me to add a TV to my room but I am too cheap to pay for another cable box ;)

3) For your laundry room, be sure to add a sink and ensure you have cupboards for storage and space for hanging & folding. My current laundry room has a sloped ceiling so I cannot hang anything. I am continually having to put a drying rack in the hallway. Ugh!!