Does that first floor office have the potential to become a bedroom? If so, keep the shower.

Do you have any photos? A floor plan would be more helpful.

Thanks for the reply! Here's the floor plan.

Have you checked local real estate listings? See what's done in similar homes and talk to an experienced realtor in your area to get the best idea of what would make sense for your house in your area.

Finish the basement. Add a bath there. You’ll actually get a bump in value rather than a deduction.

Thank you @homechef59 for sharing your input! Definitely critical considerations to think about. Although currently no tear downs nearby in this older established waterfront neighborhood, it's obvious which homes were a complete rebuild around us.

My friend owned an old Victorian house and a previous owner had converted the pantry into a 3/4 bath. Washer and dryer were in the basement. My thought was why would someone take a shower on the first floor and then run upstairs to the bedroom. Awkward, IMO.

So, I’m voting for a 1/2 bath with w/d and convert the laundry area into a pantry.

If you do both renovations well, I can’t see how the conversions would impact negatively on the value of the house. If anything, I could see the great pantry canceling out the loss of the shower.

It’s not as if you have 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths.

The other suggestion I have is to build a great outdoor shower, I live on Cape Cod and we use our outdoor shower until the end of October…perfect for the beach lover. It keeps the sand out of the bathroom.

If the house is at the beach or on a lake, a shower on the first floor may be desirable because folks can come in from the beach and take a shower to wash off the sweat and sand before trooping through the house.

I did the opposite. I converted my powder room and adjoining laundry closet into a 3/4 bathroom. I moved the laundry closet to the upstairs hallway, near all three bedrooms, by stealing space from an awkward master bedroom closet.

Pantry in the kitchen is a good idea, but is there another space for the laundry? There are no dimensions shown on your drawing. Is it possible to move the laundry into the garage?

Cons against stacked washer / dryer: I am barely 5 feet tall; stacked washer / dryer would be a deal-breaker for me.

Pros for having a shower on the main level -- when I broke my foot in three places, when my son was in high school and had knee surgery, and when my Mom was 98 years old and visiting me -- these were all times that I had wished for a downstairs shower. And as Lindsey_CA pointed out, it would have been helpful when my son was in beach camp and coming home with sandy feet. The powder room was small, and I think guests enjoy a larger space, not feeling cramped as if they are in an airplane bathroom.

Pros for moving laundry closet to 2nd floor -- most laundry comes out of the bedrooms. I no longer need to carry loads of laundry up and down the stairs.Only downside is that an upstairs washing machine is a lot noisier -- more vibration.

With a waterfront property and only to bedrooms that has a full bathroom? I would take a half bathroom on a heart beat. That is a small price to pay to get that property kind of property and as JudyG Designs mentioned why would you want to take a shower on the first floor when bedrooms are upstairs? How often this shower is used right now?

@suzanne_m - "... why would you want to take a shower on the first floor when bedrooms are upstairs?"

Because it's easier and less messy to take a shower on the first floor when coming in from the beach/lake/waterfront to get rid of sand and yuck without having to troop through the house.

@suzanne_m, we never use the first floor shower. The creek isn't exactly the type of water we want to swim in (a waterway that feeds into Chesapeake Bay). Kayak and boating, sure. We don't live on a beach, but along a creek that feeds untl a river. Lots of people boat around here. We basically bought the smallest home in the neighborhood with .33 acre of property. More like a cottage really. Despite out small home, we have a pretty sizeable chunk of property with an amazing view. Also, thanks @JudyG Design for your input!

Three years is not a long time, so resale value is important. I'd leave the 3/4 bathroom. The next owners may use the office as a bedroom. I think there will be a shift toward more people will be bringing aging parents to live with them, and having full bath on the main floor would be much more accessible for many people. If the future buyers plan to have guests, the second space to shower is nice, too. Your kitchen looks really big - isn't there a way to carve out better/ more storage to meet the needs that the pantry would fulfill?

I'm assuming if you put a closet in the office then you could market your house as a 3 bed 1.75 bath house, which gets you very close to the most common house that most buyers are looking for. I would not make the 3/4 bath into a 1/2 bath based on that as you are loosing the largest group of buyers.

I don't know the size of your laundry room as shown on the plan, but I'm thinking you could make it work as both laundry and a pantry by using cabinets to store pantry items in the laundry, unless you have somewhere else that you can add the laundry. Also is your plan to scale? The kitchen looks like the second largest room in the house so maybe you can find a way to incorporate a pantry there.