I think that having 5 bedrooms and only two baths is too many beds per baths. For the size of the house that it sounds like you’re describing I could see future buyers wanting more bathrooms.

Just for clarification, the .75 will be sink, toilet, shower? The other two will have sink, toilet, shower, and tub?

Show the plans. Upstairs and downstairs.

Plus, provide info like how many family members, ages, etc.

Really there is nothing for us to work from. Make sure the plan is to scale and all meaurements clearly marked. I find easiest done on graph paper. The provide a lot more info as to why 5 bedrooms for instance.I will say I sidlike walk in pantries and I love a main floor laundry so you could start there.

Build the custom 2 story home, and do not remodel and add to a 1800s home on a small lot.

Thanks for the replies. We don't have floor plans that reflect the latest concepts. Agreed, I left out a lot of details to keep it simple. We currently have one infant, but plan on having 3 kids total. The fifth bedroom would be an office upstairs. If we removed the fifth bedroom, the desk would have to go in the main floor family room.

As for is it a remodel or custom home: we are adding 2500sqft to a 1700sqft 1890s brick house. So both a new house attached to a remodeled house. But we can gut the original house second floor as it doesn't have that much character. Hope that helps!

Do you mean you are adding on to and remodeling an existing house?

If your total floor space is going to be 4200 sqft and you can only have 1/3 of that upstairs, I would put the bedrooms and sufficient bathrooms upstairs and look for space for the laundry and office and anything else downstairs in the 2770sqft available there.

Personally I wouldn't want the laundry upstairs anyway. I also prefer the study away from the bedrooms so that I can work unsociable hours without disturbing other people. But those are my preferences based on how I live. What works for me might not work for you.

@Mark Bischak, Architect Yes, we are adding on to and remodeling an existing house. There will be more new square footage than old. Given town restrictions, we need to keep the "historic" house so no option of just building new. The location and views of mountains are great!

@Nick: I agree with your comments. What is a sufficient number of bathrooms for 3 kid's rooms? Is one full bath enough? If so, then we can have a fifth bedroom upstairs that can be an office and also have the laundry room. I know the laundry upstairs vs main floor is debated issue, but we would prefer it upstairs if possible. We will have good soundproofing to allow the office to be upstairs.

What is sufficient number of bathrooms will depend on a few factors - and it has certainly changed from when I was growing up. Infants are a lot less fussy about bathroom privacy than teenagers, so if you plan to be there that long, you should bear that in mind, though obviously you can make changes at a later date. If you plan to have parents stay over to babysit for extended periods, that will be a factor. If you think you might sell within a few years, it would be well worth talking to a realtor about what expectations would be for your market. I don't think there is a definitive answer. Personally, for a couple and three young kids, I would think 2.75 is sufficient. However, we only ever had two kids and they've long left home, so don't place too much weight on what I think.

Houses these days seem to be built with a bathroom in every bedroom and a few extras! Way too many bathrooms. Working on a project right now and I did no en-suite bathroom, except for master. Don't care about resale! Next owner will have plenty of room to add more bathrooms.

I like a laundry on the main floor. See if you can design a laundry chute from upstairs that empties into the upper part of a pantry cabinet in the laundry. This way you are cutting the laundry room trips in half. We have that and it worked great. I was able to find a round pop-up laundry hamper that fit perfectly in that upper cabinet.

Make the office an office size and not a bedroom size and you should have room to do all of it (no closet). Put a murphy bed in there if you want to have an occasional guest room. Hard to know without a floorplan if it would work. FWIW we did pocket offices in our custom home - didn't want a huge 12x12 space for just a desk. We both spend most of our time @ a computer and cube @ work is 6x8 so I didn't feel the need for a bunch of wasted floorspace behind me. Also consider not putting a bath in the master unless you take a lot of baths (we didn't put one in ours - our soaking tub was used maybe 3 times in the 6 years we lived in our last house). YMMV.

Where you put laundry and how many baths you have is totally personal preference. Having the choice, I would want more than 1 bath for 3 kids, and I prefer laundry upstairs (where it's all generated). I don't like hauling it up & down. I find that it's easier to do and I do it more often (it doesn't build up and become overwhelming) when it's right by the bedrooms. But that's me. You have one infant now - the laundry situation will get much worse the older your kid gets and the more of them you have. Laundry chutes are amazing, especially when you're a kid - fun to drop all sorts of stuff down them. Not sure how well it would work for actual laundry.

So counting the bedroom and full bath in the basement, ideally, you want a 6 bedroom home, with 2.75 baths upstairs, a half bath on the main floor and a full bath in the basement. I'd have 4 bedrooms and 2.75 baths and laundry upstairs, move the desk/office to the 800 sq ft remodeled basement and add another washer/dryer connection in a closet so you don't have to climb 2 flights of stairs to wash. With 5 people and guests and appliances, that walk in pantry is going to be handy someday.

Edited to add: presumably you'll have plenty of extra empty rooms for several years so there's no reason the office/guest rooms can't be upstairs until the space is repurposed for children's bedrooms, and appliances don't have to be added in the basement until/unless they're needed.

As I read this you'll have a total of six bedrooms -- five upstairs and one in the basement. Right? Plus 4.5 bathrooms? That's a lot of bedrooms and bathrooms to clean! I hope you're planning on some household help.

As someone who has raised a family and lived in many houses, flexibility is a smart strategy. Children can happily share bedrooms and bathrooms (really!). When your kids become teens, the oldest can move into the basement space for a few years before heading out of the house. Can the office be in the basement bedroom until then? I much prefer locating laundry near the bedrooms, especially in a house with children. Laundry for two adults and a baby pales in comparison with two adults and three active older kids, so think it through.

Personally, I'd rather have generously sized rooms that can serve multiple functions over the years than many small rooms. Don't just think about now . . . think about your changing needs and how you'll use the house in five years, ten years, twenty years time. Good luck with your project.

It just occurred to me - are you planning to use the basement for rental income? If that's the case, I'd still go with 4 bedrooms and a laundry rooms upstairs.

Remove a bedroom, the 3/4 bath, or the laundry room?

I voted to remove a bedroom. My reasoning follows....

Your present need is for 2 bedrooms, with hopes to expand. If you build 4 bedrooms (3 + office) upstairs, and God doesn't bless you with any more children, you will only have 1 empty room to daily remind you of the children you don't have. If you're blessed with 2, of opposite sex, they can each have their own space. If you do, indeed, have 4, they can share. Even if your sex ratio is heavily skewed, several can share a single bedroom, provided it is large enough and you plan now.

I know a lot of folks like giving their kids their own rooms. If that's a serious priority for you, and you end up with 4 kiddos, then rearranging some spaces or moving are both viable options. :-)

Anyhow, feel free to think I'm crazy, lol.

First off, I am so impressed with everyone's replies and your understanding of the problem. This is the first time I have ever posted to Houzz....just saying thanks! Definitely will post some floor plans to get feedback once we create more viable ones.

@Gilligan Gehrity: As you can imagine, we bought the house for the location. There are no empty lots to build on around Boulder, CO. Just a lot of updated old homes in this neighborhood from the 1890s. We won't dishonor the home, but rather blend elements of new and old to make it cohesive.

@chispa: We considered the laundry chute idea and also agree most homes have too many bathrooms (so much cleaning!!!)

@anj_p: We like the idea of the small office (or as our architect called it, a cloffice (closet/office)). We also like the idea of the murphy bed. I would hate to design around guests that only use the space 4-5 weeks a year. We can also double up the kids when the grand parents visit. Totally agree on tub, but future pregnant wife will disagree :)

@JT7abcz: The rental part makes it interesting. The cost to do this work is pushing our budget, so making the basement a rental/AirBnB could make it more manageable. We also could see having an au pair. My wife works 100% from home and so the main office needs to be nice since she will spend most of her waking hours in there! So trying to avoid a basement office.

@einportlandor: completely agree with your comments! We are all for flexibility and definitely can have the kids in the same room etc. We are hoping for this to be the next 30 year+ home. In terms of rooms sizing, to save on costs we are trying to reuse as much of the existing walls as possible. Given the age of the home, the rooms are on the smaller side (beds are 10x8, 10x8, 10x10, and 10x12 currently upstairs).

@One Devoted Dame: good points. We tend to agree that having one less bedroom is the solution for a bunch of reasons.

Thanks all for all the good ideas and discussion! We are leaning towards the one less bedroom solution! Looking at the polling, people tend to like having that extra bathroom. Definitely the most expensive choice!

We took the feedback of removing a bedroom to make room for both a laundry room and 3/4 bath. Attached is our latest thought. Everything in black is existing, everything blue is new. Existing house in black is 27' left to right and 26' up and down. Addition is 34' left to right, 22.5' up and down. Sorry there is no scale. Each kid's bedroom is ~10'x12'. We think this mostly works except the dead space in the top right of the master bedroom. Maybe will have a desk there.

Some notes:

• North is to the right
• Stairs go down towards the left
• There is a bathroom under the 3/4 bath which makes it slightly cheaper since easier to plumb
• We can't change the exterior wall locations due to setbacks.

Any feedback on the layout?

We have four bedrooms upstairs and three bathrooms over 1200 or so square feet. We Jane three kids who each have their own bedroom. Our two girls share a bathroom but our son has his own. We have an office on main floor

I think you can get more out of your space by flipping the location of the master suite and the other bedrooms, which should allow you to reduce the amount of hallway (gaining more space in bedrooms). Basically put the master suite in the addition (as I assume the black walled section is), along with the laundry room and possibly the 3/4 bath.

Regarding the bathrooms, I would try to arrange the space by putting the full bath between two bedrooms that will share it, and the 3/4 bath as an ensuite. Having two baths next to each other with doors opening to the hall (even if it's in a nook) doesn't make much sense, and if that's the only way you can find to lay things out, I would only have one bath for those 3 bedrooms. The shared bath is also pretty far from the bedrooms. If you keep this arrangement, I would make the 3/4 an ensuite and make them both wider than tall (so the shared bath can open to the hall where the current 3/4 bath's door is, and the 3/4 bath's door is directly into the bedroom, close to the exterior wall). Also, the 3/4 bath looks huge, so I think there's plenty of room to do something different and possibly give yourselves a larger pocket office upstairs if you want one. I wouldn't try getting the toilet in a separate room in the shared bath, either. It takes up a lot of space and your kids can figure out how they want to share the bath themselves (maybe they're fine using the toilet in front of each other, maybe they wouldn't be comfortable being in the same bathroom together ever, but they can figure it out).

Regarding closets: making them deep walk-ins means you're sacrificing closet space. Reach ins will give you better closets (no dimensions shown on your plan but assuming you have 4'x5' walk ins, if you make them 8'x2.5' reach-ins you double the amount of hanging space). Consider the same thing for your master closet - you lose efficiency only getting hanging on one wall (assuming your closet is 5' wide). If you make it 7' wide, you can double your hanging space.

@anj_p: Thanks for the thoughtful and in depth reply. I really agree with your thinking. The black part on the right is the existing house and everything blue is the addition. I think putting the master on the right is an interesting solution and I agree would save on hallways. I didn't mention that the right hand part of the house faces the street (not a main road, but one that has traffic...maybe a car a minute?). Also the left hand side of the house (the addition) faces the mountains and has nice views. This is the driving reason to have the master on the left to get good views and not face the street.

I totally agree with your comments about the baths. One of the driving thoughts behind the current layout is the wall between the two baths is an original triple brick wall. I need to get a structural engineer in to figure out the cost and feasibility of removing (one contractor thought no problem, a different one thought it would be expensive). Agreed the 3/4 is big. Also agree that the water closet is not needed for the full bath (I had put that there when only 1 kid's bath upstairs). Agreed we don't need it with two baths now. I had a similar layout where I grew up. The 3 kids split the 2 bedrooms by gender. So although they were next to each other, it didn't feel awkward.

Great comment on closets! I told my wife the exact same thing! I agree with you it is better to have a wider and less deep. As for the width of the master walk in closet, I really want it to be 7' feet wide to have clothing on both sides. I just couldn't get it to fit because the length of the addition is maximum 34', width of bath and laundry is 6' each, master has king with 3' on left, and 2.5' on right, plus 2.5' bathroom door and then 4 walls totally 2'....you are only left with 34-6-6-6-2.5-2.5-2-2 = 6'. 100% agree 7' foot is much better than 6' foot currently. I bet with some rearranging, we can make it 7' wide....but have definitely thought about this fact!

We are going to send our architect these layouts (with fixed bed 2/3 closet) as concepts and he can chew on it and come up with something better (like you have). We are very impressed with his creativity so far.

I guess I would say as nice as a view might be, it really depends on how much time you're spending in your bedroom, particularly when it's light out. We spend hardly any time in ours so the view wouldn't really matter. You might want to try setting how it would work, especially if you could get an office with a view by rearranging.
Regarding traffic... our bedroom is on the street side and we preferred it. Most people around here hang out in their back yards, and some people stay up later than we do. We also sleep with a fan on and have blackout curtains, so light and sound don't bother us. YMMV.

I should say, choosing between noisy neighbors and the sound of a car driving by, we prefer the car :)

@anj_p: Our architect asked us the same question: how often are you taking in the view from bed? Our current bedroom has spectacular views, and I just love waking up to sunrise on the mountains. Also, the bathroom will have great views...would love a "loo with a view" :) Also, we are thinking we might have a desk in the top right of the master bedroom near the entry. So this could also enable a working spot with a view. (not a huge fan of monitors in bedroom, but this is what happens when we turn a bedroom into a bath...)

Concerning noise, it is going to vary by neighbor. Currently the backyard is pretty quiet. But our town has pretty strict noise rules so I think it will be OK. The street however has the occasional loud car which we can't control as much.

We have three kids. I would choose one large bathroom over two small ones any day! The kids all seem to want to be in the bathroom at the same time, and since they are kids they are waving their hands around, climbing on the tub etc... A spacious bathroom is a delight with three kids! I don't like too many bathrooms, since I like a clean house and more bathrooms = lots of time spent cleaning!

Are you planning an 8 x 10' bedroom? That is very small. Our previous house had a 9 x 11' room and it felt much too small to be anything other than an office. I would always prioritize space in kids' rooms if you can. They are in their rooms so much as they get older. If you can find the space, 10 x 11 is a much better bedroom size, although it is still pretty small.

@isabellagracepan: I can see how young kids would love all sharing one bath. But later in life, I bet they would want to be separate. Our current full bath in uploaded layout is a 6x13 which is decently sized for all playing. We also talked with realtors and everyone said a 4 bed 3 bath upstairs is much more valuable than a 5 bed 2 bath. Agreed the cleaning will be annoying!

As for bedrooms the smallest bedroom on the plan is a 9'x13' plus a 8'x2.5' closet. I think that size is just right, not big, not too small. The other bedrooms are 10'x12.5'. I think they are good enough size, but I do agree with you comment that 8x10 is too small and bedroom space is important.

My kids are 13,12,9. I’m glad there are two baths between them not one. For sure. We also have them clean. No reason I should.

Is there a way to split up the location of the two kids baths. It’s odd they are right beside each other from
An ease of use perspective

I put the 3/4 bath there since it was the smallest bedroom and it is above the main floor powder room so is easier to plumb. On a floor plan they look close together, but in practice the doors are not that close.

Yes, our kids are 5, 8, 10, so I have no experience with the teenage stages. We also have all boys, who may spend less time in there as teenagers? If you don't mind the extra cleaning and the realtor thinks it will be more valuable, then do what feels right to you! Perhaps you can teach the kids to clean their own bathrooms :)

Yes there is no way cleaning a 4000 square foot house is my job nor my partner’s. Kids can help and do. Everyone has jobs and contributes. Each cleans one bathroom too!

We have three kids. I would choose one large bathroom over two small ones any day! The kids all seem to want to be in the bathroom at the same time, and since they are kids they are waving their hands around, climbing on the tub etc... A spacious bathroom is a delight with three kids!

You and I have similar families. :-D My 7 kiddos range in age from 15 (only girl) to nearly-1, and all of the boys seem to want to be together more often than not. So, for our custom house, I'd strongly prefer a single large bathroom (with 2 toilet closets), to two smaller ones. :-D

I acknowledge that I'm totally weird, lol.