My solution would be to find a place with 3 bedrooms.

Thanks for the reality check. I was hoping there was a straightforward option I wasn’t considering. Moving isn’t an option, but we do have a lot size plenty large enough to build an additional dwelling (which is a common set up where I live so it wouldn’t be too strange). I hear mixed things about whether it’s harder to remodel or build, and of course it is high specific to each situation, but maybe building is the way to go here.

Can you make your dining room into a bedroom by adding doors to the openings? Then, incorporate a dining area into your living room.

I like @ratherbesewing idea or getting creative to “divide“ one bedroom into two

Expand the extension that looks to be a breakfast nook and make that the dining area. Current dining room becomes a 3rd bedroom.

Where are the chimneys? Not seeing them on the floor plan. Also, the floor plan is hard to see. Not enough contrast for me to see how the kitchen is laid out.

I see several possible solutions.

My least favorite is to build the living room into two bedrooms, the dining room becomes the living room and bedroom 1 becomes the dining room.

Another has been mentioned. Make the dining room a bedroom and move the dining furniture either to the breakfast room or the back of the living room.

The third is to divide bedroom 2. Maybe take out the closets and divide the room or maybe add a loft room. How high are the ceilings?

With the layout and room entrances, and the fact that the patio and kitchen are both accessed via the dining room, there are going to have to be structural changes with that arrangement. How are they going to enter the kitchen ? If it’s possible for them to break down part of the wall between the living room and the kitchen - now they have to potentially relocate some, if not all, of what is currently on that kitchen wall - maybe including plumbing. So now you’re looking at a possible kitchen remodel, too.


Unless they continue to access the kitchen through the new 3rd bedroom, and continue to access the patio through that bedroom, too, there is going to be major work needing to be done - which will be extremely disruptive; and I don’t know if it’s even possible, given various constraints the OP has mentioned.


Also, we do not even know how many children the OP has. She might have more than two... or a boy and a girl; so it would not be as feasible to expect a boy and girl to share a bedroom as they are growing up, And it’s also not as feasible to put 3 or 4 children in one bedroom.


And as a side note: I don’t like bunk beds - for children, or for anyone. They are dangerous. People can be groggy when they wake up in the morning, or when they might need to get up out of bed to go to the bathroom during the night, etc. No one should have to climb a ladder to get in and out of their bed. Dividing a room with a ceiling track and hanging curtains between beds, or some other room divider system, is a much better idea - if one wants to give children more privacy.

Thanks everyone for your input!

A few responses:

ratherbesewing - yes converting the dining room to a bedroom is one possibility, as long as we can open up the wall between the kitchen and living room to enable kitchen entry, and modify the kitchen layout accordingly

Patricia Colwell Consulting - It is a 100+yr old single family home that was divided into multiple dwellings 50+ years ago, one on each level. We own the entire home. You can think of that entry as a small lobby that has a locking front door to both the main level and upper level units. It’s extra insulation for opening the front doors in cold winter weather, and happens to be shared between 2 units.

Assumption is that there would be 3 kids (just had my 2nd and planning for another eventually). 2 of them would share a room in a 3bd set-up. I’m not personally comfortable with a boy/girl sharing a room once they are preteens+older, although I know that is common in much of the world. Sharing is fine with me while they’re still young though.

ci_lantro - the chimney is that strange rectangle in the bathroom. In real life it just looks like a drywalled mystery bump out. I have no idea what the layout used to be in the early 1900s when this was built (although I am determined to figure it out).

auntthelma - dividing the bedroom into 2 and taking over the rear entry to keep them big enough has been my leading proposal so far. It does mean we lose the rear entry, and the rooms will still be on the smaller side assuming one of them will still have 2 kids sharing it. Ceiling is just over 7’, not tall.

freedomplace1 - you are spot on on all counts. This does end up being a pretty major remodel to make it my ideal home to raise a family with 3 kids in. Sometimes I want to make it work with what we have, and other times I just want to build from scratch somewhere else on our lot. As someone who grew up on the top bed of a bunk bed, I will agree it was not convenient in the middle of the night, and the novelty wore off by the time I was a teenager.

This is my leading concept so far. It may require some signficant structural work to remove walls, and it might be strange for the kids to have to walk through the kitchen to take a shower. It also involves taking over the entryway to use as living space (it is over foundation thankfully, not just an enclosed porch). Baseboard radiant heaters would need to move. Exterior work will be significant at the front entrance. I think at this point I'm going to map out some new build ideas with an architect then cost out new vs remodel to see which wins.

And this is one that I had mocked up at one point converting the dining room to a bedroom. The nook is pretty tiny (under 7x7) and is not at grade so it can't be expanded easily, but we aren't big into hosting anyway so it might not be a dealbreaker.

Lots of people share bedroom with boy/girl or have 3 in a room. I live in bay area with very high housing prices so this the reality here for many, not the 4000 sf homes on this board. Maybe not first choice but certainly a possibility. i would much sooner do that than put kids or parents in a separate building! That may be helpful for play/hangout space though.

agree no great way to split out 3rd br. some people will do bedroom through a bedroom but even that would require moving window and would be pretty cramped.

is there a possibility of annexing a room from one of the other apartments?

Build other structures on your lot to rent out (not to put your kids in). Think about who you want to rent to and build spaces that would appeal to that demographic.

Then take the unit above yours (or all of the units- how many are there?) and make it all into your house. Bedrooms for all kids and future kids and space to grow into when your kids are teens. No shared walls with other tenants.

Oh, it would be a separate small single family dwelling for all of us (built on an empty part of the lot), not just sending the kids outside to live in their own structure! It would be expensive but we'd be able to rent out this existing unit to help offset it.

As far as combining units, it would still require a lot of expensive work to reconvert and turn the house into an absolute maze to get from the main level kitchen to upstairs bedrooms (unless we knock down a bunch of walls). Losing that rental income would also be a major hit since the value of the house (and as such our mortgage) were based on it being its own rentable unit.

At the end of the day we still have a place to live that can hold all of us, and I am very lucky to be having this dillemma in the first place. We love our location, and we'll find a way to make it work. Thanks for all of your input!

I was thinking that the rent from the new unit would help offset the cost of combining units (a couple of years in the future) and the loss of income when the upstairs unit couldn’t be rented anymore (or maybe only take half of the unit- depends on how big it is.) Both of those would be big construction projects with big budgets though.

k8cd ahh I see what you are saying! Thanks for the clarification.

It’s always easier to “spend” someone else’s money :)

The most straightforward and economical way to add another bedroom is to confine the work to the bedroom wing. Removing walls here is probably not a deal-breaker structurally, and it would most likely mean pushing out the bedroom at the back to make all the bedrooms large enough. The two kid's bedrooms would be at the bottom, then the master suite at the back.

Can you create a separate entrance for the other unit and grab that space for the living/dining area?

Here is a strange shaped bedroom, but would be really fun to have the nook as a play or study area for a kid

This might be the simplest solution: My suggestion is move the Primary Bedroom to Bed 1.

See plan indicating small area in kitchen (breakfast area?) and reconfiguring Bed 2 and adding Bed 3. Use your existing Dining Room for everyday and add a small banquette and table in kitchen. Notice that, if possible, move the doorway from the kitchen to the laundry room down towards the bathroom. This will give you a designated area for an eat-in kitchen (especially good for kids).

Unfortunately, there will have to be two stairs into the new Bed 3, to get to grade level. But this a cute room with a substantial closet and two windows! The footprint of your house remains the same, and just steals space from the kitchen. I also like the Primary Bedroom away from the kids' rooms. Hope this helps.

rockybird - yes that is an option! Originally I was hoping to keep some north facing windows viewable from the living areas because there are nice mountain views that direction, but at this point I just want whatever layout is the most feasible, and that is a strong candidate.

Denise Marchand - I do love the idea of keeping both kids rooms next to each other. Unfortunately the garage underneath prevents there being a step down on the left/west side of the new bedroom you drew, so the entire room would need to be raised. There is quite a bit we won't know about the ceiling contruction until we do demo, but if there's a possibility to raise that entire room and maintain proper ceiling height, it would be a wonderful layout.

––––––––––

A crazy idea came to me, where the additional kids bedroom would be nested between the 2 bedrooms at the same level as the primary, but with a built-in lofted full-size bed. I need someone to tell me if this is dumb. My area has plenty of old quirky homes so resale isn't a huge concern.

In the larger Bed 2 you have plenty of room for a loft and/or bunk beds, and being a long room it would work nicely. Kids love lofts and they are easy to construct. The sky's the limit with the design.

^ ^ ^ Two twin and two kings

Bedroom #2 ceiling is 7'. Low ceiling takes loft options off the table.

You could go crazy and add a bath to a primary bedroom. Living room might be kind of small though. The entrance would switch to the porch. LR would be a bigger if you removed the half bath.

A loft isn't out of the question with a 7' ceiling - you just eliminate space below the bottom bed. You lose storage space - but gain a whole bed, so it's a tradeoff.