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Widen master closet by stealing space from son's bedroom?

8 years ago

Should we steal 2-feet from our son's bedroom to make our master closet more useable?

We are undertaking a major kitchen renovation in our house in Toronto, Canada, but will also be making a few changes upstairs, primarily updating our master bathroom. The only structural change we're considering upstairs is to take 2-feet from my son's bedroom to widen our existing master walk-in closet. Since we are currently living out of the country, it makes sense to have any "messy" work completed all at the same time, since the house will be vacant during the reno and we won't have to live through the mess. The entire upper level of our house will be re-carpeted before we move home, so this seems like the time to move a wall, if we're ever going to do it.

Our existing walk-in closet is very long, but quite narrow, so it can only be fitted in an L-shape. If we widen it by 2-feet, we'll be able to comfortably fit it out in a U-shape with custom hanging, shelves, drawers etc. Currently, we have one standard builder clothing rail with a shelf above it (very ineffective use of the space!)

Here's the current layout of our upper level. My son's bedroom is, unfortunately, already the smallest bedroom in our house at 13'8" x 11'0, so not ideal as the bedroom to be making even smaller, but that's just the way it is:

Here is the layout with the proposed change (i.e. moving the wall 2-feet into my son's room), which would decrease my son's room size to 13'8" x 9'0":

This would leave us with a closet size of 166"x85". The house we currently own overseas has a master walk-in closet that is 136"x86" and it's magnificent! We are currently living in a tropical climate, so we only have summer wardrobes, which fit comfortably in the closet with a a good amount of extra space to spare. In order to accommodate our fall/winter/spring wardrobes when we move home to Canada, I've determined that we can use a few more feet of hanging space, but otherwise our current tropical closet layout will be perfect for our house in Canada. Since the proposed new size of our closet in Canada will be pretty much the same width as our tropical one, and almost 3-feet longer, I feel like the new master closet size in Canada will be spot-on.

My only concern is whether or not we would be making a mistake to make my son's room even smaller. We're not particularly concerned about re-sale as this could be called our "forever house" (as much as I believe in such things, since I've lived overseas a few times in my life!) My son will be 12 years old by the time we move back into our house in Canada, so he'll be living in that room through his teenage years. We have a good-sized finished walk-out basement in our house and will be installing a pool in the backyard before we move home, so I'm guessing the basement and backyard will be our son's primary hangout spaces with his friends (and not so much his bedroom). So (as a parent who doesn't yet have teens), I'm guessing his room will be primarily used for sleeping, clothing storage, homework and having a space to go when he wants to be alone?

I've mocked-up a furniture plan for his room that would give him:

  • reach-in closet with double doors (existing) (the drawings show sliding doors, but they are double doors that open into the room, not sliding doors)
  • double bed with tall bookcases as "headboard", to allow for storage and a substitute for nightstands, since not enough space for nightstands
  • built-in wall-to-wall dresser/desk under window with floating wall shelves for display


As long as his room is good enough for a teen, my strong preference is to make our walk-in closet as functional as possible. Are there any compelling reasons we should NOT proceed with shrinking the size of our son's room? Or does it seem like it will be functional enough (and comfortable enough) for him at the new proposed size?

Thanks!

Comments (7)

  • 8 years ago

    While 84" is the recommended amount for a walk in closet, you can easily sneak that down to 80". I know because my current master closet is 80" wide and we really don't miss the 4".

    While the extra few inches may not seem like much they will make a bit of difference in your son's room. Other than that, I say go for it.

  • 8 years ago
    Thanks, bry911!

    At 80" wide, were you able to fit it out on both sides with ample space in between to move about?

    I'll admit that we use our walk-in closet (our current one in the Caribbean) as a kid spare bedroom when we have lots of guests. There's enough room for a twin air mattress without being squished and it has its own AC vent, so it's nice and cool and dark for sleeping :)

    I'll have to measure and see how much narrower we could go and still fit a mattress, as it would be good to keep as many inches as possible on the bedroom side rather than the closet side.

    Thanks for your input!
  • 8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    I had no choice but to do a 72" wide walkin closet. It is perfectly fine unless you're obese. All my normal weight friends exclaim over how huge it is. My very obese friends say "It's really nice...but it's such a tight squeeze!"

    My husband and I are often in it at the same time. We do have to shuffle a little, but that's actually due to the vanity I added to make up for the tiny master bath!

    I wouldn't take that much room from him. In fact, I would move his room to the office/guest room if I took anything from it at all. That seems kind of selfish to cram him into such a small space so you can have a bigger closet.

  • 8 years ago
    If I were the son, my answer would be no.
  • 8 years ago

    Thanks for your opinions!

    My son's room in the house we're temporarily living in right now is actually the exact size we're proposing reducing his bedroom to, so we can now visualize the space (it's oriented differently, but the dimensions are almost exactly the same). It's definitely not a large space, but does not feel too cramped by any means (my childhood bedroom was smaller!) The first thing I did was to go over the proposed new layout with my son and he actually quite likes it (he has sensory issues and always prefers a more enclosed space to a more expansive one, which is why he chose that room as his room), so that part is not actually a concern for us.

    It also seems like we can widen our master closet without needing to take quite a full 2-feet from our son's room, so that will help.

    I'm not really concerned about how big the room is relative to the other rooms, I'm more concerned about the size of the room as a standalone and if there are any practical layout or other issues I haven't concerned in the proposed new layout.

    Thanks!

  • 8 years ago

    Give your son the guest room and turn that bedroom into your office/guest room.