Is this an older house from 100 years ago?

House was built in 1932 and the sun room and family room were later additions but I don't know the exact date.

I'd skip the 2nd half bath on the main floor and add an ensuite bath to your master bedroom. You might have to borrow some space from the middle bedroom, but it would be worth it. Could be a shower, only bath with a 6 x 9 footprint. That's probably the smallest you can get away with and still have it be functional.

Whartsize bed do you have ? IMO the easiest is to steal from the main bedroom for the space but the real issue will be how to get plumbing into that area and in old houses it is a real issue in the pic of this kitchen you will see where there is a staim\nless type hood and horizontal cabinets above the sink that is how we got the plumbing into that 1905 house the ceiling were 9'4" so it was doable but there also was plumbing in the walls for the kitchen and the main floor bath.Your main bath shares the plumbing run with the kitchen. I need a bit more info as to how many bedrooms you actually need . I do not see how adding a shower in basement would be ideal since there is no bedroom there .I have had many 5 x8 bathrooms with a tub/ shower and IMOa unless you have atub already in the main bath you should add one to the master .But you need to talk to a plumber to see what is doable

Thank you for your help!! We have a king bed and we only need one bedroom. We are planning on using the other rooms as office space (or potentially using the Family room as an office and the small middle bedroom upstairs as a closet)

We have a tub in the full bath upstairs now. We've done some initial consultations to see what is possible and it seems like it would not be difficult to add a bathroom to the family room because of the way the stacked bathrooms are currently. And the pipes are believed to run through the "front" of the house so, for example, it would be possible to add a bathroom at the bottom of the stairs in the living room if we turned the stairs.

We are planning on redoing the kitchen too and maybe even filling in the small opening between the kitchen and family room so we can do an L shaped kitchen.

Part of the problem is we don't even know what to ask the plumber to do because we can't figure out what makes the most sense! We like the idea of a toilet on the main floor for convenience, but eventually we will need another shower.

Sounds to me like you need to hire either an architect or an interior designer who can draw up plans for you to take to your contractor. This is not an insignificant project and it shouldn't be left up to the contractor to design.

My 2 cents: ROI matters. A full bath fetches you 1/5 of the house's value in return. A half bath returns 1/10 of home value. The number of full bathrooms matters. I ended up converting a 1/2 bath to a full bath in a ranch-style new home build bec. ROI and future functionality/flexibility mattered. If this is your forever home, it's a no-brainer. Go for full baths over 1/2 bath. If this is not your forever home, maybe you don't want to spend the money. Chew on that a bit.

That said, looking at your floor plan you want to have bathrooms where they make sense. Having only 1 full bath for 3 bedrooms is not ideal. I would try to add an en suite in the primary bedroom If possible. You'll lose some space in that primary bedroom but your ROI and the value for your day-to-day living will be enhanced. On the downstairs, convert that 1/2 bath into a full bath. That workshop might be a future guest room. I don't see the point of adding anything other than a 1/2 bath to main level; you'd need to carve out a small space in the family room or living room. You don't want the bathroom near the kitchen or dining area. Good luck!

We agree Sabrina! That's why we're here :)

We're struggling to tell the contractor what we want because we can't figure out what makes sense. And JT we also 100% agree with the ROI, which is a large part of why we're so stuck.

This is our first home and we don't plan on selling any time soon. We don't know if it is our forever home, I guess part of that depends on how much we invest in remodeling/renovating! The lot does have room to expand the footprint eventually but for now that is out of budget and also doesn't work with our timeline of wanting to move there in April.

We live in an apartment right now with one shower and it works just fine for our purposes, but we're on the same page with you about having 3 bedrooms and 1 bath (not to mention the bath is REALLY small). We don't want to do anything that wouldn't make sense down the line but we are interested in the convenience of a first-floor half bath.

For the basement bath, the boiler and mechanical stuff is next to the washer dryer in the "workshop," but I had the same thought about having guest room downstairs eventually with a full bath. There is room to add a shower there.

If we did add a bath to the master upstairs, where would you suggest we put it?

For the main floor, we had two thoughts for where to put a bathroom so far, but are also considering using the back room as the primary bedroom:

If it were me, I'd place the new full bathroom between the master bedroom and the middle bedroom. But you still need someone to draw up the plans and you're not going to get that level of detailed advice here on this platform.

With a rec room in the basement it seems like the family room is redundant and would make a great mudroom/office and new bathroom space.

If you don’t need both the living room and family room, would you consider using the family room space to relocate the mudroom/laundry from the basement and add a full bath with shower? Possibly steal some space to make the kitchen a little bigger and/or add a walk in pantry?

Then I’d put the office(s) in the basement. Leave at least two bedrooms upstairs — the primary plus one for guests and potential resale down the road.

"Never solve a problem without having all the information"

Hire a local architect that can gather all the information needed to come up with a viable solution to your problem..

We would like to but it doesn't feel like our project is extensive enough to justify the cost at this point given we aren't changing the footprint at all.

I think we are convinced though to not do the basement full bath so that is progress!

At the main level, place half bath near the sunroom. Putting it near the kitchen is suboptimal. You don’t want to risk looking into the bathroom so close to where you’re cooking and looking at food.

You do need a general contractor. Reputation matters and real estate agents worth their salt may know of good ones because they’re always selling.

Yes! We have reached out to general contractors and are going to be getting estimates but we want to go to them with a more firm idea of what we want or at least say "here is option 1 and option 2, are they feasible and what is the cost?" As much as we want to get an architect and designer, we're not planning on putting more than $50k into this remodel. It's really just we want to update the home so we can make the best use of it and so it feels comfortable. Down the line when we start family planning perhaps we would take on a more serious expansion and consult with the architect at that point of course. But for now, it seems like we can update the kitchen, add a bath, maybe add a closet here or there, paint the exterior, etc. and end up with something that feels like our home!

This is how it was staged if helpful:

Sunroom

Living Room

Family Room

Kitchen/Dining

Back Bedroom

Primary Bedroom

Middle Bedroom

Great that you reached out to general contractors. Consider talking to a real estate agent to get objective advice on how to add the resale value that matters so much. It may take a little more time now but so worth it to do your research. You don't want to spend money you'll never get back when selling...Also I assume you know how much homes in your area are selling for and what remodeling your neighbors have done. You don't want to be out of step with them. Good luck!

You need to hire an architect who is familiar with old homes so you don't wind up remuddling the house.

What would be the purpose of a full bath on the main floor? Do you really think members of the house are going to be running up and down the stairs in their robes to shower in a family room? Sabrina gave you the best advice. Put it upstairs and then eventually if you expand, put a half bath downstairs. Or if you're fine with the one bath upstairs, do a half bath downstairs now.

Understand that those who love old houses, expect it to have the quirks of not being fully modernized with a bathroom for each family member, etc.

If you're looking to remodel the kitchen too, I'd move it into the back "office" area. Then your back door opens on a traffic pattern that goes straight down the side of the house instead of diagonally across a room and you can have a U-shaped kitchen. It also opens up more possibilities for the placement of a powder room on the main floor.

Regarding upstairs, for this home to accommodate more than 2 people, you really can't steal space for an ensuite from the other bedrooms. I would repurpose the corner of the master where the closet is into a small ensuite and move the closet to provide sound insulation between the master and the next bedroom. Since that bedroom also needs more storage space, side-by-side reach-in closets on the dividing wall would make sense.

If you put your main floor powder room near the front door, the plumbing will stack well with a the ensuite I described.

When having guests that are elderly or disabled not having a toilet room on the main floor can be quite problematic. I lived in a townhouse that only had a bathroom on the 2nd floor and could not invite dear family over and I moved because of it. Thus, as our population ages, I am an advocate for main floor toilet rooms.

Learned when rebuilding my 100 yr old house, significant advantage of keeping plumbing in spaces near (above, below, adjacent to) existing plumbing.

What a cute house! I’d add a small powder room somewhere near the entry of the stairs and sun room and add a small master suite. Maybe even bump out where the glass is. I’d leave the basement as a half bath. But I agree that it might be worth speaking with an architect.

Could you alter the windows in the entry and put one there?

Someone needs to determine the best location for the bathroom. "Best" will involve spatial relationships, location and condition of existing water supply lines, possible paths of proposed water supply lines, location and condition of existing drain lines, possible paths of proposed drain lines, existing electrical, existing HVAC, and existing structure. Very little of that information has been conveyed here.

You have a beautiful home. Just live with it for a while then decide what you need to do.

Best Wishes!

This is all SO helpful and great ideas that hadn't even crossed my mind. Interesting idea about putting the kitchen where the family room is, especially since we will be coming in that back door with groceries. (I hate the stone floor that is in the kitchen right now, it cuts the room in half at a really strange spot and makes the fridge feel really random... the staging also has random cabinets floating on the walls which feels odd). We don't like the pointy arches which is why we want to either open them up adn square them off or put in harmon/french doors if we make the family room the office.

We are considering filling in one of the openings to the kitchen/dining to get more counter/cabinet space, originally it was going to be the arch between the kitchen and family room but you all have me rethinking this and maybe filling in the dining room/family room opening instead!. We definitely need to do something with the kitchen because it's too small now for our needs and just not functional. And we don't really need a dining room. We don't even have a dining table in our apartment now because we replaced it with our work from home space!

Also putting a stack towards the front of the house with the ensuite is a great idea. I think it's decided based on all this great feedback that our priorities are putting a second full bath upstairs, remodeling the kitchen (or moving it?!), and maybe a powder room first floor.

I also really liked the idea of bringing the laundry up so it is more accessible, but the "family room" is on the side of the house that gets the most sun, so I feel like that space should be mostly open, whether it is the kitchen, an office, or a family room. Ironically the sun room is on the "dark" side of the house.

If additional info helps—it's a brick house, built 1932, "effective build date" is 1961 (whatever that means?) The sun room is stucco as is the family room and 13x12 bedroom. The middle bedroom has a cedar closet. The bathroom upstairs has a bathtub shower. Heat is from radiators (not sure if I should be adding those to the floorplan?). The house doesn't have A/C yet but we're working with HVAC specialists to put it in (ductless system so cassettes or splits). New electric panel as of last week and as far as the plumbing, it is stacked in the middle of the house and we think it runs towards the sun room end of the house. The pipe is visible in the mud room in the basement, but not in the upstairs bath/kitchen so I just copied the little red box over to approximate it but it isn't exact of course.

And again, if we could afford an architect, we'd hire one. The housing market where we live is INSANE. We felt lucky to find this house because we think it has great bones, a nice lot, lots of potential, and was on the lower end of our budget, meaning we have some wiggle room to put our own touch on the home with the remodel. We also knew we didn't want a new build because the new builds in our area all look the exact same, and just don't seem to be very thoughtful or high quality (at least in our price range). It just felt like a lot of house flips rather than well thought out remodels that were lived in and loved by previous owners.

To clarify what I mean about filling in the opening, this is the little kitchen rendering we did on Ikea with the kitchen/family room opening filled in. (This isn't the counter/colors we would necessarily use, this is just to visualize the counter space/cabinetry, and the opening in the second photo is an exterior door).

@shirlpp that is what we want to do before doing any sort of addition or major renovation, but we want to try to do the remodel before moving in for convenience, especially because we have our lease for a few more months so we feel like we should make the most of this time that we have another place to live!! And although it makes sense timing wise to do the big stuff now since we don't live there yet, we're aiming to spend less than $50k on these initial changes.

@cpartist so true about running up and down in a bath robe LOL. the visual immediately changed my mind about doing more than a powder room on first floor. My lazy (freezing cold) self would not want to be running up and down after showering. But like @mdln said, we are advocates for main floor toilet rooms! (We're late 20s but my SO's father is 80+, and the back door is no steps entry which is nice for accessibility purposes, so it seems to make sense to have the main floor toilet.)

I understand @Daphne C. Just ensure that what you need for your remodel is available.

Someone needs to determine the best location for the bathroom. "Best" will involve spatial relationships, location and condition of existing water supply lines, possible paths of proposed water supply lines, location and condition of existing drain lines, possible paths of proposed drain lines, existing electrical, existing HVAC, and existing structure. Very little of that information has been conveyed here.

This is VERY important. Also, you will need to permit this which will require stamped drawings with plumbing diagrams (prepared by a licensed architect or engineer). In my area, when adding a bathroom, the size of your water line will need to be confirmed and your sewer line is required to be scoped. Any upgrades or repairs to either of these can cost thousands of dollars. You say you cannot afford an architect, but I don't think you can afford not to have a qualified professional directly involved in this. Given the age of the house and all the points mentioned above, adding a bathroom where one does not exist is not a simple project.