I am in the process of buying a House. This house has 3 bed rooms, one bath, kitchen and livingroom/dining area very small house, only about 1100 Sqft total living space. Here is the Million Dollar(?) question:
The kitchen is very small, perhaps not bigger than 5x5 or 5x7, you cannot even put a standard double door fridge in it. Cabinet space is VERY limited.
My plan:
Expand the kitchen, using one bed room space, add a bath room and a walk-in closet for whatever space that is leftover. So, it will be two bedrooms, two bath, larger kitchen and the rest is going to be the same.
Personally, I would never buy a two bedroom house and I know that in my area, 2 bedrooms are very hard to sell. But, I am in a suburb known for it’s schools so people who move here have kids or plan on having them.
Agree with above - I live in a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1100 sq ft house. I wouldn’t take out a bedroom to make the kitchen bigger. There’s nothing wrong with a small kitchen, it just needs to be nicely done.
If the kitchen can be made more functional in its current space, I’d go with that. Assuming it can’t, however, then I see nothing wrong with using one of the BRs to add to the kitchen. A single or childless couple would love a nice 2-BR with a great kitchen. And a family would not want to live in a tiny 3-BR that has a terrible kitchen.
I may not have read carefully enough… I would probably consider losing the bedroom to add a bathroom. Is there no other way to do it than to lose the bedroom? Can you redo the kitchen in the space provided and go with a standard size fridge? What about the dining “area”. Is it an eat-in kitchen? Can some of that be used more effectively?
I ask because my kitchen is about that size, I have a standard size fridge, my dining area is adjacent to the kitchen, so it is essentially an eat-in kitchen. I do have enough cabinet space because I have a pantry - so add a pantry if you don’t have one. But I have thought about adding lower cabinets beneath the window in the dining area, that might be an option as well.
“And a family would not want to live in a tiny 3-BR that has a terrible kitchen.”
We did, as that was all we could afford when we bought our home. We are still in the same house with the same, extremely small kitchen just gutted so a better layout out now and open into a family room addition. But we lived here 16 years before we could do that.
My bedrooms are all small and there really isn’t a master.
I also still only have one full bath and a wee half bath.
Unfortunately When you walk in the front door, the kitchen is on the left hand side and the dining area is on the right hand side, in between is the front door. Too much work is needed to re-arrange the lay out. Basically, you need to knock everything down to rebuild. You can put a standard top-bottom fridge in the existing space, but not the french door type. It is out of the style to have a kitchen THAT small in the area.
How long do you plan to live in this “new to you” home? Resale value has some consideration, but you also want to consider your lifestyle choices and being able to enjoy your home now is important also.
If you have a realtor friend who could weigh in on your remodeling and how it would affect the value of your home in your own local market, that might give you something to consider. But, I would still choose to make the house work for now, and worry about the resale value on down the road.
Oh, if you are just flipping this house, ignore my previous post. I would get local realtors to weigh in on the current trends and what type of buyer is looking in that neighborhood.
That’s a really tiny kitchen, I’d be inclined to make a nice big family room type kitchen. Everyone around here is asking for as open a layout as possible. If you do take over the kitchen how hard would it be for someone else to add another bedroom? Is there an attic that could be used for a masterbath without having to sprinkle the space. (Well code changes may require that anyway soon.) Or extra backyard? If I were buying that would make a difference to me.
All the same when we were buying our first house - we had one kid but were definitely planning on a second. We looked for three bedroom houses so that the extra room could be used for an office or guests. Our kids shared a room until the oldest was 10 and we moved to a bigger house. I think two bedrooms are of more interest for people who don’t have kids at all.
we have a second house in a vacation area. We DID NOT want only one bath, and houses that had only 1ba we looked at ways to add an additional 1/2 bath. What would have been ideal for us was 3br 1.5ba.
The house we bought is only 2br and 1.5ba. There is also a formal dining room, in addition to the eating area in the kitchen and a breeze way off the kitchen. Lots of inventory in this size/age range, and the formal DR was not typical. The dining room cannot be totally closed off, but it has a pocket door between it and the kitchen and we have a screen between it and the LR. For us, this house had enough positives to outweigh one fewer BR. We have a daybed and trundle in the DR and guests have not complained.
This is quite a different location/use case from alp, we use it just in the summer and the guest room less frequently. It will affect the resale, but probably no more so than when we bought it. The master lost its closet when the half bath was added, we have an armoire in there and could have one in the DR if we were ever to stage this for a sale.
Check out your local rental market and see what is the Norm for that neighborhood. What type of family is this neighborhood attracting? Is it mostly rentals, or a mix of owners and rentals. Is it in a good school district and attracting families with young kids?
I would try to figure out what the market wants and make your rental house fit that type home. Is there any other space that could be allocated to the kitchen, like a hall closet, dining room, living room space? Could you put in smaller appliances?
I am very particular when looking at rentals to buy and they must have at least 2 toilets…preferably two full baths, but at least 1 full and 1 half bath. I would never want a renter in a situation where if a toilet was plugged, that he’d have no facilities to use.
When you’re giving the kitchen measurements, are those of the floor space that you’re seeing …or the wall to wall measurements. It sounds like you’re giving the measurements of the floor space you’re seeing.
The house has kitchen and bed rooms on one side, living room/ dining area, bath room and another bed room on the other side, no hall ways to work with. Either you take it as is or take down a bedroom to expand into a Master bed room suite and enlarged kitchen.
The kitchen is an L shape, on the left is the fridge and small working area with cabinets, sink is in the corner and then stove and more cabinets. There is a small turn around square as the kitchen floor. Its open to the dining area, across the front entry.