Kieran McCarthy: Future-proofing your home with a ground-level bathroom

Kieran McCarthy: "I would repurpose the underside of the stairs as a WC. Because it is off the hallway it doesn’t need a separate lobby."

Hi Kieran,

My aunt lives in a really nice three-storey terraced house with an attic above it. She keeps it really nicely but is getting older now and there’s only one bathroom with a separate shower room on the second-storey.

We have been trying to tell her to consider future-proofing by installing a ground-level bathroom.

She has her washing machine and dryer built into the space under the stairs along with some very handy storage cupboards so she doesn’t want to change that. There is a nice patio and a pretty garden behind the house so we have suggested she install a bathroom there. She’s horrified and says she won’t ever go back to the outdoor loos of her childhood. We’ve tried to explain that it would not be outdoors at all and would be accessed from inside the open-plan kitchen/dining area.

Would it need a separate room to distance it from the kitchen as she doesn’t want to lose all her nice patio as it gets the morning sun? And does it have to be wheelchair accessible as this would mean a wider doorway and potentially losing more kitchen space?

Thanking you, 

Jane, Cork city

Hi Jane

Thank you for your question. I guess we all get to the stage where we need to reimagine our house for the future. In fact, as we design new houses in Cork, many young couples still keep an eye to when they too will grow older and have different needs.

In your case I can appreciate why you may feel the need to help your aunt at this stage of her life and she is lucky to have you looking out for her — so let’s look at the options. I can see how precious the ground floor space is to your aunt. That’s the difficulty of three- and four-storey houses. They have plenty of square footage but a lot of it is on the upper floors and harder to access. I have seen even young families find this challenging.

Regulations

Not being familiar with your aunt’s house I am assuming there is no other option but the outside patio space to site the WC. Whereas this may very well be a precious patio space, I think the closet under the stairs would at best fit a toilet and sink but not a shower and definitely not to Part M wheelchair building regulations.

To answer your questions, you don’t absolutely have to have a lobby outside a WC from a kitchen ... but it is certainly advisable.

In an ideal world you could, as you suggest, build an extension out the rear of the property, including for a lobby and for wheelchair regulations but this will indeed take up a lot of space and may be a step too far.

When adding a WC to an existing house it is advisable that you align with all prevailing regulations. But in this case, when this house is eventually sold down the line, you may find that a buyer will want to put their own stamp on it and renovate it and perhaps make further space upgrades and they can certainly make allowances for building regulations at that point.

What might be an option is to leave the shower upstairs. I am guessing that your aunt’s bedroom is upstairs so she will need to go upstairs on a daily basis to go to bed and she could use the shower either in the evening or in the morning before she comes down stairs for the day. That’s one space saver straight away.

Kieran McCarthy: "We all get to the stage where we need to reimagine our house for the future and converting the understair cupboard to a WC is a handy option."

Making space

Next I would consider moving the utility/laundry room from under the stairs to a steel, insulated shed out the back garden, a little away from the house and sited to ensure your aunt can still enjoy her precious outdoor patio space. Life is too short for her to miss out on these fine mornings outside.

(There is some advantage to having the laundry room outside near a clothes line too of course.)

You would need builders to build an insulated concrete base for the shed and bring a water supply, power, and drainage to the shed site (patio space saved). Now I would repurpose the underside of the stairs as a WC. Because it is off the hallway it doesn’t need a separate lobby (more space saved).

Yes, you will need to have builders in your house to dig out for a sewer but this is a fraction of the mess that would take place if you bring builders through your house to build an extension out the back. This would also be by far the most cost effective solution.

Hopefully this option works for your aunt and she gets to enjoy many more years in her upgraded home.

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Kieran McCarthy: "When adding a WC to an existing house it is advisable that you align with all prevailing regulations."

• Kieran McCarthy is a building engineer, and director of KMC Homes, who specialise in designing and building luxury homes in Cork. He also presents the RTÉ TV show ‘Heat My Home’, showcasing deep retrofits in Irish homes; kmchomes.ie
• @kierankmc has more home-building tips, information, and Q&A advice;
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