should I put up a divider for bedroom to increase sale price?

[Michael]

I own a 500 sq ft apartment in downtown DC. I=92m trying to decide if it would be worthwhile to put up a wall that splits the kitchen and living room from the bedroom. Would the apartment be more valuable if it=92s sold as a one bedroom instead of a junior one bedroom? Here are pictures of the "before" and "after": current layout - without wall:

wall: the bedroom going to be way too small? For all of you that do not live in a city, please do not blast me on this question because your SUV is probably bigger than my apartment.

The cost of the wall should be about $1000. Last year I renovated the apartment and put the kitchen in a different spot, so the apartment now has a new layout that lends itself nicely to a division of the apartment's bedroom and main living area.

[mm]

with wall: Is the bedroom going to be way too small? For all of you that do not

Of course not. Small is the new big.

I don't have much taste, but I note that in my 22? foot wide townhouse, the stairway upstairs uses a wrought iron railing, and upstairs the same thing, which I've always thought was to make the rooms look a little bigger.

The house I lived my first 10 years had a big mirror over the sofa, the width of the sofa (windows on both side of the sofa and the mirror went from one set of curtains to the other iirc) from the top of the sofa maybe to the ceiling, to make the room look bigger my mother said, even though it wasn't small to begin with.

The only other thing I have to say is that for some of the measurements, like from bookcase to dishwasher, it's hard for me to tell what distance is being measured. In the dimension next to the toilet, I don't know if it has something to do with the yellow line or not. Plainly it's the software, and maybe it's well known to people not me.

[BobK207]

I'd say go for it. Might have the bed room door open out against the cabinet? I know bedroom doors typically open in but this bedroom is pretty tight & the door swing takes up standing room...just a thought.

Also I would suggest getting the software decimal places under control.......I doubt the dimensions are good to the nearest .1" but

38.0818" really? Nearest inch would improve readability, the rest is noise.

Rather than having to switch back & forth between "wall" & "no wall" plans....would it be possible to just make the new wall a different color? Colored items =3D new.........everything else is existing?

cheers Bob

[trader4]

What's along the outer wall that spans the bedroom/living room? Looks like it;s a window? Is it openable in the area which would become the bedroom? There is a code requirement in most places that a bedroom has to have a means of egress to the outside and usually that's a window, which has to be openable and of a certain min size. If that is a window and is continuous, doesn't have an opening in the bedroom area, etc, it would require some $$$ to make it comply.

I'd check all that out with local code officials, or else you may be in for a surprise when you go to get a CO.

[Harlan Messinger]

wall:

> with wall:> Is the bedroom going to be way too small? For all of you that do not

Suggestion: sliding door.

[aemeijers]

Which is what OP was asking for info on in the first place....

Good cautions about the egress window. If it were my place and I wanted to go low-buck, I'd just make a jam-fit frame, maybe pinned in place with a few screws in select places, and hang 2-3 full height sliding panels from it, like an oversize bypass closet door. Maybe even have a clear space above to allow air and light to pass. If an eventual buyer prefers a big studio-style apt, less than an hour to remove without a trace. Think traditional Japanese-style divider wall, except not made out of paper. (Unless he likes that sort of thing.) A BOQ I stayed in at Pearl Harbor many years ago had a setup like that between the back room with the bed, and the front sitting area with the fold-out couch, and it looked classy and worked well. (Frosted glass instead of paper.) I guess the foldout was for overflow situations where they had to double-bunk people.

-- aem sends...