HMO conversions · Scott Lidgett Road, ST4

5-bed en-suite HMO — Scott Lidgett Road, ST4

Five self-contained rooms, each with its own shower room and kitchenette

Location: Scott Lidgett Road, ST4

A finished letting room at Scott Lidgett Road, with a slatted feature wall, fitted kitchenette and double bed

5
En-suite rooms: 5
Kitchenettes fitted

The brief

A conversion into five rooms, each with its own en-suite shower room and kitchenette — a higher specification than a standard shared-facility HMO, and aimed at tenants who want their own space rather than a house share.

The challenge

Getting a shower room and a kitchenette into each room without leaving the bedroom itself too small to let. Every millimetre of the en-suite footprint comes directly out of the room somebody is paying for.

The result

Five self-contained rooms, each with a fully tiled en-suite, a fitted kitchenette and a slatted acoustic feature wall behind the bed.

What we actually did

The maths of an en-suite

Every en-suite is floor area taken out of the bedroom. So the question is never “can we fit a shower room in” — it’s “what’s left afterwards, and will it still let”.

Quadrant enclosures earn their place here. A quadrant tucks into a corner and gives a usable showering area from a smaller floor plate than a square enclosure, and the curved door doesn’t need clearance to swing.

Fully tiled, floor to ceiling

Large format grey tiles throughout rather than tiling to shower height and painting above.

It costs more up front. In a letting property it’s cheaper across five years, because painted walls above a shower need redecorating on every tenancy change and tiles get wiped down.

Kitchenettes

Each room has a fitted kitchenette — sink, hob, microwave and fridge in a run of units. It changes what the property is: tenants who’d otherwise be sharing one kitchen with four other people get their own, which supports a higher rent and tends to mean longer tenancies.

The slatted wall

Slatted acoustic panelling behind the bed. It looks like a design decision, and it is one, but the acoustic backing also takes the edge off sound transfer between rooms — which in a five-person house is worth having.