having trouble making a rehab decision

[Mark Reed]

I have a 2-story, 3 bed/1.5 bath house that is at the beginning of rehab (going to use it as a rental). On the top floor, there are 2 nice size bedrooms, 1 small bedroom (7x8), a full bath (7x8), and a deep linen closet next to the bathroom. On the bottom floor is a living room, dining room, kitchen, small 1/2 bath, small sun room, and a storage room with a sink in it.

My original plan was to use the upstairs linen closet as a laundry room with stackable machines. No problem on space there, and the cost is water line, drain line, and 240v electrical. Easy. Nothing complicated.

New thought: extend the upstairs full bath into the linen closet, creating a large full bath. The only extra cost there would be moving some water and drain lines, but the full bath would be significantly bigger. My thought here is that, since the house has only 1 full bath, I could make it more spacious for tenants. This would eliminate the linen closet, but there would be plenty of room in the bathroom for shelving. I could easily move the laundry room downstairs into the storage room that has the sink by using that water line, or at least tapping off that drain and maybe even putting in a utility sink in place of the small sink that's there. Electrical would need to be added for the appliances, but I was going to run electrical into that room, anyway. This would make a whole utility room.

Thoughts? I think the cost/time difference for each of these options is nominal.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you all. I've gotten some great pointers and things to think about from here before!

[Michael Robbins]

I like laundry rooms (washer and dryer) to be downstairs if possible.  If the washer ever overflows or leaks then you will probably be in better position than if it was upstairs.  The rest of your improvements sound great.  I would only go forward if you thing you can get a higher rental rate to justify the rate of return.