Upside-down or Right-way up?

Some thoughts on living in an upside-down house…

You can call it an inverted house if you want but essentially, an upside-down house flips the traditional layout so your bedrooms are on the ground floor and your living space is on the first floor. Popular in Scandinavia but less common here in Ireland. Let’s take a deep dive into upside-down living!

Why Upside-down?

There are so many benefits to upside-down living.

Heat - Heat, of course, rises. So, if you have an upside-down house, your living space is naturally warmer, saving money on your heating bills, as that’s where you spend most of your time, and your bedrooms are naturally cooler, which is widely accepted to lead to healthier sleep as an added bonus!

Light - Downstairs windows in a traditional house are often partly shadowed by hedges, fences, trees etc. Upstairs rooms will usually be naturally brighter. These benefits are multiplied even more if your living space is in the attic when you can use rooflights in the ceiling. Even in a typical two-storey house, you might consider opening up part of the first floor to the roof to use rooflights or use light tubes (sometimes known as sun tunnels) to bring more light into your living space.

Views - Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a nice view from your home. Maybe right now you can see that view from your bedroom window upstairs but you hardly ever look at that view because you’re hardly ever in your bedroom in the daytime! The benefit of having this view is maximised even more by having an upside-down house as you get a better view higher up and you’re using that space which has the view during daylight hours instead! 

The cons

Maybe you’re wondering if this could be right for you. There are a few cons to consider. If your ground floor is level with your garden, the main con is missing out on the living-space-to-garden open door feel. On a sunny day, to be able to go easily in and out of the garden is a pleasure, for sure. On balance though, my personal opinion is that for 9 months of the year, you don’t do this anyway. It’s too cold to leave the doors open or spend much time in the garden. Even in the summer months…well, you know. With this in mind, it’s worth considering how you might easily get from the living space to the garden. It also might be worth exploring if a balcony of some sort could be an option.

The other con is you do end up walking up and down the stairs more than you would in a traditional house. Now, this can also be seen as a benefit! Hitting those ‘stair’ targets on your fitness gadget has never been easier! So it depends how you look at it. Carrying the supermarket shopping up the stairs is a similar, related workout - it can be seen as a benefit. If you are not very mobile though or if you regularly have visitors who are less mobile, this can be a challenge. Installing a lift or chair lift might be an option to consider if you are still keen to go upside-down but accessibility is more of a challenge.

Things to think about

There are still a few things to consider…

Privacy around bedrooms - It’s not ideal if guests to your home have to walk past bedrooms to get to the living area when they visit. Especially if you have children who may be in their rooms but feel embarrassed to go to the bathroom because guests might be walking past at any moment. You might want to be creative about where the stairs go or consider other solutions with an upside-down design to avoid this issue.

Upstairs WC - Similar to the above, to prevent guests having to go downstairs, near the bedrooms, to use the bathroom, you will want to plan in where to include a toilet. Handily, you’re likely to have the plumbing for this anyway if you currently have a bathroom upstairs!

Acoustic insulation - If people are moving around upstairs or perhaps doing the hoovering and someone’s asleep downstairs, without good sound insulation in the ceiling/floor in between, it could be quite noisy downstairs. Noise transfer is easily prevented during construction, but not easily rectified afterwards. Plan ahead for this and be firm with your builders.

Utility Room - Having a utility/laundry room on the same floor as your bedrooms is ideal as you don’t have to cart any washing up and down the stairs. It’s also easier to hang washing outside on the occasional sunny day too! So consider having this on the ground floor and not bringing it up with the kitchen.

Overview

I hope that’s provided some food for thought. For me personally, the benefits of an upside-down house outweigh the downsides by a clear margin. Bright, warm spaces are a pleasure to be in and especially when a view is involved, a no-brainer in my opinion. It’s a bit unusual but trust me, it really is a great way to live! The Scandinavians are doing it, so why shouldn’t we?!