4 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms?

In the continued mission to restore this brownstone to it's original layout and purpose while creating a contemporary living - today's dilemma:

4 bedroom/ 4 bath dwelling with no real "master bath"

or

3 bedroom /4 bath dwelling with 300 sq foot "master bath"

The 2nd floor of the house has two large bedrooms. The two bedrooms are connected by a two good sized closets and a pocket door between their closets. The original usage had a bedroom for the lady of the house and a bedroom for the master of the house. They gained access to one another's rooms via the pocket doors (how romantic?).

The bathroom on the 2nd floor is small and does not fit the bill as a "master" bath. We have been struggling to find a good layout in that small space.

If we give up one of the big bedrooms (most likely the one in the back) on the second floor, we can:

use the existing small bathroom as laundry room!

gain a 300 square foot bathroom!

We would still have two add'l bedrooms upstairs, as well as a two bathrooms upstairs, and one on main parlor floor.

We love the idea of creating a large master bath. I hear time and again on HGTV shows how important "master bath" is for renting and resale, but am loathe to change the original set up of His and Hers rooms on the 2nd floor. Making this type of a change not only departs from original function, it would mean introducing plumbing, etc into floors and a room which had none = $$.

Ah, to do 4 bedrooms and tiny baths or 3 bedrooms and bring this baby up to big bathroom standards?

 current small bathroom

view of half of back bedroom - new master bath?



UPDATE: we solved it by turning one of the bedrooms into a Master Bathroom Suite!
[where: 10032][where: Harlem][where: Sugar Hill]