Extension/house "remodel" advice needed please!

7 years ago

Hello,

I am looking for some advice/ideas on the best way to turn our house into a proper family home! There are two issues that we are predominately looking to solve...

1) No upstairs bathroom - we currently have a very small toilet and shower room off the kitchen (see plan below). We would like to create an upstairs family bathroom.

Possible solution - there is an area of wasted space at the back of the house we could build a two story extension in to extend the kitchen into a kitchen/diner and move the bathroom upstairs.

2) Very small entrance hallway - currently the front door enters into a narrow hallway where there is no room to hand coats/put shoes or store a pram.

Possible solution - build a porch extension (with a downstairs w/c and possibly a shower). We also had the idea of moving the front door to open into the dining room (as this would no longer be needed) and turning this into an entrance hall/study/playroom.

What are your thoughts on these ideas? Does anyone have any better ideas or thoughts on how we could better utilise space? What are your thoughts on losing a formal dining room and entering into a room rather than a hallway?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

Front of house:

Rear wasted space:

Floor plan:

Featured Answer

Jonathan

4 months ago

Devy….. you get an A for effort but you are 7 years late with the assignment!

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Comments (14)

Gina Anderson
7 years ago
Your house looks very cute :)

How much use do you get out of a dining room? if you don't do any formal entertaining then a kitchen-diner may well be the best use of space for you. You could put in doors to the garden and it would be a really sociable space.

if it was me, I'd just make the hallway a bit wider and keep the dining room as a separate room (for your playroom/ study), just because I think a nice hallway kind of makes a house feel like a proper house!

Extending your kitchen would mean you lose the patio doors into the garden, are there any other windows in the lounge?
Bryony Few
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks Gina :) And thank you for your comments.

We do use the dining room quite a bit when we have friends over but would be happy I think in the kitchen diner instead if we had one! Doors into the garden would be great as we have now put in a patio outside so definitely good for socialising.

It would be great to make the hall wider but unfortunately I think that would make the dining room a very small room. Something we could look at though.

And yes, extending the kitchen would block those patio doors but we never use them as they open into a very dark unused corner of the garden and there is another big window in the lounge so don't think this would be a problem.

Thank you for your thoughts!
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An alternative from your plan would be to move the dining table to the left of the back doors ie off the kitchen. Have a couple of chairs and coffee table to the right of the doors to look out over the garden. Then move your main living area to the immediate right of the island so you have a larger squarer space. You can then partition off a smaller space opposite the current study/utility to create two rooms - one utility and one study. Will do a quick sketch now ...
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I wouldn't link the garage to the house as you don't need that much extra space. Just treat the garage as garden space, with a big shed in the back garden for everything you need to store. And leave room around extension to get to it. I don't think you'd need to extend over the whole driveway so there looks like plenty of room. And you'd still have drive space in front of new extension (assuming it doesn't go further forward than current house). Simpler option might be to extend into back garden and just accept that it's not going to have a great view - but for a livingroom/snug you don't need a great view most of the time you are using it - and you still have option of removing the garage in the future to improve the view. You could make the playroom window into a bigger opening with patio doors (or big picture window, possibly one of those oriel windows) so that you get more of the sun/view coming in through there - open the playroom up to kitchen to make that the dining/pool room adjoining kitchen?? Close off the front living room to make into. a separate space. Move WC into utility space and incorporate current dining space into what's left of the utility - then you have a back door with entrance into bootroom/utility with separate WC off the hall - frees up space in the hall where WC used to be. Extend into back garden for that extra living area that you want, with an office space in the extension too if there is room. Your local planning dept should be able to tell you how far you can extend (possibly within permitted development, possibly needing planning permission). It doesn't create the inside/outside flow that perhaps you are hoping for, but it would create the space internally and sounds like you need to make compromises on the design/layout to stay within budget so you're not going to get it all.
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Joanna C
7 years ago
You could just knock through from the hallway into the dining room. It would appear more spacious as you come in and you'd get more light in. In the dining room, you could put a wall of floor to ceiling cupboards. ( not sure that a porch would be big enough for storage + a decent porch that is in keeping would be very expensive. I also think that building an extension at the back sounds like a brilliant idea as it would add square footage that you need to create the bathroom.
Joanna Biddolph
7 years ago
The front view is so pretty I wouldn't muck around with that. I think you'd lose all the charm by adding a porch. I'm a huge fan of wide halls - it was one of a few non-negotiable aspects of my new house - but I'd live with it in yours because the front facade is so charming. I'd definitely capitalise on the potential at the back and suspect an architect could come up with a similarly charming extension (which will be all about the roof and making it fit in with the rest - it will look best with a slight curve in it to complement the rest of the roof. Ultimately, it will come down to your budget.
Andy Falkingham
7 years ago
If the budget was big enough, I'd demo and rebuild
alyper
7 years ago
Would definitely open up hall and dining room, but note there is a chimney on that wall so an RSJ essential. No reason why dining room can't still be there? This would also result in more light reaching into the house centre. Regarding an extension, visually the house is crying out to be extended to the right, wrapping around the back to square things off and creating space upstairs for a bathroom by using bedroom 3 (good location as water/drains already on that side), whilst the master bedroom 1 moves to the back with an en suite abutting new bathroom, and new bedroom 3 at the front.
Lorraine Scanlon
7 years ago
Beautiful home. Would you consider swapping the living room and kitchen? You could widen your hall and also have a larger open plan kitchen/dining/play area? With young children I spend most of my time in the kitchen and open plan living really suits us. I would go with your extension to move the bathroom upstairs, it may also be wise to retain a downstairs wc too! Best of luck!
lizlucas1
7 years ago
Ok, so I've never commented on Houzz before (despite being a huge reader) but the shape of your house really intrigued me as it's very charming but quite tricky. Looking at just the ground floor, I think that an extension that fills in the 'rectangle' floorpan of the whole house might work. The loo and shower should be moved so that they are not blocking off movement flowing through the ground floor. To get a bigger hallway you could move back the wall currently going into the kitchen, so that you incorporate the small window into the hall. Remove the wall by the stairs and turn the stairway itself into a feature which would make the hallway - and stairs themselves - feel much roomier (I can't see from your floorpan whether they are already open to the hallway). What's currently the kitchen could become a utility with downstairs loo (move the shower upstairs into new bathroom over new extension, taking a bit from bedroom 1?). I have recently had an extension kitchen built on our own house and turned the old (tiny) kitchen into a laundry/boot room - best decision ever with a growing family! In the utility room you could put in a stacked wash/tumbler (if you want a tumbler, or else just cupboards/laundry on top) and a downstairs loo, as well as more storage.

In the new kitchen, you could have double/french/sliding/bifold doors as per your taste looking out SE into the garden, creating a long sightline - and feeling of space - from the garden right through the kitchen into the far room. This would create a spacious-feeling kitchen tied into the rest of the house.

You could block up the door into the current dining room and take out the wall between the dining/living. Keeping the dining room as dining, this gives you a cosy room there for small intimate dinners but also the potential to have big dinner parties on a long extended table stretching out into the living room. When not entertaining, that slightly self-contained room (as it's not a through-route as is the rest of the house) could be used as a study/quieter reading room. You now have a house that is welcoming for entertaining - guests come through the front door, where there's space for coats/hatstands, straight through the open door into the living room and are greeted by the fireplace ahead of them, and look round to see the dining table. Downstairs loo for guests nicely separated from all the action.

Please excuse my very rough sketch of what I mean, and its lack of scale!
Angie
7 years ago
How about taking the WC and shower room out of the kitchen area and reducing the size of bedroom one to accommodate a family bathroom, then you could increase the size of the hallway by cutting into the kitchen. The kitchen could be extended into the area freed up by removing the WC and shower room. This would involve less major building work, and might cost less, but leaves you the option to for a two storey extension in future.

Your house looks to be semi detached, with the front door on one side. Any extension that fills in the side return at the back will need a party wall agreement. Not necessarily a problem, but needs to be done.

Another option would be to relocate the kitchen to where the dining room is, and take a little from kitchen and dining room to enlarge the hallway. Would there be room for a ground floor WC under the stairs? Always handy to have a downstairs loo, especially if there are children around.

It would be worth engaging someone to talk through your options who can guide on building regs etc and also give you some ideas. It's always easier when standing inside the property!

We bought out house about fifteen months ago and had all sorts of ideas of things to do. A wise person said we should live here a year before doing anything drastic, and having done that we can see how wise they were. We now have completely different ideas having lived here and used the space and are doing some very different things that would not have occurred to us when we moved in. And we've saved a lot of money too!

All the best

Angie
PRO
Faber Architecture
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Hello Bryony,

Where are you based? We would be happy to assist you and offer you some professional advice.

Best regards,

Glenn & Blanca.
PRO
Orange Key Design Studios
6 years ago
Hi Bryony, if you were our client, we would be asking you to think about how you would like the house to work for you to best suit your lifestyle, and what your wish list is for space and layout. We'd then ascertain your budget and realistically talk through the options available to you. Whether it's some internal remodeling or an extension you're contemplating, a chat with a local architectural designer would be money well spent as they can offer an expert eye-view of the options open to you. Where possible, get recommendations and look at previous design work carried out, we offer all local clients a free consultation on site - a local practice close to you may do the same. Good luck!
PRO
Devyra Atelier
4 months ago
last modified: 4 months ago

1st Floor A

1st Floor B

2nd Floor A

2nd Floor B

2nd Floor C

Here's mate

You need to make 1 - 3 meters extention to the side and increase the roof to make the facade symetrical for the first floor
PRO
Devyra Atelier
4 months ago
thank Jonathan, it's okay i like to fullfill challange on old post for exercise & future reference