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Renovating Design Dilemma

Staircase suggestions

5 years ago

Hi there,

I hope someone can help with some suggestions.
We are planning a big reno and extension on our Edwardian semi. We are planning to go out to the side and back double storey. We have been told we can go up to boundary on ground floor but come in by half a metre on the first floor. This means it will be tricky to keep the stairs where we had originally thought due to the ceiling.
Any ideas on where we could move them keeping layout similar ish. Would just switching them to the opposite side work, after the door to the living room?? In my head the ceiling would not be in the way then.???
I have attached very rough outlines of both existing and proposed for downstairs and upstairs.

Thanks in advance

Featured Answer

Jonathan

5 years ago

I think you have got a bit carried away with taking down walls and although anything is possible with enough money I think you should be talking to a structural engineer and architect about what is possible for the budget.
I think you will find it is uneconomic to build the side extension 50cm larger downstairs than upstairs. You might also find it is economic to keep more of the original house.
So I have tried to show a plan where a lot of the original house is retained.
Ps: do you have a budget in mind?

Comments (6)

PRO
User
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
You need to start with the drains........................all of them I presume are out the back. Knowing these houses it's probably most inconveniently right outside the dining room and near the kitchen wall................................So, probably, no to bathrooms at the front of the house unless you can be canny with a Sani flo macerator toilet......not everyone's cup of tea, and definitely not easily engineered all the way to the back of the house.

Also, you need to work with the drains to know where you can put the bathroom / bathrooms upstairs, and hopefully avoid having the soil pipe in the kitchen. I would imagine that if you want two bathrooms, then they will need to go side by side and at the rear, where you have put beds 2 & 3.

Firstly, as Jonathan quite rightly points out..................establish the budget.

Get in touch with a structural engineer.

You may at that point need the architect

Get your plans drawn up

Then get your quotes

Sometimes, ( quite often ), at this point it may become apparent that the architect is not working to budget and the plans may need amending etc................

Change the plans,

Get more quotes

Then the builder.
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Jonathan
5 years ago
To be fair if you are digging foundations for a side extension then you can add a drain to the trench meaning you can relocate the bathroom. Given that there is likely an inspection chamber right outside the dining room window you will have to do some work to the drains so it is untrue to say the current drains dictate where the new bathrooms can go. Of course budget will.
Ange
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks Jonathan and Man About The House.
Our outside drain runs directly underneath where the existing bathroom is right through to the front of the house so bathrooms along there shouldn't be a prob - I hope! :) That's why we tried to keep them all on that side to keep it easy.
We are thinking of 100k budget to do everything.
With regards to using the existing house we would only be knocking out the external kitchen wall, 3rd bedroom wall and stairwell wall. I thought this would be fairly easy and standard??! Totally new to this planning stuff :)
I like the ideas on the plans thank you for the ideas.
Ange
Original Author
5 years ago
Oh and I should say that the existing bathroom is a real crappy 80s single skin, leaky flat roof add on so totally not bothered about knocking that down!
PRO
User
5 years ago
I think given enough budget, anything is possible. I think you don't need to extend right to the boundary.

You could go simple:-

Extend a bit :-

Or, if you have the budget and can stand a really big build then why not go for it with something like this:-

I think the thing is...................anything is possible, you need a good architect to get the most out of the building, if you are able to extend to such an extent, then get every inch working for you. These are just examples of what might be achievable, you may not even like them, but you've got a huge scope for improvement, so get a great Pro on the job and go for it. Love to see the results.

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