Please help with my Mum's dream home! Thank you.
Hello lovely Houzzers
I am obsessed with Houzz but this is the first time I have posted a 'dilemma' and I'd love to get some advice please.
My Mum loves her home. It may well be her forever home. The upper two floors are great and have spacious bedrooms and bathrooms but the ground floor just doesn't work!
Floor plan posted below. Ignore what rooms are labelled as now... everything can be changed!
I've outlined below what the main bug bears are and some ideas we have but any and all ideas welcome.
I'm hoping to turn this into a bit of a project/ regular update thing on Houzz in case anyone is interested in the progress, but for now, we are at the beginning so would really welcome your thoughts.
Many thanks in advance.
THE MAIN ISSUES:
1. The Lounge (per floor plan) faces the driveway and road and is not an appealing aspect.
2. The kitchen is far too small and massively lacking in storage
3. Overall lack of storage on ground floor
4. It's cold in the back rooms...kitchen and what is labelled as the dining room.
5. The entrance is too small/narrow.
WHAT SHE NEEDS/WANTS:
1. Larger and open plan kitchen (ideally with an island), diner and family room
2. The family room has to be a proper cosy, inviting family room where we will spend the majority of our time (as opposed to a couple of arm chairs in the kitchen)...pls see example pics below.
4. Downstairs shower room
5. Better/bigger hallway...atm, you walk in and the stairs are right in front of you and the hallway is narrow. This is a substantial 6 bedroom/5 bath house and the downstairs doesn't befit it.
6. A room that could be a downstairs bedroom on occasion.
7. A kitchen with lots of storage but ideally no wall cupboards...so maybe one wall of floor to ceiling cupboards?
8. Retain some sort of utility.
9. No need for downstairs Study.
IDEAS SO FAR:
1. Do a permitted development (3m I think?) extension (single story) at the back of the house. The garden is big.
2. Have the kitchen, diner, family room all across the back with large doors to the garden. Perhaps open plan kitchen and diner and then ‘broken-plan’ family room so it feels separate enough not to feel like you are sitting in kitchen but open enough that kitchen isn’t shut off – the two pics below exemplify this well I think
3. Move front door more to the right (where it says Study on floor plan) to create a much more spacious (more square shaped?) hallway and create built in cupboards for coats etc. Or. Just remove the wall of Study/Hallway and does that achieve the same?
4. Keep lounge as is (although I think it's too big) and make it into the smart/formal sitting room/library.
5. Extend the downstairs WC to encompass the shower she was wants.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Comments (18)
Ellie
4 years ago
E D
4 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (13)Whilst I understand the constraints of budget I think you are approaching the planning wrong. I think the way to do this is to decide on the layout that works best and then work out what you can afford to do now- perhaps you can make economies on purchases such as the kitchen cabinets to get a better Gliw in your home. An architectural designer or a concept planner are worth considering to help with this- they would also help you visualise the finished space too. If this were my house I would be thinking the entrance wasn’t big enough for the size of house and I would be concerned about privacy of the bedrooms at the front, I also don’t like the current kitchen being some distance from a window and being a heavy traffic area. Although I can’t see the layout properly I think I have got the sizes about right to show how I would do it. I have moved the front door to the middle of the house, shown a vaulted hall with stairs to two big upstairs spaces, shown the living space as completely open plan but with the option of using one of the downstairs bedrooms or one of the upstairs rooms as an extra living room. In my opinion there are often houses with long narrow extensions across the back that should have been better considered as invariably people need bigger spaces rather than more small rooms and retrospectively opening up the original house into this space is more difficult that building in the steels originally. So my plan doesn’t change any of the external walls of the original property but a couple of internal brick walls have been removed. I have just shown what is commercial and probably wouldn’t cost the earth but a designer would spend time trying to better understand your needs....See MoreHelp please - How do you keep Creepy Crawlers Out of Your Home
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Misha M
4 years agoMisha M
4 years agoThanks E D. Hope so! It's been a long time in the hoping and thinking and now looking forward to the planning and doing.
Please see below...I have scribbled on plan to show windows.
Ellie
4 years agoMisha M
4 years ago
Jennie Jennie
4 years agoMisha M
4 years ago
rinked
4 years agoJennie Jennie
4 years agoMisha M
4 years ago@rinked - Hi Rinq, please see below floor plans for the other floors.
And thank you for the mock up - really helps to visualise. The only thought I have is that this doesnt have that formal/smart and separate sitting room that we still need - does not have to be big, but she wants a separate room. Though, perhaps the bedroom could be that - since it will only occasionally be needed as a bedroom.
I have also added some pics I found of the house - these are old estate agent pics from when it was up for sale in case of use...
Misha M
4 years agoAnd the pics...
The last pic is the kitchen, which, next to the utility, has a small place for a table.
rinked
4 years agoThat is one large family home!
Do you know which direction the ceiling joists run?
Perhaps before creating a design, get the house drawn up in scale (as the walls don't really line up, estate agents are not a good source for scaled plans) and find out which walls are loadbearing.
Personally I wouldn't want to think of the lounge being an occasional bedroom, as there's a chance your mum would some day like to sleep on the lower floor permanently?Misha M
4 years agorinked
4 years agoA structural report is a necessity, an architect or concept designer would be a preference (but highty advised as this is a large house). And no, the floorplan isn't large enough to fit in two lounge areas. A back extension would provide space for that. A small front extension would give a slightly more grand entry and a larger bedroom/utility/bathroom+wc. Example:
rinked