Floorplan help - 1960s semi-detached
Hi, I have just bought my first home and we are wondering how we can improve the current layout. The property is north facing so we have noticed its dark in the back rooms, particularly the office.
My current thoughts are to knock down the wall between the living room and the office and install oak bi-folds, so it can still be closed off it we want but at the same time light from the front window will flow through. My hesitation would be that I'm not sure exactly how that office space would be used if we do that. Could it be possible to remove the dividing section of wall left between the dining room and office to make that more open plan overall and then move the office to the back extension? We are also thinking of adding a roof lantern to get extra light in?
OR
Do we extend the kitchen in a year or two and connect the area that way, using roof lights to bring light in and large doors into the garden?
(pics to get an idea of the space and floorplan)
This last picture is the connection from the kitchen to the toilet/garage, not too sure if anything can be done to bring the toilet more "indoors".
Comments (6)
PRO6 years agoHey Anthony,
There's a few options here:You make an open plan kitchen, where the current office actually becomes the dining area. I feel like your living room would be quieter anyway so move the office there.
Another option is to live there for a while and see if a side extension is really worth it. See where your family/kids prefer to spend time, and you'll know better if it's worth improving/enlarging a particular space. I don't know what the current upper right corner is used for in your case, but it's often a dead space or just a place to store junk, so in the long run it might be worth converting it to an internal area.
If you connect the current living and dinning with bifolds that space risks becoming just an access corridor.
On the toilet ideally you would swap it to face the hall, although not sure how much headroom there is under stairs.
Office & Living Room open plan - Do you really want to lose that living room? Keeping it separate is usually a geat deal as it can be multipurposed (office, bedroom, library, study etc)
Andrei
PRO6 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (9)Interesting idea there Jonathan! Thanks will talk that through with my partner! Although we have great views at the front too so its great if we can still look out and watch the sunsets over the hills! Dee - We also really liked it! We had 6 quotes and based on house prices falling, and the building costs going up over lockdown etc and not coming down, the cost to do both the loft and downstairs is more than it would probably be worth! We also live in the south-east. We are already looking at doing it in two stages, downstairs now, and then loft when we remortage. So great minds! pauldrowan - Yeah, this is along the lines of what a builder suggested and what we have been trying to do, another toilet is not essential so it's not the end of the world if we lose this! This is the idea that I had. Leaning much more into a broken plan idea, and blocking the original lounge off for a private lounge, maybe using under the stairs for a small WC... Then I can still get additional storage in the entrance hall and my bench! Then in the extension, we would create a 'butler pantry' type space. This would mean that the corner of the original house would sit on the upper right corner of this butler's pantry space so we don't need this huge RSJ's as they can sit on the corner of the original footprint (if that makes sense). In here can be a utility come pantry, then we would have a banquet seating type area come off the kitchen peninsula island which had a wonderful outlook out front....See More
6 years agoWhat a lovely home!
I had a bit of a play around with your floor plan and if you're not too attached to your garage, you could convert it into an office and steal a bit more space for a shower room and utility room. This leaves the living room as a separate space/snug and makes what was your office space a breakout space from the kitchen to dining. More importantly, you have a private, hopefully quiet office space that isn't in a thoroughfare.
- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
- PRO6 years ago
These are some close examples i could think of, if you keep the current kitchen footprint
i-architect