Reconfiguration ideas to let light in and work better for a family
Hi, we’re thinking of buying this house, however due to its current layout design the front living room and hallway are so dark (the garden where the Kitchen is is south facing and gets a lot of light). It’s also an expensive house so although we’d love to extend we don’t have the capital to, so are thinking of cheap ways to reconfigure the space so it works better for us. Or maybe you think it’s fine as is? The dark grey rectangle in the kitchen is an island but really it is just a breakfast bar so we will likely get rid of that to swap for a dining table as we are a family.
any ideas really appreciated!
thanks
Comments (8)
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Reconfiguration of 1930's detached house
Comments (8)Thanks for all your helpful comments. I have been thinking a lot about how we use the space and been less concerned with keeping rooms just for the girls. I was concerned that it currently looks like a 3 bedroom house with a study but we have no plans to move in the foreseeable future so I think I can put that aside as well. Looking at the plans drawn up by the previous owners is confusing me too much. Our needs are different so I have gone back to the basic floor plan of what we have at the moment. We want to remove the conservatories and utility room and replace these with a large open plan area which will include the existing living room and kitchen. There will be a column (maybe attached to island ) somewhere and velux windows in the roof. I want to keep the kitchen on the right and move the utility into the rear of the garage and install a shower room next to it. I think I would like the living area to be at the back and take advantage of the views. This means the dining area will be on the left of the kitchen . We will have 2 sets of bifold or sliding doors ( apparently it would be very costly to have one large set as we would need to hire a very large crane to put in the steel). I also want a wood burning stove. I still like the idea of a study or even a boot room with external door on the side but appreciate One Plans comments about the space not being big enough. Thank you in advance for any further ideas....See MoreCan anyone help me with reconfiguring my home /kitchen layout please!!
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 MoreMaking our 1930s semi work for our family
Comments (27)Ah, I didn't realise the stairs comes up in line with the bathroom wall so yeah, you can't move the bathroom wall out really as there won't be enough head space walking down the stairs. I think your only option is to either live with the small bathroom - or extend out over your GF extension (if that is even possible - depends on your extended roof and also the footings as they might not be deep enough to take the weight of a 2 storey extension). The cost of a loft conversion is hefty and especially if you don't have decent head height in there as you will end up with a tiny room in the middle (I'm guessing??). Our loft is original (bungalow) and was always a room but it cost us £20k just to re-tile, reboard/plaster/insulate and put an en-suite in! An extra £6k if we pushed out the hip (which we didn't end up doing). Dormers are possible to gain headspace but it's the overall roof height that is the issue. Sometimes you could lower your floor level to gain head height but for the cost involved, you really would be better moving....See MoreHelp!!! Any ideas on a better layout before we submit.
Comments (12)<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><md>Hi rinq Yes that's our only access to the back. We have two 240 bins to take out, thought we would leave them in the store/garage. The utility in the plans would give us the access through from front to back. We've lived here for years and have always thought we would just square off our house at the front and extend down the side and out back.... It's amazing how ideas start changing when you see plans drawn up. I wonder if it's going to be harder to plan making the utility into a usable space, rather than not having it at all and just extend what we have...See More
Ivy G
3 years agoWumi
3 years agoI had a similar issue in my current. South facing garden - bright kitchen, dingy living room.
Here's some steps we took to brighten the room:- Painted all the walls and the ceiling in brilliant white
- Feature wall in a bright colour on chimney breast (when we get round to it!)
- Off-white curtains from Ikea (Merete)
- Multi-arm pendant light which we put some bright 40w equivalent warm white led lights in.
- Floor standing lamp and desk lamp in the 'darker' corners
- Mirrors
For the entrance hall, I'm not sure of your dimensions, but you could have space for a glazed front door with glazed side panels combo. I'd paint the hallway a light neutral colour and put in hallway mirror to bounce the light around.
1 Panel 3/4 Lite Palacio Fiberglass Entry Door with Side lights Tall 96" · More InfoWumi
3 years ago
Ellie