Opening centre of house for connection between front and back rooms?
We are in the design stage of re-modelling the inside of our house to move the kitchen to the back and living room to the front (currently the living room is at the back and kitchen at front). We have made a 3D model of our basic design which involves a straight swap between the two rooms.
This is the first design on the left. It shows the stairs (in yellow) in between, separating the two rooms. As part of the basic re-design, the stairs have been moved towards the front room to the other side of the stair void in order to increase the space in the kitchen. (However the stair position can't really be moved away from the stair void - which cuts across the front and back room - without a lot of extra work changing upstairs rooms. And we don’t have the budget for that). The standard door positions to each room remain unchanged from what they are now.
I was worried that the two rooms would feel very separate, and so I came up with the second design (on the right) which shows a wider entrance to the kitchen and the door to the front room set at 45 degrees. We imagine a sliding door in the kitchen entrance, and maybe double doors into the front room. So the rooms can still be separated by closing the door, but become more connected when the doors are open. So the space immediately seems more flexible.
The advantage of the second design is that there is more of a connection (albeit a small one) between the living room and kitchen - you can stand in one and have a sense of what is happening in the other, plus you can sit on the sofa in the front room and see into some of the kitchen and even down into the garden.
Also the area at the bottom of the stairs will be much bigger and allow people to circulate more easily. Finally there will be a lot more light coming into the front room which is dark and north facing.
The disadvantage is the extra cost, as it will involve putting in a steel to support an internal beam which rests right in the centre of the new kitchen doorway. Extra cost estimate is £1.5-2k more. Also it will take away storage space in the kitchen as there will be less back wall for storage units / fridge etc. Also the level of connection between the rooms is small – is it worth the extra cost? I wish we could move the entire staircase to another part of the house but that just isn’t an option with our budget.
What do you think?
Many thanks!
Comments (7)
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Comments (9)Whilst I would also prefer a hallway as the entrance at least you have the porch so people are not immediately in your living room when you open the door. It's a lovely room and i think the existing furniture arrangement is much better than using it as one big space. I'd keep the tv over on the fire side of the room because it will be a cosier space at night and is a feature. It's then away from the staircase which might be draughty and more of a thoroughfare. I also have trouble visualising how the under staircase tv would work.(although maybe One plan has a good idea for this. I'd then use the other half of the room as your snug/reading area with a couple of chairs and bookcase between the two doors. I'd use a large rug to define and bring this area together. You might also have room for a small console type table next to the front door to drop keys, phones etc. Alternatively, if you have your sofa in the same position as the existing pic you could have a sofa table (see pics below, lots of different types depending on your style) behind it for the same purpose as well as adding interest rather than just seeing the back of the sofa. Good luck....See MoreAdvice needed on side return extension and connecting room layout!
Comments (3)Hey Andrei, Thanks for your advice - I should have mentioned that yes we are getting the proper advice, we are choosing an architect at the moment and I will make a note to ask them specifically about the stairs/kitchen fire risk aspect. I totally agree that if the kitchen was moved to the middle room (ie next to the open stairs) it would be ok to have it as the 'passage' to other rooms, however if it isn't a kitchen and is used as living space I'm more concerned about this. I guess because in a kitchen you're probably busy, whereas if you're in living area you're more likely to be relaxing and regular disturbance isnt great? We're not keen on moving the kitchen to another room, I feel it would look really out of place in either the front room with bay window, or the middle room with the open stairs (cooking smells/smoke/noise would travel upstairs easily etc). Equally, we're keen to avoid closing off the stairs too - worried it would make them pretty dark and would also affect the light to the middle room! I think I've narrowed down my worries to being basically that if the current dining room becomes living space, and has a large entrance to the kitchen where the current window is (plus maybe an additional entrance where the current doorway is), it makes the room really hard to use in terms of layout and furniture etc. It won't have much usable wall space and I'm struggling to think of how we could layout anything like storage/some seating, maybe a desk etc. Does that make more sense?...See MoreOpening back wall and vaulting ceiling/velux windows
Comments (18)We used to own an old farm-worker's cottage with a separate, single storey coal/laundry building behind. We connected the two buildings with a rear hallway link building and gutted the coal/laundry shed to convert it into a new kitchen. We removed the old ceiling, put veluxes in the roof to add light and also kept a few of the joists (we removed some of them but had to put strong bolts through the remaining ones to tie them to the rafters.) We also put collar-ties on some of the other rafters and put extra reinforcements in along the wall-plate. Bottom line, is, I think it's well worth opening up the room into the roof pitch – it will look fabulous – but you should probably have a word with a good structural engineer first! :-)...See MoreLayout help! Shall I move the kitchen to back of house? Open plan?
Comments (8)Ok, I gave it another go. Floorplan juggling actually gives me piece of mind. Kept the kitchen in its current location. Moved the hallway door as it was an awkward place, created an opening in the kitchen-lounge wall, so one door will suffice. Moved the study-dining wall over to the right, in line with the bedroom wall above (support spot), kept the study, as it will be nice to have an office or playroom and those doors are lovely. This way the dining area became a bit wider, so you can add bigger garden doors to let in more light. Garage became a storage/utility area and I added a downstairs toilet. Probably not the full width open garden view you'd imagined, but one big open square is quite difficult to decorate, whilst keeping a homely feel. Hope it may inspire. (to return a favour paypal.me/rinkedit)...See More
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