Floor plan from Hell! Rejig necessary?

3 years ago

Hi all,

We have purchased a top floor flat of a large Victorian period property. It’s our first purchase, and a quirky property with all sorts of weird and wonderful features to it. The floor plan (in my view) is a nightmare. We would ideally like to bring the bathroom out from the end of the kitchen to get a larger kitchen, but where to put the bathroom?!

You’ll see the flat is sort of split over two levels. As you walk in you have the reception room and bedroom two on the upper level, then three steps in the hallway lead you down to the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom one.

Grateful for all thoughts!

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Comments (4)

Mark Denley
3 years ago
Hi Adam

My immediate thought is to switch Bedroom 1 and the reception room around.

This would give you the potential to create a larger kitchen area by creating a conjoined kitchen and living space. You could open up the wall between the kitchen and the current Bedroom 1, moving the dining table, and potentially some of the kitchen units into part of the space currently occupied by Bedroom 1.

This would give you a bigger kitchen and better overall layout at fairly minimal cost (i.e. no need to move plumbing significantly from its current locations).

An added benefit of this idea is that it moves the master bedroom to a more secluded part of the flat - great if you plan on having overnight visitors often.
Jonathan
3 years ago
Before deciding on a new bathroom location you need to know where the building soil pipes are. It might be the case that the only soil pipe is in that corner but if there are others it might open up other possibilities.

One solution to that problem is to have macerators which I can endorse from personal use. These mean you can site a bathroom elsewhere and their only downside seems to be noise. If you are able to move things around I would make the current kitchen a laundry room leading to the unchanged bathroom. I would then consider putting a compact kitchen in Bedroom 2 and make this the living space
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PRO
The Kitchen Lady UK
3 years ago
Hi Adam,

I think you've got two options but I think moving the toilet when you've got neighbours is going to be painful so I'd try and keep it in place as much as possible.

Option 1.
I like Marks suggestion of swapping the reception and bed 1. Keep the bathroom and knock through up to the fireplace (also could cause headaches in a flat). This would mean you could run the kitchen around the walls to the stairs. You could also move the bathroom door to bed 1 to stop the kitchen being a thoroughfare.

Option 2
Jonathans idea ish of keeping the bathroom, kitchen becomes utility/store and you make the existing reception your new kitchen, diner, sitting. This is a similar size to my living space and it fits really nicely for a 2 bed. This has multiple benefits of having the room separated from the bedrooms for sound reasons, also looks like there is a pretty window out.

I'd love to help with visualisations with this project as I think it could be gorgeous.

https://www.coveykitchens.co.uk/design-services/Space-Planning

good luck

Emily
PRO
i-architect
3 years ago
Hi! Adam!

I love this kind of challenge! you've got so many choices and whatever you do it's going to be a really unique and interesting space.

The first and most important thing you need to do before you start to design the layout it get clear on what you need.

Next week I'm running a FREE 5 Day Get Ready To Redesign Challenge that will help you. If you'd like to join in and get my help for free with figuring out how to start redesigning your home I'd love that. You can sign up here: https://www.i-architect.co.uk/readytoredesign.html

All the best with your project!

Jane x

i-architect.co.uk

Floor plan from Hell! Rejig necessary?

Comments (4)

Mark Denley

Jonathan

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