Narrow townhouse remodelling ideas.
Kiki
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ElsieFrenchy
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60s townhouse exterior dilemma...
Comments (17)One has to question what is going on here, as you appear to feel your house does not make a 'good enough' statement? My first reaction to the exterior was to recoil at the rather 'pushy' cars parked outside, plus the tragic pvc door and weatherboarding! Apart from that the house looks to be quite a sensible, space-efficient design with the reduced heat losses that a terrace brings... Your house is not an individual, but is part of a row of three or even more, meaning that anything you do should take into account the others, be sympathetic and integrate with them. My attitude as a sustainable design consultant would be to only spend money on things that really need upgrading, and only do that with the greatest care so that you do not harm the structure and take into account condensation risk etc. Think carefully about the effect all your changes will make to heat loss and your space heating requirements! Also consider any possible overheating via glazing and be aware that glass has one of the highest carbon footprints while insulation is really low. Remember that every penny you spend earning money comes with an environmental footprint, and when you spend this money you then add a further environmental impact! The obvious areas which could be improved are wall insulation, glazing, doors and air-tightness. Any new glazing should be designed to give really low whole-window U values and should use warm-edge spacers. For me PVC is out of the question as it is rubbish, looks tacky and reduces glazing area. If you are using timber, then look into using Accoya, douglas fir or oak. Velfac certainly make quality windows and doors, but it would be better if all the houses installed them to keep the facade consistent. Thermally broken Nordan, SAS Pure, Aluprof slimline are other windows/doors to check out. If the weatherboarding is to be replaced, then I would advise using Marley Eternit Cedral or Cedral Click (Cembrit also offer a pressed cement board) which will never rot, but again, consider getting your neighbours to join in). You can paint this yourself with Dulux weathershield. Most cedar cladding looks awful once the UV light starts to break it down and the rain gets in. To me, the way we live our lives on the planet is much more important than the way things 'look'. People are exploited by the fashion and interior design companies into spending money on short-term whims and froth which all impact on the resources the planet creates for us. That is not to say that good design is unimportant -take a Harry Bertoia chair for instance - classics that just go on for ever. My motto is KEEP IT SIMPLE & SUSTAINABLE - QUALITY RATHER THAN QUANTITY. Hope this is helpful....See MoreExtension/house "remodel" advice needed please!
Comments (14)Ok, so I've never commented on Houzz before (despite being a huge reader) but the shape of your house really intrigued me as it's very charming but quite tricky. Looking at just the ground floor, I think that an extension that fills in the 'rectangle' floorpan of the whole house might work. The loo and shower should be moved so that they are not blocking off movement flowing through the ground floor. To get a bigger hallway you could move back the wall currently going into the kitchen, so that you incorporate the small window into the hall. Remove the wall by the stairs and turn the stairway itself into a feature which would make the hallway - and stairs themselves - feel much roomier (I can't see from your floorpan whether they are already open to the hallway). What's currently the kitchen could become a utility with downstairs loo (move the shower upstairs into new bathroom over new extension, taking a bit from bedroom 1?). I have recently had an extension kitchen built on our own house and turned the old (tiny) kitchen into a laundry/boot room - best decision ever with a growing family! In the utility room you could put in a stacked wash/tumbler (if you want a tumbler, or else just cupboards/laundry on top) and a downstairs loo, as well as more storage. In the new kitchen, you could have double/french/sliding/bifold doors as per your taste looking out SE into the garden, creating a long sightline - and feeling of space - from the garden right through the kitchen into the far room. This would create a spacious-feeling kitchen tied into the rest of the house. You could block up the door into the current dining room and take out the wall between the dining/living. Keeping the dining room as dining, this gives you a cosy room there for small intimate dinners but also the potential to have big dinner parties on a long extended table stretching out into the living room. When not entertaining, that slightly self-contained room (as it's not a through-route as is the rest of the house) could be used as a study/quieter reading room. You now have a house that is welcoming for entertaining - guests come through the front door, where there's space for coats/hatstands, straight through the open door into the living room and are greeted by the fireplace ahead of them, and look round to see the dining table. Downstairs loo for guests nicely separated from all the action. Please excuse my very rough sketch of what I mean, and its lack of scale!...See MoreChalet Bungalow Re-model / configuration
Comments (11)Hey Lindsay, I've had a crack at re-configuring the space (no expert!) and definitely consult an architect and/or structural engineer to advice about taking down walls. An easy option for an extra bedroom is to convert the dining room / study to a bedroom, If that is a sink I spotted in the study, then it could make a great en-suite if it's in the budget and if you can run toilet waste. This would give a decent double room or if you have little ones two single beds with desk spaces and small walk-in wardrobe. The current bedroom is quite narrow, if possible, could you build out to the garage wall? That would give you some extra space for bedroom furniture. Maybe even separate the toilet and bathroom and create an ex-suite shower room (unless the bedroom upstairs is also using that bathroom!) If possible removing the corridor between the house and utility/garage makes the utility room feel more part of the house instead of an outbuilding and would allow for a better flow between the garage, utility, garden and kitchen. I would make the garage slightly smaller and the utility larger that way you can store items you use within the house but want out of site in the utility room (pet food, sporadically used / bulky kitchen appliances) and items like bikes, tools, seasonal decorations, sports gear in the garage keeping them separate. Square of the conservatory and convert to solid structure with a roof light, open up the kitchen and lounge walls and build out a doorway to the lounge from the hallway so the kitchen and lounge have separate entrances....See MoreRemodelling to bring an annexe into the main house- ideas please!
Comments (3)I don't know why the floorplan is upside down!! or how to fix it......See Morekatlucy
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