Help with downstairs layout

Wizwoo

I'm in real need of some help with our downstairs layout. We haven't been here that long but it just doesn't work for us. At the moment you walk in through the front into a small hall (going along to the right) then there's 2 doors one to a small kitchen (approx 9 x 9) and the other into the living room (spans width of house... not that big).
You go through the door to the livinig room and right behind it is a big fireplace and on the opposite wall are double doors into the conservatory.

That's the downstairs space. At the moment there seems to be too many obstacles to put our furniture in front of.

I just can't see what to do or where to go with it.

I'm tempted to get someone in...but that would just cost too much wouldn't it?
Anyone know of any good web sites that would have lots of ideas that I can look at? I've tried looking through a load of magazines but I'm just getting more and more confused.

Sagz_2

Any chance you can draw us a picture?

Merlot

Or post some photos.

Merlot.x.

Wizwoo

I'll have a go.
I actually still have th eplan supplied by the estate agents (they sent it via e-mail) but I'm not sure how to attach it.
Any advice?
Ww

Wizwoo

That's taken me ages - but I've learnt something new :T . Here is the downstairs layout.

The hall looks pretty wide from the plan but it isn't. The problem is the dining room's become a bit of a corridor and the conservatory is no good as a lounge in the middle of winter. However our 2 sofas (bought for the last house - but only about 3 years old) just don't fit in the dining area (the plan was to use this as a living area instead. At least that would be the easy solution (although it would have meant taking food through the living room).

We have thought about opening the space up (kitchen / dining) but just can't see how that would work either (so many doors and both dining room windows have radiators beneath them and the windows are just 70 cm from the floor).

mcspanna

Hi Wizwoo,

Any chance you could post the dimensions of the rooms too?
sorry I know we're asking you to do all the work so far! :-)

PasturesNew

All I could think of was that you either have to spend a little and not be entirely happy with the results, or go for gold and go structural.

Fix the main entrance door so it opens from the other side. Minimise that hall space. Rip out that kitchen. Remove the chimney breast (probably all the way to the roof). You'll need steel joists to support the middle of the house then.

Then I got a bit stuck.... I thought about moving the kitchen down to where the under the stairs cupboard is, and a door beside the conservatory to the outside.... but I wondered then if that'd be a pain/long way round to take the rubbish out, if you'd end up bringing all your shopping in and across the whole house to get to the kitchen. Difficult to say without seeing a photo and knowing how the house sits on the plot.

If you're worried about moving a few radiators, you probably won't want to do the whole structural/rip it all out approach.

How much do you want to spend? £2k? £5k? £20k?

Are there houses like yours in the street? Pluck up the courage to bang on their doors and see if they've done anything... and what. Ask to have a peek.

Sagz_2

Hmmm I can see why you have problems, it is a bit of a nightmare layout.

If money were no object I think I'd take out the entire fireplace wall between the kitchen and hall so you had one large kitchen/living space and keep the conservatory as a dining area (as it's too cold in winter). I'd also move the double doors to the left, you could then make the east wall (on the plan) of the big room the focal point so sofas can point that way - maybe one along the wall where the doors have been moved from and the other next to it forming an 'L' shape.

As for the cheap option..... still working on that!

Wizwoo

Thanks for all your thoughts so far. Since moving in I've always wondered why the doors to the conservatory have been put where they are.

As for dimension:
Hall (not including the bit in front of the stairs) = 11 x 3'2"
Kitchen = 8'1 x 10'1
Dining Room = 10 x 17
Conservatory = 10 x 12

We've not been here that long and don't really know the neighbours that well. We are at the end of a row of 3 so the only house like ours is the one on the other end and if there's one family I felt that we didn't particularly get on with...it's them I'm afraid so no real option to look around for ideas.

We have thought about pulling out the fireplace & chimney - anybody got any idea how much that would cost?

PasturesNew - not sure how we would minimise the hall space. The front door is right next to the bottom of the stairs. What are your thoughts?

I've been wondering about the under stairs cupboard too. It's a great storage space but the door in the dining room is a bit of a pain.

I'm open to any level of work...although I'd be nervous about spending much more than £5-£7K. The kitchen we are quite ready to start again with (we like the units though but know we can get more to adapt / change it to make it more practical (at the moment we have 1 draw in the whole kitchen!!!) for the way that we use it.

Ww

ic

Is this a semi connected to another house along the bottom wall of the plan? Out of interest, if you don't like the layout, why'd you buy it? I viewed over 20 houses before buying mine, and some I saw were just plain weird, like front doors that opened into the middle of the kitchen.

Wizwoo

Yes it's connected by the bottom wall (on the plan). To be honest we viewed loads of houses and this is the first one in our price bracket that we both liked. We love the location and it's got a pretty decent size garden (both of which we had struggled with in virtually all our other viewings).

The upstairs space works really well for us and I guess we knew we'd need to address the downstairs...we just hadn't realised how many issues there would be to get it working for us.

Ww