Help? Practicality, light and safety - Extension (EDITED AFTER FEEDBACK)

uropachild

Josepina wrote: »

I'm not keen on the fact that you have to walk thru lounge n kids room to get to kitchen, lounge carpet will get filthy. Also where are your stairs? Lastly will you use a shower downstairs, I can understand toilet/ washbasin but shower?
Anyway I think extend hallway to avoid walking thru lounge, put dining area where kids room is, kitchen in dining area then office n kids room where kitchen is.
Hope this helps

I think i answered some of your points in my other posts. We already have to walk through the lounge to get to the kitchen because a previous owner blocked up what used to be the passage into the kitchen and made it into a hall closet. We could take that out i guess. I just didn't think of doing that until you just mentioned it. But, yeah, we're used to traipsing through. Shoes off at the door!

Thanks again everyone! We just need fresh eyes!

WestonDave

My suggestion would be based on Ormus's plan but reversing the rooms so that the kids play room is where the office is, the kitchen is next to the lounge and then the dining room and office are in the new bit.

Reasoning is that it brings the kids play room nearer to the lounge but is also viewable from the kitchen, and gives them easy access to the toilet I assume is in the shower room. The kitchen is then the thoroughfare and the dining room has the potential to a be a quiet adult space especially in a few years when you are having nice dinner parties whilst the kids are either in their "den" (renamed by then) or in the lounge and treking into the kitchen to graze or to the loo. The office is also tucked away so is quiet to use, nice and light under the velux windows and out of mind for people thinking of wandering in. Don't have the dimensions to draw that for you, and it would need a bit of tweaking with the roof windows etc but worth a thought?

t_obermory

Would it be possible to put the kids play room where the living room is and move the communal living space to the back of the house as one open plan layout? Do you have the living room separated from the dining room now (there isn't a line on your current house layout pic) if you don't you could always use some of the space from there to extend the living space at the back and make the play room smaller.

If that makes sense!

HTH's.

uropachild

Okay, here are some photos for visualisation purposes.

This is the kitchen when we first moved in. It still looks like this, just more cluttered as you will see.





The back door is on the wall where the extension will come from iykwim.

Here's a pic i took just now of the awkward section of the current kitchen. We will put the shower where the fridge is and a sink and toilet kind of under the stairs. It will make sure some ducking when going to the loo, but that doesn't matter to me - i'm a girl! Nah, just kidding. It will be a little weird, but i do think it is the best use of this space - although i could be convinced otherwise with a logical alternative!

Yes, there really is THIS much clutter. This is a by product of having a really pants, ill designed kitchen. It's awful in every way. Even if we didn't get this extension the kitchen is desperate to be redone.



This one is me stood in the current dining area looking into the kitchen so you can see how awkward that space is. We are going to move the boiler across a little into whatever that space will be next to the shower room.



This is the me stood in the living room side of the house looking at the current dining room end. The window you see is on the back wall, where the extension will come from.



This is an old picture, but it might give some perspective.



Does that help at all???

uropachild

WestonDave wrote: »

My suggestion would be based on Ormus's plan but reversing the rooms so that the kids play room is where the office is, the kitchen is next to the lounge and then the dining room and office are in the new bit.

Reasoning is that it brings the kids play room nearer to the lounge but is also viewable from the kitchen, and gives them easy access to the toilet I assume is in the shower room. The kitchen is then the thoroughfare and the dining room has the potential to a be a quiet adult space especially in a few years when you are having nice dinner parties whilst the kids are either in their "den" (renamed by then) or in the lounge and treking into the kitchen to graze or to the loo. The office is also tucked away so is quiet to use, nice and light under the velux windows and out of mind for people thinking of wandering in. Don't have the dimensions to draw that for you, and it would need a bit of tweaking with the roof windows etc but worth a thought?

Hmmm... worth some thought... That could work... I'll have to go and draw something out to mill it over. Man! I have gone through some graph paper this last few weeks!!

uropachild

t_obermory wrote: »

Would it be possible to put the kids play room where the living room is and move the communal living space to the back of the house as one open plan layout? Do you have the living room separated from the dining room now (there isn't a line on your current house layout pic) if you don't you could always use some of the space from there to extend the living space at the back and make the play room smaller.

If that makes sense!

HTH's.

Thanks, but i just don't know if i could do with having a living room at the rear of the house - or at least not right at the front. It's nice there because the window is massive and there's plenty of room for the sofas and telly and stuff. Plus, i am a bit of a curtain twitcher and i wouldn't be able to see as much! HA!

DVardysShadow

uropachild wrote: »

Thank you! That's definitely something to think about... An extra 1/2 meter along the back would be roughly (very roughly) another £3500 or so though (working on £1300 per square meter. I don't think an RSJ would cost more than £1000, would it?

On small works, with small differences in design, I am not sure that the £1300/m^2 will really hold very strongly. I couldn't hazard a guess on the cost of the RSJ, but it is very clear to me that it is much more straight forward to RSJ the passage you need to the kitchen than it is to RSJ the whole span. And think about the consequences for the structure as a whole if your neighbours did the same. You have Party Wall legislation to contend with here - and if I were your neighbour, I would be mighty unhapppy about taking out that whole wall.

There is much more to this than straight cost. But if you want a £ related downside of your proposal, taking out the existing downstairs external wall to the extent you propose would certainly put me off buying your house - and would not coe out too favourably on anything beyond a basic lenders survey.

jennifernil

I think you need to consider carefully whether the fact the present dining room will lose a lot of light will make it into a bit of a dead area. You cannot put a Velux window over the existing dining room as there is presumably a bedroom above it.

Have you established which of the internal walls are structural?

Another thing to consider is whether the house will become "too expensive for the street" if you hope to recoup what you spend.

Then you need to consider whether the finished result will be as satisfactory as a house that was designed to be bigger to start with.

Whatever you decide, I think I would be looking to open up the passageway from the front hall by removing the coat cupboard. Having all the traffic going through the lounge is not good.

ormus

a thro hallway is all very nice but takes up a lot of room.

what about switching the kitchen/diner for the office/kids room? (straight swap on my plan).
is a window really required in the office?

jennifernil

There are regulations about light in rooms, if you divide it off with a wall, most living type rooms need a window, or at least some type of ventilation.

Kitchens and bathrooms only need ventilation.

So, put the kitchen bit in the windowless area.