Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

LydiaJ

What interesting ideas.

It doesn't feel like entering straight into the kitchen. The proper kitchen is the bit beyond the little bits of sticking out wall at the ends of the units. The beginning bit of the kitchen was probably the original utility room. It's now a sort of entrance space. It's got a huge and ancient boiler in one corner, which is going, of course. I'm assuming that a more modern boiler will be smaller and can go on a wall somewhere (in the actual kitchen, maybe) and not take up loads of floor space.

The entrance space has double doors in from the conservatory, an archway through to the kitchen, and a doorless doorway through into the dining room. I'll probably put coat hooks there and a shoe rack, in the space where the boiler is. I'm also going to put my kitchen table there. It's one of those butterfly ones that folds down into hardly any space and has its chairs stored inside it. Then I'll try living in the house for a while and find out whether we end up actually using the kitchen table, or just eating at the dining table anyway.

I do want to keep the family room as private space that can be shut away, and I think it's a lovely size as it is, and wouldn't want to make it any smaller. If I was going to build a porch, I'd put it where the extra bit of conservatory is, and stick a door in from the porch through the wall into the entrance space. If I find I don't use the kitchen table, I could turn that space into something more like a proper hall, and put doors in the archway through to the kitchen or something. I think doors there would interrupt the connection between the kitchen and dining room, though. Perhaps just a different flooring and wall colour would break up the hall from the kitchen without affecting the ease of walking through it. Maybe one day I would like to put double patio-type doors from the living room out into the garden, too.

There'll be plenty of time to dream of what I want to do with it. It's costing me all my money to buy the thing, so I haven't any left over for changing the layout - not unless I save up for a few years anyway. All I can afford is the insulation, heating and electric upgrades I've already mentioned, and minor things like fitting a shower over the bath in the ensuite, plus painting and curtains and stuff. The sellers are taking all their curtains and curtain poles with them, but all the windows also have blinds and they are leaving those.

ETA The forum will be down most of Saturday. Cashtrated, anyone?

SingleSue

Begger, I got here too late to see all the plans and photo's.....grrrrr

vivatifosi

LydiaJ wrote: »

ETA The forum will be down most of Saturday. Cashtrated, anyone?

See you over there when this one goes down.

lostinrates

When we're back on over here I'll go through doozers and michaels excellent points.

Does doozer have the link to cashtrated?

I miss cashtrated.

We'e got a monster day so might be out a bit anyway.

tomterm8

Looks like I am the only person on this thread who has no interest in ever adding an extension ever under any circumstances whatsoever, thankyouverymuch...

( The Builders, The Builders)

vivatifosi

I posted this over the other place for missk, but then we came back up pretty soon after, so please excuse me for posting twice:

My brother went to a local auction to us last week (Hertfordshire regulars will know the one I mean, its in the west of the county). He managed to get a whole lot of garden tools for £8. They include the chain that you throw across tree branches to bring down (can't remember the name), big pruning shears, secateurs, electric hedge trimmers, rakes, spades, hoes, hand tools... the list goes on. Its worth keeping an eye out to local auction catalogues as lots like that don't sell so easily this time of year. He could have got a petrol lawnmower for £12 too. They do house clearances so lots like this tend to come up at the wrong time of year, if you get my drift.

lostinrates

Doozergirl wrote: »

So many different ways to arrange that house!

I know....we've been fiddling with paper versions on a4 and you get it what look like it would make sense go into the room and it just doesn't!

The first things I thought of have already been suggested - opening your reception room into a more grand hall. I know you said the dimensions are perfect but we have done that in our house at home; and still have sitting room furniture and a fireplace in there so we can sit in there if we choose (usually after a few wines or when people we don't really know turn up).

Ok, my reservations are this....firstly heat loss through the front door. Despite ebing very rural we get a surprising number of ''drops in guests''. Thed other thing with that is this: I don't want everyone to the front door to see in to where we are relaxing in the evening. I like having a lobby to protect. Not least as it means you can lock the dogs a way from the door but have them at hand for late vening unexpected callers.

The new room will be the ''always visitor tidy'' room the smaller one, and the library next door...the ''us but can be visitor ok in minutes'' then the kitchen will be where people come to the back door. ''Back door'' guests and ''front door guests'' is a bit confusing to non country side dwellers....but you get both. So the ''main'' part of the house is really for posh guests and evenings. Day time guests will be in the kitchen. Kitchen is big enough for a table for lunch for up to about 6-8 people too....but I really prefer not to have guests seemuch kitchen havoc so anything other than light ''ladies lunch'':D

If it were my house I'd like to see the kitchen in the middle of the house because I get so lonely or at least incorporate it into the main house a bit more It does seem a shame to be wandering through a small inner hall to reach your bespoke wooden kithcen. I wondered if you did knock the current kitchen through to the library if you could the fireplace in the library for a lovely range cooker (yummy!) and have a bigger door out to you double room?

The kitchen is my day room. It will be very light and see not just into both gardens but also onto the entrance to my yard. This is useful for business reasons. and I suppose security. Its also got a very different feel to the rest of he house..more worker rustic than country chic. It means I can access what is labeeled (wrongly) as kitchen garden for the east morning light with a coffee, or out into the posher garden with food/drinks for posher garden parties or supper alfresco, and even, in the summer, through double doors to the dining room. Any body coming into the kitchen who isn't us...i.e.back door drop ins, will come from the south, through the garden, so straight in to the kitchen. Out here its often as big a deal as the front entrance. Things that are missing on th plans are a fireplace in there AND a range, and its a huge room, yet the one down stairs I'll be in most.

The other thing I'd like is that whole door into it looking onto the house wider glassier. we've ummed and ahhed about the utility room etc

And if you don't see the need for two downstairs loos, I don't either. It isn't cheap at all to install a loo and the middle of a house is not a good place for plumbing! Problem with architects is that they often don't see it the same way that a builder would.


The other downstairs loo though, there's quite some wasted space there around that back door - could that be a boot room? I'm guessing that you need one really and more space than the architect has given you would be nice. A downstairs shower could be useful more than another toilet?

This is great and shows how even the plans aren't the full story! There is another area where there will be a shower....in a building across the garden. It won't be posh, it will in fcat be a horse shower ()that dogs and disgustingly filthy people can shower off in.

That building also kind f means in a way I can't show with the plans of the house, the kitchsn is more central than it appears...there is that building (not there atm but a coach house) and a third one too. (potentially a granny annexe). the kitchen will be a sort of...hub..between these.

I've been thinking about the loo thing today as people dropped in ...the drainage guy, dh me from th garden...and I think I saw what the architec was getting at...with a loo accessable from outside (currently our IS an outside john) for mucky people, and one that's spotless for guests.

A sort of boot and poop room at the back.

But that room DOES pose problems. Its nice enough ATM to turn, for example into a breakfast room and larger than many home studies!

Not even suggesting that you did all of those things in the same house, iyswim.

It's a shame that at the moment you have rooms with question marks by them. I would keep working on the plan so that you end up with something fabulous that you are genuinely pleased with. Seems a shame to have the dining room so far from the kitchen yet bigger spaces nearby that would qualify...

Question marks are architects wondering about what we call them I think.

re: knocking walls - you have the option of knocking out as little or as much as you want to, so rooms like the reception/library can be capable of maintaining quite a separate feel and their proportions whilst letting through light or whatnot...

As far as listed buildings officer will let us! They are very confused themselves about what they want, though thrilled to see the missing bit returned!

Good idea to have yourself a part that you can shut away, I'd like to see the main/favourite rooms tied together for that reason.

I haven't even seen your house so I hope you don't take anything too seriously No doubt I'd have an entirely differing opinion if I could stand in it!


The floor plans look so exciting and it sounds like a very beautiful and special old house!

EDIT: That was long, sorry!

Its great, because while I think about suggestions I challenge our own plans and see where I think things ar right and why.

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

Judging by the thickness of the walls in the original section of the property I am guessing stone and I suspect there may be major structural issues in trying to be too gung-ho about removing them?

For ease I want to say yes, but need to explain further. The ''original'' bit is actually in to pieces....the back (day room ) is very, very much older, and the bits that look added on are actually Victorian changes to older buildings. The front on the main bit, that looks oldest, is actually(apart from victorian tinkering) the ''new bit''!

My mind is toying with whether the long room could become a kitchen / breakfast room with a fabulous outlook and the 'kitchen' could be a fabulous entertaining room. Issue being the second stairs are at the end where you would really want the kitchen to be close to the dining room.

I get this because when we first came in, before going through to the back thats what I thought too!

I know the minor reception is really nice but to my mind so many of the rooms including this one are used as 'corridors' linking other rooms together that this room could as DG suggests till be a sitting room but be part of the 'grand hall'.

corridor rooms are kind of traditional...not so much here though as further west in proper ''long houses'' where you walk through all the rooms. Here, the slight redeeming feature is you could avoid a room. I think you are right about the studdy though, just flipping those doors is worth thinking about. A study should be private IMO

I need to find out if my parents have plans of their barn conversion as it had some very similar issues - they went with a grand hall of about 60' by 25', a kitchen of 30'x20' and a sitting room of 25'x20' and hen a second galleried entertaining room of 60'x25' on the first floor but they have a further wing for the bedrooms and being a barn conversion there were fewer internal walls to worry about.

Indeed barns benefit from bigger open spaces IMO...reminding what they were.....but the cost of heating one :eek: More than our sitting room! To be clear, its the hall that I agree would benefit not the room.

I am unclear whether the sections in a different colour (utility and 3 storey section) are existing or planned?

Utility is there, but we can't decide whether to keep it or not...how to work it. I do not want to extend the L further. If it were't there I wouldn't put it there, but it is. My suspicion is it will be maintained by listen building officer and so using it as a utilities room is a best option. The ceiling there is lower than the vaulted kitchen will be, we thought about have the kitchen sink into it, but I just think it would take away from the kitchen. It.like the other room...that is now the utility but might be the boot room/loo is one of those things I feel we're fitting arounf the house rather then the house fitting us. But thats part of the deal with a house like this. Better the loo and utility than other bits I think!

JonnyBravo

silvercar wrote: »

Sounds like a megaflow. Dunno what that is or how it works, but I know other people in big houses have them.

We've got Megaflow.
The big advantage is it is pressurised so can cope with supplying many sources at once. You don't get a shot of cold water on you if someone turns on a hot tap whilst you're in the shower as can happen with just a combi.
There are many sizes of tank for Megaflow.
Ours is heated by both the gas CH and has an electric immersion giving flexibility. A mate up the road has his preheated by solar on the roof.
I'd get it again if we move.

michaels

This is mine:





Not on the plans but I also intend to put in a proper stairs over the current stairs to a games room in the loft that will be 17x13 but only 7x13 at full head height (velux only no dormer)

The kitchen/family room is 24x17 but I haven't decided on the layout yet, that on the pans is just indicative.

Basically although the planning is passed it seems as long as the outside doesn't change there is still scope to redesign the interior so any ideas gratefully received.