Redoing the home - big project, need your advice

Doozergirl

It isn't for the builder to comment on your proposed layout. A hallway is stud walling. In comparison to other building projects, it will be pretty cheap and reap good reward in terms of flow and layout.

I'd be doing building rather than creating storage. You can always buy boxes until there are funds to build storage.

Do you have the full itemised quote? Can I see, please?

Also your upstairs floorplan

Doozergirl

It's okay to use artificial light in a
Kitchen. If you want to keep the back rooms separate then I siggest moving the kitchen to the middle. It is less complicated than moving a toilet. If the floors are already up then it should be simple to get drainage over there.

You do already have a front room which would be separate from smells. If the resulting two back rooms are poky, then you should consider opening them to be kitchen and dining space. The hallway will keep smells from the run to the bathroom and from the front.

The wall by the storage space is a bit annoying. You could stud wall the stairs off as they run up, and make the whole understairs area into a giant cupboard with a regular door on it, paralell to the bottom step, far forward of where it is now. Again, relatively cheap.

Sorry for the typos, I'm on my phone.

bui

Firstly I am really sorry for the terrible writing you will see. I need to do upstairs but this is downstairs.

Let me add the list of items though in the £30,000

Plaster to be taken off all walls
Damp proof injection
Wiring whole house with ceritificate
Plastering whole house and skim
Small porch extention
Lowering front garden (they think this higher ground is the cause of damp I think)
Build wall at front and one side of house
Make groundfloor bathroom smaller, refit bath, sink ... and tile
Level floor and ceiling in back room
Remove and refit kitchen

Upstairs
Remove old shower/toilet
Move it all forward
Fit new shower, toilet and sink
Tiling

Make loft hatch bigger (loft is used for insulation and a bit of storage, cant afford extention)
Add a staircase?
Insulate
Level floor with chipboard

Level back garden using slabs we already have
New doorframes, skirting, door fitting
Double glazing

Storage to be added where stairs are upstairs as loads of space and stairs leading to it
Will do up the front garden (these last two thrown in by builder as it's easy and will look nice)

Now all the above isn't written very professionally as I think my sister was jotting down the points when he came. He doesn't really do point by point prices but overall. He is a very nice guy and his work is great, we've seen it but I will still ask on my favourite forum.

Okay as for the layout. We have a front room which is a more quiet room in the house. It's sort of where the extra guests go. We need two different seating areas due to the amount of people who come and go in my parents place. The back used to be open plan but it was very uncomfortable sitting in that room when someone was cooking (although nice to be able to talk). Our food just smells too strong and the mist etc. Plus kids are normally playing in that room so better they dont have access to the kitchen cupboards for babies to empty them. Hence if kitchen was separate it would be awesome. But if it cant is there an idea to keep the cooker and a small area of the workspace separate by glass or something? (Totally random idea and might not make any sense).

Having the kitchen in the middle seems okay but dont know where all the smell would go?

Also agree that the space between the staircase and the room is annoying but seems removing the solid wall is an issue or costs too much?

Here's the measurements which are very rough as you can see they probably don't add up.

bui

Ohh I get it about the stud wall for the stairs. You're not asking to move the wall. Okay that is an idea to add. One thing is behind that door (on the wall which is the side wall of the house) is the electric meter etc.

neneromanova

What does the upstairs layout look like? What's in the bathroom upstairs? Shower/bath, only shower etc.

Doozergirl

You would have a good quality extractor for the kitchen. Can be extracted between the joists in the back room to outside or trunked to the nearest outside wall.

Your builder may not be hot on breaking down quotes but he needs to write some things down at least, or you are heading straight for a conflict.

Ultimately, it's a small house that sounds like it's full of people. It's your job to prioritise what needs doing. For me, standardising the layout and position of the doors would help with furniture placement. Clearly damp needs sorting, and plumbing/electrics.

What work is being done to the porch? It might be better removed than worked on, until funds allow.

How do you fit a bath downstairs with a loo and basin? It shouldn't all fit in the space given, let alone a smaller one.

System

Imo you want to get someone involved on the design and layout alterations and to specify the upgrades and then produce a set of well detailed plans which would allow you to get a solid price from a few builders, it looks a bit ad hoc at the moment and without properly exploring the options for alterations, and without a decent set of drawings this one looks like it could have serious issues further down the line with either the builders bills and/or ending up with something that isn't what you hoped for.

bui

The main thing is that in terms of the quality of the house, he will do it good.

Because of the money, the layout won't be ideal.

Instead of having a open plan kitchen/sitting room, he was going to move the double door in between the kitchen and back room, to the centre of the kitchen so the kitchen cabinets can go against the bathroom side wall too. But it's not the way we live in the sense that it would be nice for the kitchen to be separate.

Actually the bathroom is a really good size. It fits a traingular shaped bath tub too. There is plenty of room in there.