Ideas for my parents' house

SalsaDanca

Hi all,

I bought a house a couple of years ago, and since then my mother has been looking for ways to improve her house so that she can have some of the things that my house has. I have suggested that moving to a house that already has the features she wants may be simpler than a major project, but that's not an option that they (mainly my father) are willing to consider.

So, can anyone suggest how they could make improvements to this house? The things that my mother would particularly like are a utility room, and more light in the reception rooms - the house faces north, and very little sunlight gets from the rear of the house into the reception rooms at the front which feel very small and dark. They don't need two separate reception rooms, so combining them into one larger lighter room would be a possibility.



Background info;
The house was built in the 1930s. It's detached, but apart from a footpath along one side it already fills the entire width of the plot.

The rooms shown in green and blue are the original outline of the house. The green rooms have the same floorplan upstairs, the blue rooms are single-storey. The extension at the front of living room 1 is single storey. The playroom shown in red is a two-storey extension. The room above the kitchen is awkward, as you need to walk through it to access the bedroom above the playroom. I assume that all of the walls are load-bearing.

The bathroom is old and in need of replacement, and the kitchen is dated, so relocating them may be possible. The area outside the kitchen and bathroom windows has a number of pipes and drains running under it, so it would probably not be possible to extend over it.

tonyh66

your father does realise that any major building work will require them to move out for months. I suspect he is hoping enthusiasm for change will drop off and thing stay as they are.

getmore4less

Without knowing what's outside all the way round it is difficult to see where the openings could be made.

Is south to north left to right?

SalsaDanca

getmore4less wrote: »

Without knowing what's outside all the way round it is difficult to see where the openings could be made.

Is south to north left to right?

The front of the house (on the left) is to the north.

The side at the bottom of the picture is very close to a similar house next door.
The side at the top of the picture looks out over the back gardens of other houses - the backs of these houses face towards the side of my parents' house.

WobblyDog

Would some additional artificial background lighting in the reception rooms help? Modern LED lighting is so efficient that it's feasible to leave it on for long periods without running up an electricity bill. You could probably have some high-end LED lighting (dimmable with adjustable colour temperature) installed for a fraction of the cost of getting the builders in.