Open Plan Advice Please

siross

Hi all,

My wife and I are currently in the process of buying our "forever home". The location and size of the house is beyond perfect for us. However, we are fans of open plan living and would like to open up some of the space. Our budget is ideally £35k and I'm 99.99% we wouldn't achieve the ideal solution within this budget, there are plenty of other options though.

The layout is currently:


In an ideal world it would be nice to open up the entire space by:

- Moving kitchen wall in to garage enough to accommodate large fridge and kitchen cabinets.
- Erect a stud partition in garage to create a study area
- Removal of all internal walls including the conservatory wall.
- Installation of bifold doors in kitchen and conservatory corner of house. This will be the most challenging as I think it would require knocking the conservatory down and starting again with a single storey extension with footings deep enough to take a proper wall / bifold and roof.

This is a rough mock up:

And a view from the corner of the room, the bifolds don't look great here as the programme didn't allow a fully glazed wall. But the idea would be for the entire corner to be bi-fold and open entirely.


Now I think this could start costing in the realms of £50-60k including a new kitchen which is way more than we'd like to spend. We have the opportunity to withhold some capital at this point and increase budget but this would be no more than £45k.

So a cheaper alternative would be to leave the conservatory where it was:




What are everyone's opinions/thoughts?
I don't know how much value it would add to the house, however, there isn't really a ceiling price in this area as few houses come up and it's a very desirable area.

Cheers.

Fire_Fox

Live with the conservatory for a year before you make any structural changes affecting it. See how the natural light is in different seasons, ditto the temperature.

Consider ventilation/ extraction in your kitchen, utility and your study (laundry rooms can be stuffy).

siross

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Live with the conservatory for a year before you make any structural changes affecting it. See how the natural light is in different seasons, ditto the temperature.

Consider ventilation/ extraction in your kitchen, utility and your study (laundry rooms can be stuffy).

Thanks for the reply Fire Fox.
When I originally started thinking about the over ambitious plan, I thought it would be unaffordable. The more I think about it and the associated costs it's just confirming that it's way too far on our budget. I think it would exceed £100k!

Good advice re ventilation, we'll look in to it

I think we're best off living with the conservatory as is for the time being and costing up the rest of the work. As a minimum we can remove the kitchen/diner wall with no issues as it's only a partition wall. However, this would then mean a new kitchen is required as it wouldn't necessarily fit the space, and if we were having a new kitchen I'd want to take the space off the garage to open it up first.

Doozergirl

It won't add any value to the house. Value is added by creating square footage.

A conservatory is an outbuilding, not an extension. It needs full building regulations as an extension correctly built with decent footings and insulation values, so it would be expensive to rebuild properly assuming that the conservatory is built, as most are, inferior to extensions. They are cheaper to build because they don't meet regulations - they don't need to because they are separate from the house.

It's imperative that structural engineer's calculations and Building Control Approval are obtained for the knock throughs you intend to create. If each wall is structural then there may be, I suspect, some impossibilities in what you have done. With your budget, piers need to be kept to support the steels that replace the walls. To describe it perhaps a bit better, the will be stub left behind of each wall - that means you cannot put windows in every space where there was once a wall perpendicular to the back wall because you compromise the whole structure.

You can do something with your budget and probably most of your second option but with a rethink on your window locations; gravity is a definite thing.

siross

Doozergirl wrote: »

It won't add any value to the house. Value is added by creating square footage.

A conservatory is an outbuilding, not an extension. It needs full building regulations as an extension correctly built with decent footings and insulation values, so it would be expensive to rebuild properly assuming that the conservatory is built, as most are, inferior to extensions. They are cheaper to build because they don't meet regulations - they don't need to because they are separate from the house.

It's imperative that structural engineer's calculations and Building Control Approval are obtained for the knock throughs you intend to create. If each wall is structural then there may be, I suspect, some impossibilities in what you have done. With your budget, piers need to be kept to support the steels that replace the walls. To describe it perhaps a bit better, the will be stub left behind of each wall - that means you cannot put windows in every space where there was once a wall perpendicular to the back wall because you compromise the whole structure.

You can do something with your budget and probably most of your second option but with a rethink on your window locations; gravity is a definite thing.

Hi Doozergirl, aware of conservatory regulations and Building Control, hence why it would need to be knocked down and replaced by a single storey extension which effectively means that option is unaffordable.

The drawings currently are very rough and ready and just a couple of potential options without taking in to account structural integrity. A friend of mine is a structural engineer and would do the calculations for me. I need to have a chat with him soon really.

The second option is definitely the way to go I think, we just need to actually get someone who knows what they're doing to draw it up :rotfl:

Working_Mum

Sounds like you have a plan!!

The only observation I have is that you have to walk out of the kitchen and through the study to get to the Utility Room and the garage is only accessible by the up and over doors.

I has a similar configuration once in a previous home and it was very clunky when actually living in it.

I second the suggestion of living in a place and seeing how the light falls over the course of the seasons - this saved me a HUGE costly mistake when I moved into our current home.

Good luck

siross

Working_Mum wrote: »

Sounds like you have a plan!!

The only observation I have is that you have to walk out of the kitchen and through the study to get to the Utility Room and the garage is only accessible by the up and over doors.

I has a similar configuration once in a previous home and it was very clunky when actually living in it.

I second the suggestion of living in a place and seeing how the light falls over the course of the seasons - this saved me a HUGE costly mistake when I moved into our current home.

Good luck

Thank you for the advice.
My drawings are very rudimentary and would need a lot of professional input, appreciate your advice

Fire_Fox

siross wrote: »

Good advice re ventilation, we'll look in to it

I think we're best off living with the conservatory as is for the time being and costing up the rest of the work. As a minimum we can remove the kitchen/diner wall with no issues as it's only a partition wall. However, this would then mean a new kitchen is required as it wouldn't necessarily fit the space, and if we were having a new kitchen I'd want to take the space off the garage to open it up first.

Knocking through the kitchen and dining room makes sense, lounge too if possible. :cool: Kitchens can be rejigged, just until your first anniversary in your forever home say?

Maybe try opening the kitchen out into the dining area, along the staircase wall? Seems a shame to spend ££££ burrowing back into the garage, rather than reaching into your fabulous open lounge/ conservatory space.

OR knock the kitchen into both the utility room and the dining room (hopefully both partitions?). :j

Later, create a new laundry room at the back of the garage. Near the plumbing, doesn't need a window, existing door to kitchen, structural garage wall untouched.

siross

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Knocking through the kitchen and dining room makes sense, lounge too if possible. :cool: Kitchens can be rejigged, just until your first anniversary in your forever home say?

I think this is the plan, knock through kitchen/diner and maybe lounge aswell, even though the diner to lounge is fairly open already with double doors

Maybe try opening the kitchen out into the dining area, along the staircase wall? Seems a shame to spend ££££ burrowing back into the garage, rather than reaching into your fabulous open lounge/ conservatory space.

Good idea, we could speak with a kitchen designer to discuss this

OR knock the kitchen into both the utility room and the dining room (hopefully both partitions?). :j
Unfortunately not, the utility wall is actually the old external wall of the house, the utility is an extension

Later, create a new laundry room at the back of the garage. Near the plumbing, doesn't need a window, existing door to kitchen, structural garage wall untouched.

Thanks again Fire Fox, I've replied individually in red above.

vansboy

https://i.imgur.com/ubks8yE.jpg


This is the layout I've just about finished doing!


Where you have the conservatory, I have the old lounge. I will put four folding, fully glazed doors, to seperate it and it will become 'the snug'. It has a metre square skylight now and everywere is full natural light.



There are two banks of 4.5mt patio doors on the front (the garage is next to the lounge) also 3mt x 400mm hi level window above the kitchen wall units. Obviously it wouldn't be possible for you to gain this amount of light, though.


So far only one person (estate agent) thought leaving the old lounge as open plan, was a good idea. Everyoe else sees benefit of it being a space on its own, so your conservatory, remaining, makes sense, at least for now.


VB

siross

vansboy wrote: »

https://i.imgur.com/ubks8yE.jpg


This is the layout I've just about finished doing!


Where you have the conservatory, I have the old lounge. I will put four folding, fully glazed doors, to seperate it and it will become 'the snug'. It has a metre square skylight now and everywere is full natural light.



There are two banks of 4.5mt patio doors on the front (the garage is next to the lounge) also 3mt x 400mm hi level window above the kitchen wall units. Obviously it wouldn't be possible for you to gain this amount of light, though.


So far only one person (estate agent) thought leaving the old lounge as open plan, was a good idea. Everyoe else sees benefit of it being a space on its own, so your conservatory, remaining, makes sense, at least for now.


VB

You know I clicked that link and thought, wow that layout looks a lot like one of my options! :doh: :rotfl:

It would be good to see what yours looks like when it's done. Thanks for the advice and good luck with your work