Is anyone good at designing layouts?

Zoology_Dragon

We're considering making an offer on a house but it needs a lot of work and we want to be more confident that we can make it work for us. I've attached the floorplan below, if anyone has any suggestions we'd love to hear them. I've been sketching out some ideas but any additional input would be very much appreciated.

What we need:
- 2 double bedrooms.
- Additional single bedroom. Only needed as a study so can be pretty small. Does not necessarily need to be upstairs.
- En-suite to one of the double bedrooms would be nice but not essential.
- Ground floor loo/utility.
- Kitchen/diner.
- Additional seating area to the back of the house (South facing garden so a garden room type feel but not a conservatory).

There is plenty of space to extend to the back, less so to the side (only 2 metres and we wouldn't want to remove all access to the garden). The house is a semi-detached, attached on the right hand side as you look at the floorplan. The loft isn't really convertible as the roof is an odd shape. All the internal walls are solid brick.

Owain_Moneysaver

not sure if you want the kitchen/diner in addition to the existing dining room. Upstairs is fairly straightforward but I think you will need to change the bathroom to a shower room with WC - you can't remove the only WC from a bedroom floor unless all bedrooms have an en-suite. 

Doozergirl

What's the price of the house and budget for works? 

hazyjo

Can you fit a downstairs loo to the right of the entrance hall? What about if the front door moves left a bit and you just have one window to the right (now in the loo) and perhaps more glass in the front door for light?

Zoology_Dragon

Doozergirl said:

What's the price of the house and budget for works? 

Thanks all! The price of the house is £350k, though we wouldn't offer that as it's definitely over-priced. Budget is probably up to about £70k for the works.

I should also have said that a bath and separate walk-in shower are must haves, one of the reasons we're moving is that I have joint problems - I need the bath to ease pain and I need the shower as climbing into a bath first thing in the morning is troublesome. They don't have to be in the same bathroom though.

We can't/won't move the front door. It's original with beautiful stained glass (1920s house) and would really spoil the house. Also reluctant to remove chimney breasts.

AdrianC

Zoology_Dragon said:

Doozergirl said:

What's the price of the house and budget for works? 

Thanks all! The price of the house is £350k, though we wouldn't offer that as it's definitely over-priced. Budget is probably up to about £70k for the works.

This is one of those "I wouldn't start from here" situations... You've got a budget of £400-420k. Buy a house that meets your needs. Owain's plan is about the most sensible to turn this house into what you actually want. If you owned this place already, it might make sense to extend rather than move. But buy it to extend? No.

Give us a link to the place on RM, and let's have a rummage for what you could be getting ready-to-go...

Zoology_Dragon

AdrianC said:

Zoology_Dragon said:

Doozergirl said:

What's the price of the house and budget for works? 

Thanks all! The price of the house is £350k, though we wouldn't offer that as it's definitely over-priced. Budget is probably up to about £70k for the works.

This is one of those "I wouldn't start from here" situations... You've got a budget of £400-420k. Buy a house that meets your needs. Owain's plan is about the most sensible to turn this house into what you actually want. If you owned this place already, it might make sense to extend rather than move. But buy it to extend? No.

Give us a link to the place on RM, and let's have a rummage for what you could be getting ready-to-go...

You're probably right, I just want to be sure we haven't missed an obvious solution as this is our favoured location and it ticks the main boxes. If we can make it work for a reasonable amount of money then we're willing to do the work to get the location and large South facing garden. We were proceeding with another house but it's been down valued by a significant amount (£35k), we like it a lot but we're not willing to overpay by that much.

Here's the link. We're pretty fussy and haven't seen anything else that works or that we can make work. Not too stressed about it though, if this won't work something else will come along eventually. There are lots of three bed semis in our budget but if we buy a semi it needs to be halls adjoining rather than the more usual layout.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-87001280.html

Doozergirl

I have some ideas, but the M40 in a storm isn't all that conducive to using Mark Up.  

I'll do something when I'm home.  

Doozergirl

I can't use this forum on my phone.  

Zoology_Dragon

Doozergirl said:

I have some ideas, but the M40 in a storm isn't all that conducive to using Mark Up.  

I'll do something when I'm home.  

Thanks! It's hugely appreciated. We're fussier about location than we are about the house itself so I think it's worth exploring whether this could work for us.

kinger101

The problem with your approach is that you're gonna end up spending about £400K on a 2 bed house in Heworth.  The house wouldn't even be worth £350K after you've completed the work.  I'd keep looking.