Swap lounge and kitchen??

Thurlow40

Hi!
Im buying a house that’s so great in many ways but the one thing preventing it being perfect is, I’d rather the garden be off the kitchen, not the lounge.  To explain, you go in the front door, nice hall way with loo under the stairs, turn left to lounge which has patio doors to garden or from hallway turn right to the kitchen at the front.  I know it’s possible to swap the rooms but the current kitchen is long and narrow, 2.16m x 4.52.  

Could you have a lounge that narrow?  I feel that with the right furniture it might work as a nice snug or am I wrong?
Id rather have the bigger lounge/diner leading to the garden but would this forever make the lounge a bit odd and lead to problems if I ever wanted to sell?  Thanks in advance for your opinions!

MovingForwards

Can you upload the floor plan as that will make it easier to visualise, but I wouldn't be happy with a 7ft ish wide lounge, regardless of how long it was. Is it possible to put a door in the kitchen to lead outside?

Thurlow40

Here is the floor plan, not much in the way of options...

DOH_a

In my opinion, the width of the new Lounge would be small for a 3-bed house. If it was a 2-bed, you could probably say it’s comparable.

Where is your existing garden, to the left hand side and rear? I assume your existing kitchen units run along the left, back and right hand side walls?

cattie

I once viewed a house with a lounge of 9ft x 20ft & it was far too narrow for my liking & It felt very cramped.  I think a lot of potential buyers would be put off by a lounge even narrower.

phoebe1989seb

I wouldn't buy a house with a living room that narrow either. In a previous house one of the (three) reception rooms we ended up with was just under 10' wide - and 20+' long - and that felt too narrow for us. It had previously been part of a 1980s annex added onto a Georgian house so we had a couple of better proportioned rooms that we used most often. The family we sold to intended to use the space as a games room.

In our current cottage we swapped the kitchen and living room when we moved here two years ago. We also combined the former living room with a middle room that was only 8' deep.

What we've done wouldn't be everyone's choice as it has resulted in a large kitchen to the front with a small - and admittedly dark - snug in the former kitchen. We embraced the dark and have painted the room in a deep olive green. However, we only use the snug on cooler evenings when the wood burning stove and loads of lamps give it a cosy ambiance and are lucky that we do have a second, brighter living room for use on summer days/evenings.

Swapping them was a huge job - involving removing load bearing walls, a chimney breast and adding several steels. We also had to rewire and replumb as well as the addition of two multi fuel/wood burning stoves. It wasn't a five minute job, lol, but it has made the property far more suited to our needs 

TELLIT01

I have to agree that just over 2 metres is far too narrow for a lounge.  Once seating is in place it would be difficult for anybody to get past if anybody was sitting down.

Thurlow40

The whole house is small, the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms are singles really... I like to think my little son and I will be here for the long term, and in which case it wouldn’t matter, if we can cope with a narrow lounge I mean... 
the existing lounge is only 8,5 ft.... does this make any difference to people’s opinions?!
I weighed up size versus location etc and location won! sounds like everyone thinks the lounge wouldn’t work switched over... but attaching measurements just to show that the current lounge is already small anyway!!

MovingForwards

It would be too small for me.

None of the bedrooms in yours are big, which is fine when your son is small, but what happens as a teenager and having friends round to play games, listen to music etc? Or grows to 6ft tall and has 2ft of space from wall to door.

My bedrooms are galley style in the property I purchased and just moved into, but they are longer than yours. I actually sat in my office at work and measured the rooms out, put a marker down so I could see how the room would work with me living in it. When I picked up the keys last week and it was an empty property, I quickly rethought all my plans as the rooms seemed even smaller without furniture in than it did with big chunky furniture in; they looked normal again with my stuff in.

The property I moved out of had a second bedroom about the size of your master and it had built-in cupboard / wardrobe space, certainly wasn't viable for me as a double bedroom.

I picked my property as it is perfect for me and my needs, great location and magnificent views, for me now and my future. It's what I wanted for years. 

This isn't to say it's the wrong property for you, it's to give you things to think about, you will be living in it after your son has spread his wings, you may even start seeing someone in the future.

If you can make it work for you, as a long-term home, great. But you must weigh up your current situation, 10 and 20 years down the line as lives do change.

DOH_a

Where is your garden... to the left hand side only or left and rear?

Thurlow40

DOH.a said:

Where is your garden... to the left hand side only or left and rear?

It’s to the left on the floor plan, off the lounge