WWYD? Walk in wardrobe or fitted? Updated for other layout help too!

NatNat77

Thank you, I think I will need to create a new thread with everything. I will do that later 😁 or maybe I'll just update the title of this one and keep it to one thread. 

The bedroom next to us is currently our sons and he is hardly ever home these days, and is actually hoping to move out in the next couple of years. We have three children aged 22, 20 and 18. My son is in the middle. My daughters have the two front bedrooms and they're a decent size too, and we had fitted wardrobes put in them both in October and they're both pretty happy where they are. So ironically the room next to us may even stay empty 😂 although the draw of an ensuite will be pretty strong for my oldest I reckon, or she might want the loft room 🤷‍♂️ 

Funny enough our neighbours have put their master bedroom all the way across the back of theirs so they only have three bedrooms on the first floor, but they have used their whole loft, which as I've said we could but won't, and one of their side accesses to make their house wider, which we can't do. Our house will be deeper than theirs though as we're set further forward and have been allowed to extend further as it won't impact them. We're extending 6m at the bottom. I'll post the other plans later 😁

NatNat77

Below are pics of the current and proposed layout of our house, and elevations. Points to note:

1. The living room has an arch almost in the middle, and two entrance doors. I'm thinking of blocking the arch and having the front part as a reception room and the back a dining room. The back part has a gas fireplace which will remain. The dining room will not have a window, just the entrance door and the doors into the extension for natural light. 
2. The extension will be approx 9 x 6m on the ground floor and 9 x 4m on the second floor. 
3. The right of the existing kitchen will be a utility room and the left a continuation of the hallway, leading into the extension. We'll put cupboards in this space for coats etc as well. 
4. The extension will obviously be kitchen, on the right as you walk in, and we'll have an island, and I'm planning to put some sofas/log burner in. This will be where we spend most of our time and will likely eat at the island for most meals. 
5. I believe all of the walls are load bearing. 
6. External door sizes and location/size of the ensuites isn't set in stone. 
7. We could make the extension a kitchen/diner and leave the lounge whole but this isn't my preferred option. Open to ideas though! 
8. I WFH a couple of days a week and would like my desk downstairs, currently it's in my bedroom. This will have to go in the front reception room I think. 

Is there a better layout downstairs or upstairs that you can think of? As I said before I want to move the stairs further down towards the back of the house and I don't mind sacrificing part of the back second bedroom if needed.

Will we get enough head room for clearance at the top of the stairs if we do this? Is there anywhere else we could put the stairs? (I will obviously ask my architect this in due course but in the meantime thought I'd ask here..!) The hallway upstairs has no windows and I would like to get some natural light in somewhere too if possible. That could come from the dormer at the top of the stairs perhaps. 

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to add any relevant info I haven't covered up thread. Grateful for any input 😁

NatNat77

Any groovy ideas to make the best of it also welcome! 

Rosa_Damascena

Looks exciting!

Far be it for me to disagree with @ComicGeek , but I think the layout you have of the bottom LHS bathroom is fine, as the depth looks to be >1000mm. Do not turn the toilet round as suggested, otherwise like me you will end up with an en-suite toilet that you never use because it is too tight!

Do you need a bath and a shower in the other en-suite? How about a shower-over-bath?

Doozergirl

1.  Even if it's just a side alley, small windows either side of the chimney breast in the dining room will help.  That room is going to be *dark* with the the nearest window some 6-10 metres away.  

3. Swap your cupboards in the new hallway extension (old kitchen) to the left hand side as I'm looking at it, so that hallway doesn't have a dogleg in it and does make the best of the view - straight.   from front door to back door. 

The stairs placement for the loft doesn't look ideal.  The fact that the loft drawing is to a different scale and doesn't have useable head height marked onto it makes it hard to see what space is available.  You could really do with a cross section drawing to illustrate how the stairs work.  I need to re-read and come back to this.

theoretica

If your son is hardly at home, perhaps ask him to take the loft (or one of the three) and make the other new ensuite a combined office/guest room. 

Doozergirl

You have almost the entire original staircase visible without it eating into the front bedroom at all. 

I can't manipulate drawings on a phone in the bath, but I think you do have room to get the new stairs over the old.  You'd have winders at the bottom so they quickly rise and don't impact on the front bedroom. 

The benefit of moving the stairs allows you to extend the current hallway into the cupboard and part of the bedroom next to it, block of the existing master bedroom door and move it down about, hmm, 2.4 metres, so that you can use the full width at the back of the room for your dressing room.  Ensuite goes next, opposite your new doorway, so you have very little corridor in the bedroom and more room for clothes.  

Next door, the other bedroom gets a wider ensuite.  

I'll try to do you a drawing tomorrow.  My youngest stole my ipad and pen like she keeps trying to commandeer my airpods. 😖

NatNat77

Rosa_Damascena said:

Looks exciting!

Far be it for me to disagree with @ComicGeek , but I think the layout you have of the bottom LHS bathroom is fine, as the depth looks to be >1000mm. Do not turn the toilet round as suggested, otherwise like me you will end up with an en-suite toilet that you never use because it is too tight!

Do you need a bath and a shower in the other en-suite? How about a shower-over-bath?

Thank you, and don't worry I won't move the toilet 😂 but definitely yes to a bath and a shower, hubby and I prefer to bath. I'd rather have a separate shower but would put one over the bath if needed.
It is an exciting project but the thought of it is a bit overwhelming, wish I could wave a magic wand 😂

NatNat77

Doozergirl said:

1.  Even if it's just a side alley, small windows either side of the chimney breast in the dining room will help.  That room is going to be *dark* with the the nearest window some 6-10 metres away. 

This is defo one of my concerns, and if we do separate the lounge we might need to do this. I hate not having natural light. The view will literally be the neighbours wall though lol, approx 1m away

3. Swap your cupboards in the new hallway extension (old kitchen) to the left hand side as I'm looking at it, so that hallway doesn't have a dogleg in it and does make the best of the view - straight.   from front door to back door. 

Yes we will be doing that, I hadn't remembered he'd put them there and I'm not sure why he did! Maybe we were thinking of putting the entrance door to the utility in that wall originally, I can't quite remember. But that would make sense. They will be on the opposite wall though and the other entrance to the utility will be in the kitchen 

The stairs placement for the loft doesn't look ideal.  The fact that the loft drawing is to a different scale and doesn't have useable head height marked onto it makes it hard to see what space is available.  You could really do with a cross section drawing to illustrate how the stairs work.  I need to re-read and come back to this.

No I agree, as I mentioned though, some things were just put where the were approximately going to be just to get planning agreed. It wasn't worth going into too much detail if we were going to get a knock back or have to make major adjustments to our plans. We are a bit limited with where the stairs can go, because we're not converting the original loft they need be at the back and in the middle 😬  but I'd love it if they could go somewhere else more sensibly, a gable wall would have made life easier but at least they have allowed a dormer 😁

NatNat77

theoretica said:

If your son is hardly at home, perhaps ask him to take the loft (or one of the three) and make the other new ensuite a combined office/guest room. 

Yes we might do that, I'll see where they're all at as we go along. If he's moved out by then we'll have a spare room on the first floor and might not bother to fully decorate/furnish the loft. Save it for whoever buys our house when we even sell 😂