Ideas for improving bungalow layout

Van_Girl

I fairly recently purchased a bungalow by the sea. I didn't think too much about the layout, as it's just me plus a lodger, and it works ok for me. However, as this won't be my forever home (5 years approx.) I'm thinking about improvements that could be made for it's future saleability. 

The main issues are that the living room is quite small, and there are several rooms off rooms (I think the main one at fault is the master bedroom off the dining room). It has parking for 2/3 cars plus good sized gardens, but the local EA's say these bungalows just don't work for families, thereby reducing potential buyers.

Also, the conservatory is... well a conservatory, so only really unusable for a small part of the year as either too hot or too cold. But it is a huge space.  

The bungalow is quite dark due to orientation, but does have front and rear garden views out to open fields, which is nice. 

No budget in mind at the moment, but I think any works over £40k would push it over the ceiling for the area.

My initial thought was to replace the conservatory with an extension and create an open kitchen/living space. It would have to have a fair amount of glazing as the dining room is currently very dark. Potentially, taking out the wall between the diner and kitchen would create a great sized open plan space, but then then the master bedroom would effectively be off the kitchen, which I don't think is appealing, so would need an additional wall putting in to create a corridor which the bedroom would be off. I think this then starts chopping up space again, and makes a dark long corridor. But all in all, I think this would be over budget.

My second thought was whether I could replace the conservatory with an upgraded one, and take out the wall between the kitchen and conservatory. Obviously this would require a structure that complies with building regs for habitable spaces. Is this possible with a largely glazed structure, and if so, does it make it cost prohibitive? Is it worth the investment, assuming all other things stay the same?

If it was your property, what would you do? Any of the above, or something completely different?



 

ic

Add a partition wall in the sitting room, and make the sitting room a bedroom.  Knock the main bedroom through into the kitchen and dining room.  Add skylights to the flat roof extension to get light in.

Down side of this is all the bedrooms would be on the smaller side - do you have side access?  Could you do as I describe, but put the main entrance down the side into the big room?  That way you wouldn't need to extend the corridor all the way to the front door.  The front door could be "decommissioned" (not used).

Rosa_Damascena

I like your second thought - orangery with a skylight - with a complete kitchen refit but the price is likely to exceed £40k.

Doozergirl

Would it be possible to move the front door down to the side?  I'd consider moving it to the dining room side and create some kind of porch/pergola at the side to draw the eye down and make it welcoming.  The aim being to reduce the amount of space wasted through hallway circulation and have a decent sized master bedroom.  

Swap the lounge and rear bedroom over - this has the benefit of separating living from sleeping accommodation entirely and not compromise the nice sized room at the front, which a hallway would do.  You can just introduce a 1 metre square lobby that will provide a door to the two front bedrooms.  

If there is already an extension making things dark, introduce roof-lights into the existing extension.  

£40k won't buy you much of an extension plus changes.  If the house is already extended at the rear then I would not go further.   

Is there any chance of a loft conversion? If there was, I'd lose the smaller bedroom to the front door and stairs instead of the dining room.  

Van_Girl

Thanks so much for your input!

I had considered switching the living room and master bedroom around, as having the living space and sleeping space separate would be ideal.

However, moving the entrance is currently difficult as there is an oil tank blocking access along the dining room side (at the front of the property) and the driveway is down the other, and a bit too narrow for both parking and access. Otherwise that would be a fantastic idea, and is something the neighbours have done (their tank is in the back garden). I could move the oil tank, but that brings compliance issues with positioning of surrounding structures - but it might ultimately be worth the cost to get it done, so I need to give it some thought 

It could definitely have a loft conversion done, the roof space is huge, but I've always struggled to think where the stairs could go, but sacrificing the small bedroom is a good idea, and would create some space for storage as well, which is currently lacking. 

Lots to think about!

Doozergirl

Glad to have given you something to think about!