Almost there.....final thoughts if you please!

4 years ago

Hi all,

Its been been nearly 16 months since our last post. We've had to up the budget a touch and scale back the plans a touch more since getting latest building estimates for various design options. It's now crunch time as we need to get plans into the planning dept asap.

Big changes we've made since our last post have been to move the stairs, to keep an integral garage which will be used as the utility, move the family bathroom to the back (bath with a view!) and to accept the kitchen wont accommodate a seating area - to name but a few.

We're about to get our architect to draw up the final designs based on the pics below (which I have mocked up).

We got so many good ideas from our previous 3 threads (many of which we've accommodated in our plans) we thought we'd see what you all thought one more time so please do fire away with any ideas you may have to tweak the below (in particular we need to design the en-suite in bedroom 4 and layout the kitchen properly) but would love any thoughts you may have on any aspect or detail.

Thanks in advance!

For reference these were our previous posts:

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/5160919/floor-plan-opinions-ding-ding-round-3

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/5058464/floor-plan-opinions-please

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/4870123/extension-and-layout-ideas-needed-please

Featured Answer

Suzanne C

4 years ago

Would you consider turning the stairs 180 degrees and closer to the front door? Using the front window as the wow factor? If you are planning to have a half landing, it would be best just to elongate the top window and block in the first floor. This becomes a feature at the front of the house. It could also give you the a laundry room upstairs with a window. Downstairs it would give you a space to put the utility or boot room or a laundry room with window. This would free up the space in the open plan kitchen / diner. You could have smaller utility that is just a row of units 3m along. Giving you space behind the dining room table for a dresser/ wet bar either a separation of the kitchen or making all as one...

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Comments (18)

rinked
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
What sizes are the kitchen and ensuite in this plan?
Suzanne C
4 years ago
Welcome back!

Just briefly looked at your plans, if it was me, I would make 6 changes...

You have a large house and it ideally it needs a slightly larger cloakroom and master ensuite..

1. The cloakroom: the corner sink is quite small, and the door opens inwards loosing more space. (If someone collapsed in the toilet, it would be difficult to get to them). I would open the room up using the box area of the cupboard and would put a pocket door into the cloakroom. I would use a combination toilet / sink next to each other with larger mirror above the sink, possibly even wall to wall, making the room feel more grand.

(We are almost at the end of our build now and have put in 2 double pocket doors in to our snug and open plan kitchen/lounge and single pocket door to the bathroom and it makes such a difference, allowing more light in and more usable wall space!).

2. Cupboard for coats: By making the room more square, you have a row of coats or shelving along the wall side of the cloakroom. I would also match the pocket door idea similar to the cloakroom. Again a large mirror on the wall could be useful.

3. The snug: I would put double pocket doors in which I think would balance the room more and would open up the space so it feels less like a long corridor to the kitchen. (We put in white glazed double pocket doors). This allows you to put a TV and sofa on either side of the wall.

4. If it was my house, I think I would have the kitchen, dining area and snug open plan but have pocket doors between the dining room and snug so you can have the choice to open or close it off, by opening it - this would open up the space and allow the light from the large doors to come in.

5. Bedroom 5: The single bedroom with an ensuite: Bite the bullet, get rid of the bathroom next to it, you have a main bathroom between bedroom 2 and 3 and an ensuite in bedroom 4. Keep the bed in the same position, remove the bathroom wall and have two windows next to each other in the bedroom, maybe a desk underneath?

6. Master bedroom: By starting the entrance to the bedroom a little further down the corridor, you can use the space snatched from bedroom 5 to make an ensuite. Put a pocket door into the ensuite opposite the door. This allows the back wall behind your bed to have more space, you could have a larger bed or you could put the bed opposite the bay window. This gives you the space in the ensuite to put a corner shower in as well as toilet and decent basin.

I'll send you a drawing.....
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Suzanne C
4 years ago
A rough idea!
Jonathan
4 years ago
I think you have drawn the stairs too big.
A slight tweak to the upstairs means a little less corridor.
If you had two front facing kitchen windows rather than one it might be easier to plan the kitchen
Jonathan
4 years ago
Additionally you might consider having your entrance hall as a dining hall. This would mean less pressure to put a dining table in the kitchen. You could then have a breakfast bar and the sofa you want
Jonathan
4 years ago
Alternate frontage
hillfly
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks for all the comments so far. I'll try and address the questions and points you have all raised in order.

rinq - en suite to master is approx 1.8m by 1.8m but size is not set in stone and can be amended to suit layout.. Kitchen is approx 6.5m x 5m

Suzanne C - firstly thanks for the idea to move the stairs as it changed things massively for us too!

The points re the cloakroom and downstairs toilet are good - we haven't focused attention on that too much but your ideas fit perfectly.

The snug doors idea we also like however we may need to park doing too much to that room initially if only because of budget.

Bedroom 5 - we may try and squeeze in a double or 2 singles as this is the guest bedroom hence wanting it be en-suite. The en-suite location is really us being opportunistic using the existing plumbing from the current family bathroom so hopefully a cheap win. I like the thought of having it as part of Bedroom 1 as you (and Jonathan) have proposed but having a twin guest room with en-suite probably works better for our family situation.

Jonathan - you are partially correct that i have overdrawn the lower stairs - we need 14 stairs to top. However unfortunately due to the eaves of the roof we were advised by a builder the stairs will need to come up on the upstairs landing roughly where we have shown them for the correct ceiling height for building regs to be met. If you look at the front profile of the house you can see the roof comes down quite low at the edges.

The en-suites on bed 3/4 you have suggested will block the view (and the views are good! as we look to the sea) so we would prefer to keep the bedroom space at the back - hence a small quadrant or rectangular en suite at the front ideally.

Kitchen front windows again another great idea but we have a constraint. The gas and elec meter boxes are located in the area you have the right hand window (looking from the front). We are trying not to have to move those if we can help it due to cost (and the hassle!).

Dining Hall - We will want to keep dining towards the rear to enjoy the views - so we could put doors through to the snug and dine in there - and have seating in the kitchen. I think we will see how the space pans out when built on that one. We could also lose the island if it makes the space work better for 'in kitchen dining'. Any one have any good suggestions on layout for kitchen?

Alternate Frontage - love the look of that. Sight concern the apex above the garage would then dictate the window placement in the upstairs bedroom /en suite - but will ask our architect about that (and also which is most cost effective to build!).

Thank you all again for the time taken looking at this - it really is appreciated. Keep the ideas coming please. Love seeing them!
Suzanne C
4 years ago
Throw a spanner in the works: Could you use bedroom 4 as a guest room? How often do you have guests to come and stay? Could one of the kids move out of their bedrooms on the odd occasion or is the spare room used more frequently? In bedroom 5, would you consider a sofa bed or a trundle bed to give more capacity when needed?

You can use the opportunity of the cloakroom plumbing to connect to new plumbing from above into the master ensuite. Just make sure the toilet is directly above!
Suzanne C
4 years ago
In the kitchen, would you consider connecting the island with the dining room table like these examples? I have a 6.5m x 5m kitchen, and I really wanted to do this design but it didn't fit in the end I put my dining table next to the kitchen area.

sootyb's ideas · More Info
Suzanne C
4 years ago
Hi, I have some ideas brewing but think we need to look at the whole house layout again. The stairs that you have drawn, is it a single staircase from ground to first floor? Or have you got two floors and going up to the loft? What type of stairs do you have in mind? Would you consider a kite winder or quarter/half landing?

In the original layout that you have now, the stairs appear much smaller than your new drawings. I am confused as to how they can double in size...

Have you tried putting your floor measurements in the website stairbox.com, there is an app that can instantly draw a 3D version. We brought our stairs from them. Could you give me your hallway measurements please. I reckon we could get a boot room, a utility and laundry room in your plan with some careful reconfigurations.
hillfly
Original Author
4 years ago
Hi Suzanne,

The stairs i had in the drawing were my version of what i thought it would look like before we got formal drawings from the architect (bit of cut and paste of existing plans). I do have an updated version he did i'll post here. However on this plan the bay at the back of the kitchen is too narrow and we haven't got the side windows shown in the kitchen etc.

The stairs i had shown have a half landing. Our current stairs have 2 quarter landings. The stairs only go up 1 floor - 15 steps (15th being the landing level). We are also constrained by some eaves so the steps can't come up directly onto the landing by the wall due to head height issues - i have shown this with a red line.

Happy to consider any stair variants you mentioned. I will take a look at stairbox.com thank you.

The hall is approx 7.5m by 3.5m if you include the utility/coat cupboard area in the overall space.

Thanks again for looking at this for us!
Suzanne C
4 years ago
Liking this layout so much more....almost there!
2 little questions:
Do you have easy side access to the left hand side of your property if you were to put the utility door there?

You have a window where the half landing of the stairs is. Do you know the height of that part of the stairs, will it go across the window?
hillfly
Original Author
4 years ago
Hi, Yes we do have side access to the left.
The window in the half landing is currently an upstairs and a downstairs window. We are thinking to combine the two into a large picture window -and to raise the lower sill so the stairs don’t cover it.
Only ‘issue’ here is the need for a banister or ‘safety bar / screen’ across the window as we want to have it down to near the level of the half landing to maximise light downstairs.
Suzanne C
4 years ago
I notice in your kitchen island you have the bar seats facing the cook as such, if you have wonderful sea views, would you consider adding on a round island so people can sit on bar stool and have the option of talking to each face to face and looking at the views and the cool too? You have have the space...

When we did our kitchen 6.5m x 5m, we planned to put large oak round bar table. This is a temporary piece of oak floor panels at the moment until we afford a nice oak piece. Great for engaging with everyone...it’s fits 3 stools comfortable and 4 as a squeeze. Any more people and we sit at the dining room table.
hillfly thanked Suzanne C
hillfly
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks for your further thoughts. There really are a lot of options and i think we've all but run out of steam trying to make them all work as each has it's own compromise!

Moving the stairs has been the key to unlocking a working layout upstairs and also to give a sense of space downstairs.

Kitchen wise again each option has pro's and cons. My latest thinking is maybe moving the snug to the new bay area and maybe knocking through the existing snug. This would centralise the kitchen/ diner space a little more and also mean the kids can take their consoles down 1 end of the house.

I think Oneplan will be hearing from us soon!
minnie101
4 years ago
I think I agree with your new way of thinking. I'm just wondering how you envisage the snug being used at present given it's closed off plus you have a living room and seating area in the kitchen. I just wonder if it will become redundant? Or could you use the snug as a guest room with sofa bed and make the downstairs WC a shower room? Make beds 1 and 5 the master with en suite and separate laundry? Or if you've got 3 children I think I would probably use the snug as a play room with access/sight lines from the kitchen.

i think contacting Karen is a great idea :)
PRO
Create Perfect
4 years ago
Hi hillfly

Firstly thanks for adding so many of my photos/designs to your idea-book. So glad to see you like the spaces and style.

Have you managed to see the layouts in 3D at all? It really helps to get a feel for how the space will actually feel to navigate and site lines etc. Its all well and good having 2D plans but it really doesn't give you a sense of the actual space. In my basic layout package we now offer this as a standard because it helps so many of my clients to visualise the final spaces (layouts) and is often what helps them to make some of these tough decisions.

It looks like you already have lots to think about so I won't add too much but just wanted to say if your architect or space planner can provide some 3D layouts for you I think it may really help with your deign dilemma.

All the best and I will be keeping an eye out for your next post as things progress! Gina