Hello Mary,

A great way to check a plan is to walk through it.

1. Your door to the garage may look odd on the plan because it has a sofa there. In reality would you put it there with two doors at either end?

2. Would it be better to put the office door up the other end ?... as you have that pathway already to the outside ?

3. Or move the chimney breast (Way too expensive!)

4. Move the sofa so that it is at an angle so if some one wants to get to the office they walk behind the sofa...?

5. Move the lounge door closer to the front door as much as possible.

6. Make the opening of the front door the other way which means that you can do 5.

7. Make the lounge door a sliding door. Which means you can have more floor space

When the work is done I think you will have wiggle the furniture around to see what works best.

If you believe in some or all the principals of feng shui, would you want to walk through the front door to see the toilet ? What if someone leaves the door open ?

1 . What is the little room next to the toilet ? You could put the toilet there, giving you more space for storage, using the space under the stairs for coats and shoes etc then have your everyday, seasonal coats etc on hooks to the left of the front door. for example

2. Then you can add a cupboard to the wall opposite the toilet. So keep the light from the window through to the hallway.

I hope this helps. :)

Thank you so much for your detailed answer Christineacy! I really appreciate your thoughts. I think that:

1. the issue with the furniture is that I would like to have space to sit 5 people (only when family are round). I wouldn’t have an L-shaped sofa there but probably one along the wall and a second between the two doors. There isn’t sofa space anywhere else, as the back wall is becoming french doors.

2. I had mulled over having the door at the back, by the french doors. But just on the other side of that wall is the door into the garage from the garden. It’s just a lot of doors opening into the same space.

3. I had also thought about moving the door closer to the front door, but wasn’t sure I like the idea of coming into the room and facing the back of the sofa.

4. I love the idea of a sliding door to make more space, and opening the front door the other way is a good idea too.

5. that’s a really interesting point about feng shui. Unfortunately there isn’t any other space for a toilet. That little cupboard is an outdoor facing old coal shed, less than 1 m2. Both cupboards are very low, only just able to stand in them.

I think you’re right about needing furniture. At the moment the rooms are empty and building site-y, so I’m struggling to use my imagination and trying to avoid making decisions that will annoy me later!

Straight away I can see a problem with the kitchen peninsula and the kitchen door. Apart from having to negotiate around both every time you walk in and out of the kitchen, pity the person walking around the peninsula just as someone opens the door, wham!

If you are installing French doors in the lounge do you need to keep the door right next to it in what you plan to be the office?

Where you intend to locate a door between the lounge and the proposed office is in essence creating unusable space. It would be better near the French doors which won’t cause the problems you envisage if you block the door from the office into the garden as mentioned in the paragraph above.

If you are serious about extending a few years down the line then it is important that you work out now what your long term plan is and build that into your current works. It will save you a lot of time and money both now and in the future.

Thanks for your comments Keiblem! The kitchen is being designed to hopefully avoid that problem, there is actually more space than the architects design suggests but it’s definitely something to watch out for.

I think I had planned on keeping the door into the garden just to help keep the garage as a flexible space - study now but boot room/ storage / playroom down the line. It would be nice not to have to come into the sitting room first.

But it seems having the door at the other end is an option. I had thought it was actually less practical and created less flow having to cross the entire room to get to my study rather than one end.

If we extend then it will be the kitchen side rather than the garage side, as there are nice views to the right

Good morning Mary. MMMmmm !

A bit of a puzzle where to place the downstairs toilet.

1. How about utilizing the highest part of the stairs with the coal shed so the toilet will go in the under the stairs and the sink will go into the coal shed area.

Or

2. If the garage is going to be adapted to future proof it . Why not put the toilet in there? Mind you pipes etc.

Or

3. Make a small extension to where the kitchen door is to join it up to the end of the coal shed is, squaring it off. Then you will have enough room for the a toilet, and a small area for boots etc, when coming out / the garden. Which means your door out to the garden will be opposite the small window and not eating into your kitchen area. It you still want a kitchen door there it can open up into that area and will be a screen for the toilet although you will have a toilet door.

Ps. I do agree with keiblem about the kitchen door being too close, again move it down or consider a sliding door, you can get the ones that slide into a wall cavity, but still move it down abit from the peninsula as you may still bump into someone especially if they have a hot cuppa. ouch!

Deep sigh ! ... alot to think about :)

What about swapping around the rear window and external door in the office. That way you keep the external door but it doesn’t clash with the internal door from the lounge.

I am not sure what you mean by there being more space than the architect design suggests. Did the architects provide you with a dimensioned plan? Is the kitchen layout their design?

I don’t see a problem with the toilet being where it is. It seems to be the most practical location. Yes you could square off the coal hole area and incorporate it into the house but that seems to be a lot of expense for little gain. I would have thought it would be a handy place to store outside shoes and coats, small garden tools and garden toys convenient for being right next to the kitchen door. You could even insulate it and install a small heater to convert it to a drying cupboard for wet shoes and coats.

Hi Mary,

How exciting. I think you're nearly there. The kitchen layout definitely needs work but I know that you're already aware of that. I think the sitting room/office doors need to be in line with each other so that it's less like you're walking through the middle of the sitting room. I would change the handing of the front door so that you can hide coats behind it on the dining room wall, then move the sitting room door closer to the front wall so that there is a straight passageway from this, through to the office. The sitting room furniture can then be one room that you don't need to "enter". You could have a pretty low bookshelf under the window or something too.

If you want to bouce some ideas around and perhaps see what I mean drawn up, feel free to get in touch www.coveykitchens.co.uk

Good luck

Emily

Hi Mary, once you have decided on your layout, we can provide you with a budget cost estimate. The budget cost estimate provides a detailed breakdown of works and expenses as well as highlighting potential areas where you can save money. If this is something of interest please send the plans and photos to hello@nestestimating.co.uk and we can provide you with a quote

Thanks so much for everyone’s comments, its really kind of you to take time to come up with thoughtful advice. Those are all really good ideas Keiblem - these are just sketches at the moment for us to OK, so I think he has drawn the peninsula out further than we’d have it. But if it’s a problem for our kitchen design then we’ll move the door (OnePlan are designing it for us). Jonathan your plan gave me a LOT of pause...but probably not quite in the budget! Covey Kitchens the idea of switching the front door opening is genius

Hello Mary.

A quick note. All this depends on your budget.

The squaring off is an idea and will offer a solution to not using the internal space you require for storage. And depending on if you are using local trades or shop trades for the patio doors it is not that much more to put in full length windows so that you still have the natural light and the area where the toilet would be next to the area where the shed is so the sink would be in that space. Including less disruption to another area of the house. Like everything prices can be negotiable.

But mainly its your choice BUT most of all have fun with it :)

The rear door from kitchen to garden might be better hung from the other side and also opening outwards. This would avoid opening into a slightly confined area and it would look neater if you have it ajar for ventilation.

The front door seems to have narrow glazing each side. I guess this is something that you'd prefer to conserve, but if coat storage is a priority, you could get more storage if you shift the door to the right so that it directly faces the stairs (and it'll face the loo less).

For the door between lounge and office, I'd have that opening into the lounge and hung with the hinges by the chimney breast rather than the front window. Not sure exactly why, this is just instinct.

I'm not so keen on entering the lounge behind the sofa as this can be unnerving for anyone on the sofa.

If space allows (depends on how much furniture you have), consider a double door between hall and kitchen /family room, with doors that can open flat against the wall. This could give a more open-plan feel into the hallway and towards the lounge.

Thanks for sharing your excitement and good luck!

What about a secret door from lounge to the garage.

I think it looks great. I would extend the kitchen across to the stairs to grab another couple of feet - it will make it a much better space and the stairs can be walled off - and then I would put a small utility/storage/wc in part of the garage with office in the rest, with a door either side of the fireplace in sitting room to access.