My house feels too small - how to make it feel bigger

[jinglebells123]

I live in a 4 bed detached new(ish) build. We bought it 5 years ago before we started a family.

This is the house type we have - www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/find-your-home/scotland/renfrewshire/paisley/hawkhead-gardens/the-douglas---coming-soon

The upstairs landing looks slightly different so this is probably a newer style but it's pretty much identical.

When it's just us at home (me, dh, dd (4) and the dog) it feels fine - kitchen isn't really big enough to have two people trying to do stuff at the same time but it's otherwise ok.

The problem is whenever we have people round - especially if I have a friend round for a play date.

Downstairs is just a series of seperate, small rooms which ironically appealed to me as in our old house we had a big kitchen diner that we hated because it was always cold just didn't feel like a nice space.

The dining room used to be a play room with small sofa, tv & toy storage but now has a 4 seater extending dining table plus a sideboard plus ottoman so there is limited floor space remaining for dd to play.

The lounge has a 3+2 sofa, ottoman, large dog bed in the corner plus a tall, narrow corner bookshelf - as I sit in it now, it feels a decent size but last night for halloween I invited my friend and her dd round for halloween. Then my parents popped in and with the 4 adults (and my parents are quite large adults) and the 2 kids running around the room plus our dog (greyhound) wandering about it just felt so cramped.

Because of the lack of space in the dining room there is nowhere else for the kids to play (friends dd is still a bit young to go up and down the stairs). I just felt manic and I found myself getting wound up.

I don't often invite people round and this is party the reason - I'm not sure if it's just in my head or if we have just bought a badly configured house - ironically it's waaaaay bigger than the 2 bed flat me and my family grew up in or dh's childhood home and both of us agree that they never felt small.

Would love any ideas how to make better use of the space and have a set up that allows me to have more friends and their kids round without it feeling like a mad house.

Extending isn't on the radar at the moment although I'd love to either convert the garage or extend at the back to give a big sun room. We are redecorating soon though so keen to consider options - perhaps making more use of the wide hallway or adding more seating the the lounge that accomodates more people without it feeling cramped? Having the french doors in the lounge is a lovely idea but you do lose wall space unless you are willing to block them which seems a waste.

We're considering having another child and the thought of having 2 kids in this space just seens insane which given it's a 4 bed house is just unbelievable!

Would love to have some ideas on how to make this work better for us - I love the location and our neighbours and am loathe to move but sometimes it feels like I'm suffocating!

Take in a hen...

Integral garages are a huge waste of space. That would be my priority.

I had one of those for a first home, many years ago. At least very similar. The answer was to get a loan to convert the garage and also to make the garden very attractive with tall flowers, bushes and some structure with seating and a garden shed.For half the year the garden is an extra room don't forget, but you have to make it attractive not a boring block of grass with a few 6 inch high flowers round the edges.

I was about to suggest you fill it with animals but Blankie beat me to it!

I think you need a hen. And a dog and a cow and a pig.

I on my came to say take in a hen...

*Blankiefan

Take in a hen...*

that made me proper belly laugh, haven't heard that reference for years

Ha ha - thanks for the suggestions! I don't fancy a hen but I do want another greyhound!

Re the garage - it's crammed with stuff like the tall freezer and tumble dryer and there wouldn't be anywhere else to put them.

Definately more we could do in the garden - we've got a nice big patio and astro turf but no privacy so would do something with that (although this far north there is no guarantee of a good summer!!!)

Can you knock the kitchen and living room together to make a big social family room? Then make the dining room a tv room/snug/living room?

Blankie beat me too it as well.

Blimey, just looked at your floor plan and it's tiny for a detached house. I'd convert the garage to a reception room.

Knock the kitchen wall down into the living room and use the dining room as a cosy front room

Thought the same as Mountainsided the dining room looks quite a way from the kitchen. Do you use it as a dining room?

Could you even take half the garage if not being used to store a car? Pop a shed in the garden to take some of the outside stuff?

The only other suggestions are - have you cleared out all junk and do you have amazing storage solutions?

Id 'steal' a bit of the back of the garage and add it to the living room.

It would be a very, very cosy front room - room for a 2 seater and not much else. We did use it often as a dining room when we first got the new dining table - now I use it as an office 2 days a week and on rare occassions we sit at the table - we put a table in the kitchen so tend to sit there now.

The rooms are small but it's one of the trade offs in a new build - some of our neighbours paid a hell of a lot more than us for houses that are full of similarly tiny rooms - just a few more of them!

Yeah I only came in to suggest a remedy I was once told by an old man...... But I see its already been mentioned

The dining room is in the wrong place really. Id use that room for all yr storage and convert the garage in to a lounge cun dining room

If I was you I would knock through the kitchen into the lounge and make that a kitchen/diner/family room, I would then make the dining room a snug and would convert tha garage into a playroom/kids tv room. Your house is quite adaptable there is a lot you could do with the layout.

Agree Jung - totally on the wrong side of the house! If they'd placed the dining room at the other side of the house running on from the living room you'd have a lovely big flexible space.

That's what I'd ideally like to do - convert all or part of the garage to add to the living room - even it just to create a dining nook in the living room then turn the dining room back into a cosy play room leaving some room in the garage to still have some storage.

Not quite sure how much that would cost through as the boiler is in the garage so would need moved.

To complicate things further, we took a help to buy loan to purchase the property but have enough money now in savings and equity in the property that when our mortgage term is up (in 2 years) we could move onto a normal mortgage and potentially have money left to do renovations.

I can see why you're squashed downstairs. The upstairs layout is pretty good, even if the master is too small for a king sized bed and much extra furniture but downstairs you have pretty much the space we had in our last house which was a 800 sq ft 2 up 2 down with a bit on the back terrace.

Extending might be out of the question, but does it look likely, in the medium term, that you could knock the kitchen and lounge together? You'd end up with a room big enough for kitchen, dining table and extra seating. Then the dining room could become a snug/tv room. For about the same money, you could shove a conservatory on the back - not the most comfortable in all weather's but it gives you a bit of spread room.

I've seen a few houses where the garage has been cut in half. It might be expensive to get plumbing across there. But you could still convert it into half utility and clean storage, half outdoor storage, with a few pallets of breezeblocks.

I would brick up the doorway leading from the hall into the kitchen and put extra kitchen storage along there.

Open up the wall between the kitchen and lounge and have your dining table there. If you don't want it completely open you could add a door to avoid that cold feeling but which would allow for flexibility when you had friends around, eg .www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F9f%2Fc1%2F80%2F9fc180ddc34740743df49cb05035092d.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F311663236696149764%2F&docid=7k-aL1xcERc4KM&tbnid=NxWjnj_sRljsPM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiN8-zGtLTeAhWrCsAKHZFCB-wQMwjuASgIMAg..i&w=699&h=741&bih=610&biw=1280&q=french%20doors&ved=0ahUKEwiN8-zGtLTeAhWrCsAKHZFCB-wQMwjuASgIMAg&iact=mrc&uact=8
I hope that link worked.

If you don't need the garage for a car then use some of that space to extend the lounge area - what is left over in the garage could then still be used for freezer, storage, etc.

I would then use the current dining room as an office/playroom (so you can close the door on all the kids mess! When my children were young I preferred all their toys downstairs so I could keep an eye on them). Further down the line you could extend from the lounge out into the garden, eg a sunroom using your existing doorway.

Take wall out between the kitchen and lounge for a more user friendly family space. Ie kitchen, diner, lounge. Or kitchen with lounge and an island in the middle which you can eat off.

Cut garage in half. Front for storage. Rear would be a utility accessed from a new door from the family room.

Dining room either a study, play room or adults only snug.

That's what I would do.

I hope it works out for you.

Good luck.