Is this houses’ floorplan too cursed to buy?

[Proie]

We have a found a house we like in an amazing location. It definitely needs modernisation but it’s not too bad that we couldn’t do it over the course of a year or so. We really would be left with a dream house. The interiors are ugly and outdated but not minging.

It’s a period home with nice bright rooms, high ceilings. But the layout is just insane to me. I am normally good with being able to figure out a design but I’m stumped on this one.

Do you think the floorplan is too far gone?

I was thinking of converting the garage into an amazing kitchen?

I'm not much good with layout, but as a former conveyancer would suggest that you ask the seller if they know why the extensions are as they are..was there something crucial that whoever did the previous extensions was working around?

It's difficult without pictures of the actual rooms to see their features but I think the family room may once have been the dining room and the downstairs bathroom a butler's pantry serving the dining room. The dimensions of the rooms are pretty big, suggesting it may have been quite a grand house when built. I may be way off though!

Would you be happy to give a link to the house on the agents website? I'm fascinated by the layout.

I like it as it is. Love houses with more interesting floor plans. Plus going between the kitchen and pantry, with that extra little distance, will boost your daily steps - look for the positives

I'd love it, I like lots of rooms like that. I wouldnt mess about structurally with an old house with chimney breasts, you'll lose those and turn it into bland open plan.

But then it seems thats what people like

I love it! We are currently trying to buy a big family home and so many are all open plan. We want lots of individual rooms. Id snap that up for its quirky nature

I'd get an architect to have a look and design an interior layout that would suit you. Even if it costs a grand or two for someone to look around the property and give you rough idea, it'll be money well spent if it turns out that no, you can't do what you want or yes, you can have your dream home. No point in buying the place and then finding that you have to compromise.

It's a ridiculous layout at the moment but something relatively simple like moving the staircase or creating a large welcoming hall out of the current dining room could simplify it. You say it's a period house and so it may have developed like this because of the difficulty of moving certain features (fireplaces, chimneys etc). An architect will have a clear idea of what's possible.

Is the garage built of double brick or is it just one-brick thick, as many period garages were? Could be hard to heat if so. I wouldn't convert it unless there was elsewhere on the property to build a separate garage.

Looks fine to me, but there's a lot of potential if you want to change it around.

Yes. I think you need to talk to a structural engineer about what’s possible.

I do agree with pp about getting rid of the conservatory, though. And if it’s possible to move the staircase, that would make a big difference.

Planning guidance probably prevent garage, storage & conservatory from being converted to living space. This is why they are all currently separate. Check into this with the planning office.

The current kitchen, looks like cooker (aga?) is in the original kitchen hearth which is why it’s a huge black box.

There will be load bearing walls across the house that are not easily removed without putting in new supporting structures.

Before deciding -
Visit or call the planning office for basic guidance. I have done this - there will be published guidelines somewhere. Giving the basics about garage, conservatory & outside storage.

It does not look to be an easy / inexpensive conversion to an open modern space.

There is a lot of room for family room, office ! Guest suite. As is.

The house I am currently in and my previous house had a dining hall. This is what this house has.If you have the mindset that it’s not a dining room, it’s a dining hall, it will work!

Id do three things
Knock into the garage for a massive kitchen diner off the front hall door.
Close the back hall kitchen door, take some of that back hall into the current diner and move the downstairs loo, knock the remaining diner/ conservatory into a large sitting/ garden room.
Knock the current sitting room and family into another massive sitting room, with the hall gone but the fireplace built up for library wall in each, potentially leave another loo on that side of the house.

The only think that would bother me would be the size of the kitchen. What sort of budget would you have to work with? As someone that has done some major remodelling, including moving a kitchen to a different room, do not underestimate how much these cost. It could easily end up more expensive than just building an extension, especially in a period house. Rather than converting the garage (which will still cost a fortune) I’d be looking at knocking down the conservatory and replacing with an extension to put the kitchen in. This would be a better location for the kitchen than the garage anyway as it’s more central. You’d have to be careful about making sure the house still had plenty of light coming in, but an architect would be able to work with that.

I agree with some others saying right hand side would be better as kitchen/utility/downstairs loo etc and left hand side as a sitting room and dining room
with the sun ☀️ room staying. Don’t give the garage up for living space, you will find that people want a garage, if only to keep crap in.

I would have kitchen diner sitting room one end
Then the other maybe a playroom and separate sitting room, or if you can extend to make it all in line just one big sitting room

Love a weird floorplan. I've seen much weirder than this though. Basically everything on the right - family room, pantry, sitting room - can be whatever you need it to be. The pantry space would work as non-kitchen storage or even a walk-in wardrobe if the family room is used as a bedroom.

The actual weirdest thing to me is the tiny hallway with no storage space for coats, shoes etc compared to how gigantic everything else is.

Honestly I'd get an architect to look at it. Ours was brilliant sorting out weird downstairs layout and suggested some brilliant things that never would have occurred to us.

You have tons of options to move the kitchen to a new space, so that's good!

I'd start with looking at the light. Naturally bright rooms make us happier.

Personally I like my kitchen, where we spend most of our time, to have superb morning light for breakfast, (so a window to the east) and ideally evening light too (a window to the west.)

Light will massively depend on what's outside of course - neighbours, big trees, fences/walls

You say it's an older house, then the chances are that some of those walls are load bearing. The dining room looks like it has a big fireplace which will involve a chimney going up through upstairs. Unless it's already been removed upstairs it'll actually be a big job.

I kind of like having separate rooms and don't see much wrong with the layout. It's an older house and that is what you get. Changing it won't always be that simple.

It depends on your budget. The conservatory looks somewhat pointless. The dining room needs to become a magnificent hall. The kitchen needs to be extended to a large kitchen come dining area. The infill, where the remaining conservatory would be, needs to become an extended garden room. Part of the garage needs to be made into a utility room.

If the price is right, you have the budget, and there isn't a value ceiling for the road, it has bags of potential. Otherwise, I doubts it will work well.

You are looking at the layout with a modern eye
If you remember it's a period house, what doesn't make sense is the bedroom/family room with added bathroom
As pp said the pantry would be a butlers pantry for storage of china, linens etc. Then the other two rooms would have been sitting/drawing rooms.
The layout then makes more sense.
Whether that's what you want is a different issue

Which way does the garden face? That would help me decide on what should go where, I’d want kitchen and living rooms where they’d get maximum light, pantry and bedroom and bathroom could happily go to the north.

Knock down conservatory and extend across back of kitchen and diner,.to make a kitchen-diner-family room?

Section off hallway and entrance.

I would start with this.

That is a very strange layout. There are so many odd spaces eg the corridor like conservatory, the extra bit in the sitting room, the rooms leading into each other. It feels like there should be another staircase, as if the current staircase was the servant’s staircase maybe? Or have 2 properties been joined? Or a tiny cottage extended multiple times? What is the storage area? Is it habitable? It would probably make more sense with photos of the rooms but, understandably, you might not want to post them.

I suspect it will require an architect and a lot of money to reorganise the space. You might be destroying the character if you do. It depends whether it is a beautiful historic house where the fact that it is a bit of a rabbit warren is part of its character or it is just a badly converted old house.