Anyone with vision willing to help me figure out house potential?

[househelpplease]

Potential?

We love the garden and generally the house is in good nick but few things putting me off.

Chimney in living room - what can I do to make it better? I don't mind a brick fireplace but that angled chimney looks odd! I can't visualise making it better.

I don't like the flow of the ground floor but we're thinking of extending the kitchen out into the garage and possibly extending the existing extension. We have no property experience so clueless about costs/planning permission etc.

We're first time buyers and we love the garden and area but not sure if we love the house as it is. We wondered if some fresh eyes could give us some inspiration for its potential?

If there's work we could do and we could come up with a clear plan it might help us decide between houses!

Thank you!

We had a similar chimney place. Took the naff bricks off and the plaster behind was fine. Fitted a morso wood burner for a low fuss look. Not as bad as we had feared.

Perhaps you can get some inspiration at one of these events : teawithanarchitect.com/
Might be a good starting point for ideas, I'm doing the event near me in the NE but it's worth checking out if there is one near you.

I can see the potential but personally I hate pretty much everything that they've chosen in terms of floorings, tiles, kitchen cupboards, bathroom suite, etc. I would want to rip it all out and start again. So unless the property was priced accordingly, I would just wait for a similar house with a decor that I like more.
HTH

You could square off the chimney to make a more conventional chimney breast (and this would also get rid of the brick finish which I really don't like ).

The kitchen needs a new layout so that you have access from it to the conservatory and, potentially, also a door through to the living area as well. Extending into the garage doesn't look that viable as, from what I can see in the photo, the garage and kitchen only touch at one corner - would you want to extend into the car port and, if so would that man you lost all off-street parking?

There's so many chairs in the sitting room! It's like a waiting room.

Not helpful sorry.

Lounge. Looks like an old people's home with all the chairs lined up and lighting is harsh with white walls

It would be fairly straight forward to get chimney out and put in something to your taste, paint walls warm colours

Wood burner in modern look would be ideal as focal point

Upstairs is very liveable

I would live in house before deciding about flow and what extension to build

What space would you need.

At a casual glance, you will be able to remove any bits of he fireplace you dislike by gently prising it apart. Ie the angled bit and the side bits, or the whole thing.
You would then have to make good the decoration and replace the carpet, but the result would be worth it.

Oh wow thank you all for your advice! It's comforting to know that the chimney can come down!

I agree the kitchen needs ripping out and everything needs redecorating.

We wouldn't extend straight away but I'd like to know what we could do before we buy. I was thinking of extending into the car port but that would leave off street parking for just one car. There's plenty of on street parking though. The other option was to extend backwards. The garage is interesting in that there's a toilet in it so there's some plumbing there! They dining space is already an existing conservatory so I'm not sure if my idea would work. I'd go for a bigger kitchen with utility.

The architect events sound interesting, thank you for that!

We'd either go for this house or a more expensive house that needs less work but we don't like the location as much. We'll live there probably 10 years or so and will obviously need to sell at some point. I don't know if extending will be worth it over that time scale.

Nothing to add really other than this made me smile. I grew up in a village a few miles north of Peterborough. Back in the 70s everyone was ripping out their period fireplaces to replace them with a 'Bradstone fireplace'.

The fireplace in this house looks very similar - in fact that particular one would have been considered very grand at the time. My mum had a much smaller one made with a lovingly polished wooden mantlepiece. She still has it - and still polishes it.

Many others have long since been ripped out. I've seen one that was painted over - I wouldn't recommend that. The parents of an old school friend moved a few years ago and they had a new one built to look the same as their old one - lol!

I'm sure it will come out quite easily and I like the stove idea.

Kitchen looks dated but perfectly ok to me. Connecting through to lounge/conservatory sounds like a lovely idea though. In reality, I know that I would just paint the cupboards, replace the floor, procrastinate for many years and then move. I have no vision whatsoever!

Fabulous garden.

Looks great. All the best with the purchase.

You could rip out all the brick, I hate the way they have it built out with a TV on one end. It'd look great without all that.
The kitchen I could live with, but I'd want to figure on when remodeling it how to get entry to the conservatory from the kitchen. Other than that, different paint and carpets and it's be lovely. I like a decent size bathroom and it has a separate bath and shower, big plus for me.

Rip out fitted wardrobes in bedroom, they're horrible and square of fireplaces and get in plastered, paint room white and stick woodburner in it.