How do your family use your house?

[Wallykazam]

We are currently renting and have had our offer on a house accepted. We have 2 young girls (3 and 5) and want to remodel the downstairs to allow us to socialise as a family, entertain adults and let the kids have their own space as well. We also have an amazing garden that we want to take advantage of. We have several ideas for example, partician off part of the current kitchen to have a kids room, rearrange kitchen and open plan it with dining room and have a tv and sofa in the corner, plus small dining table, add a conservortory and use as formal dining room, leave sitting room as is and only for adults.

So we have these ideas but no real experience of how this will work as the girls get older, before we engage with architects and builders etc we just want to make sure we know what we are asking for and know how families 'live' I.e what works, what room is hardly used, what is the flow of your house and what would you change if money was no object? Of course we have a budget but hopefully we can prioritise the important stuff over the nice to have. Hope this makes sense?

This is the floor plan for our house.

We have an open-plan kitchen / lounge / diner. Ds sleeps in the separate reception room and all the toys are in there with a TV. TV in kitchen etc tends not to be switched on during the day. When the kids were smaller they'd all play in ds's room. Was fab for containing the mess. Now the eldest tends to chill out in the kitchen or his room. Youngest also chills in kitchen or her room unless she wants to watch TV / play with toys. Middle one quite happy in his room most of the time. All changes on a nice day when all the doors are open and we're on the decking.

My dc are 20, 17, and 14

When little (which you are getting towards the end of now - or will be once the work is complete) yes, they lke to be in the same room as you

Once in the 6 - 12 range, my experience is that they always need to be doing something that annoys the other one(s) for a lot of the time. So, for example, one HAS to be doing trumpet practice whilst another is on the x-box. One NEEDS quiet for some homework or project exactly when the other needs to watch something crucial on TV. For this, you need separate rooms.

Once they get to 13+ they disappear into their own rooms until they are about 18, only coming out for food and showers which seem to last about 40mins. However, they will still need to suddenly practice trumpet / piano / drums / etc if a sibling decides to do something downstairs at any point. They have a radar built in especially for this purpose.

I would always want to be able to shut the door on the kitchen - cooking smells, plus just 'mess', tbh. I would always choose to have a utility room too.

What I have found, is that room use changes over years, which is great when you have rooms, and haven't knocked everything through.

BackForGood fab post

Maybe our current separate playroom-turning-into-violin-practice-room is a good use of space after all! DC are 7 and 9 and are outgrowing playing on the floor in favour of reading in their rooms or board games at the dining table.

Back makes a good point - it's lovely (some of the time ) when children are small and you are all enjoying playing games together, watching a movie together etc but when you have a grumpy teenager whose idea of a great evening is back to back 'Top Gear' or similar it's good to have separate space .

As a PP has said, I would not advise building a conservatory. We had a large one on the back of our house when we bought it, which was quite useful as a children's playroom/junction but got far too hot to use in the summer and freezing in the winter. Last year we had it knocked down and replaced with a garden room which leads straight off our kitchen/breakfast room. We have a dining table out there as well as a small sofa and the other end is our 'laundry' area (no utility). We use the space all the time and it's created a large open-plan layout downstairs with the exception of our living room. If we had the money/space I would love to add a proper utility room and a second bathroom/shower room.

*junkroom not junction!

We have a kitchen with a table in the bay window which we use every morning and evening, snug with a sofa, chair, tv and lego, schleich and other garb, office with books and a music stand/instruments. These rooms are all used a lot.

Then we have a sitting room, two sofas coffee table, fire .. used twice a week maybe and a dining room - used twice a week.

I don't feel that we need the space we have tbh. I could easily do with less, DH likes the space.

I wouldn't want a child only space. It won't be long before they are teenagers and we are not cool enough!

We have a1930s semi - the front reception room is for toys, music etc. The back reception room is a calmer space where we all watch to etc. This room has glass double doors into large open-plan kitchen diner, which has bifold doors into the garden. We have a utility room off the hall/kitchen.

It works well so far (young children) as we spend most of the time in the kitchen/back room, but toys can be left set up in the front and 5 year old often takes himself off into the front to play.

Downstairs loo...invaluable!

I like your lay out. While they are smaller I would probably use the dining area as a playroom with a sofa and TV and put a bigger table in the breakfast area and then when they are bigger revert back to your layout above. We have open plan kitchen, seating, dining in an l shape with a garden room / playroom with all of the toys and 2 sofas, TV in it. We have a separate sitting room for evenings/ guests without toys and are building a separate study / den in the next couple of years plus large utility. I love the space - it is so social and yet works perfectly for us. When they get older, they can either use the den or we will put bifold doors into the garden room to partition it off. I don't like kids in bedrooms in the daytime.

I pretty much have my perfect home now, I'd just rather a garden than yard.
I have 4 floors. The top is eldest's domain. Basement is kids play room and their toilet.
Ground is living room (no toys!!!), kitchen nd utility. And first is 2 beds and large bathroom with a shower cubicle.
I adore this house.

marking place - I am planning a major ground floor rejig, need to decide how many separate spaces to carve off it

especially liking the advice from backforgood about different age requirements

We thought we would make our 100 year old traditional separate roomed house open plan but after 6 months I think we will keep separate rooms. We have kitchen with small table, utility, lounge (no toys but used by us all) dining room with small number of toys that we use for playing, activities in the day time.

We are lucky to have two floors upstairs, one for Master bed, guest room and office, then top floor is two dc bedroom and a playroom where all the toys live.

I like the separate rooms, closing off door to the kitchen. Would be good to be able to see dc while cooking etc but my eldest is 3 and already fine to potter around downstairs while I am cooking etc. Am thinking as kids get older dining room will change use depending what we need (music room, homework, family room, kids den etc). I think separate rooms gives flexibility.

We have kitchen diner which is great for entertaining.

Dss has the top floor, so his bedroom with en suite and opposite the other bedroom has a sofa bed and his computer and x box etc so he can play his games and watch films and have mates over.
No way am I having x box etc in the living room. We have no TV or computers in bedrooms here either, so him having a room right opposite his bedroom makes most sense.

He's 15 so no play room needed. I have a study on the ground floor, dp shares dss games room if he wants a study area.
Middle floor is our bedroom, family bathroom and two guest rooms.

We extended when the DC were 4,7 and 10. Not great at looking ahead but decided having another study/living room and extra shower room trumped larger open plan spaces. Fast forward 9 years, so glad we have 3 communal rooms downstairs where people can do homework, watch TV, entertain friends. And really appreciate having 2 showers. Definitely worth thinking ahead to what you'll need when your children are older OP

we have a kitchen dinner playroom and then a grown up sitting room, which is mostly used once the dds have gone to bed. However what I really wish we had is a utility room! Not just for the washing machine, just sorting out general dirty stuff away from the kitchen.

We had all open plan downstairs with separate utility from our kids being 2 and baby right up to 11 and 13. We were never bothered by cooking smells, it was always noisy but I think the fact that we could see and hear each other all the time made us more tolerant and communicative. It was also great for parties we hosted a 40th, 60th, our wedding evening and many other family gathering and summer parties. We extended two years ago and now have a separate room for teens to do their homework, play music and watch TV but they often hang out with us too. We had an architect help us design desks that also have great storage for school bags, books and PE kit which means a lot less hassle in the mornings. We put doors back to allow us to close off the living room too which means I can listen to the radio whilst I'm cooking if they're in there watching TV or don't like my music! Most architects will be great at ergonomics as well as design and are great at thinking up clever storage. Toys get smaller as kids get bigger too so the clutter receeds. Exciting times, good luck with it all

Definitely have a downstairs toilet - that everyone, guests and all, can use, not through the kitchen, through the utility and then some, but off your hallway if at all possible.
Would also 2nd having a second, separate shower somewhere (upstairs ideally) if you are reconfiguring up there, too.

Strongly recommend you have a look at The Not So Big House (and maybe get a copy of Not So Big Remodelling).

The Author, Sarah Susanka, has amazing ideas on helping you to understanding exactly what you're trying to achieve: creating spaces for how we live, not on outdated models of what architects thought we needed.

Not all of her style is to my taste but the philosophy holds nonetheless. Well worth a read.

Wally, you are probably near peak toy volume. It is hard to imagine a time without all that stuff. When we moved 2years ago, my youngest was 8 and we got rid of garage, dolls house, kitchen, farm, garage etc. We moved with some soft toys, Lego and board games which all fit in bedrooms.

I try to watch TV with my teens and put up with programmes to have a chill with them and often get into some rubbishy things

Agree that garden rooms are more usable than conservatories - too hot in summer is a bigger problem for us than heating in winter actually. It looks great at Christmas with fairy lights. I guess it depends on when in the day it gets the sun.

Personally I think the necessity of a downstairs lol depends on the layout of your house.

We have a typical 1930s semi with an extension across the back and we only have 1 loo upstairs in the bathroom and it works fine. Even potty training has been fine and after less than 2 weeks DS just takes himself upstairs to the toilet rather than using the potty downstairs so lack of toilet on ground floor wasn't an issue there.

However, I've just been staying at a friends house, which is set over 3 floors and has 4 toilets. I was there less than 24 hours and I used all of them, even the one in her ensuite, because that's where the only shower is. Was so convenient having them all, but a BUGGER to keep clean with 3 boys in the house!

We have the back of the house open plan with a seperate lounge at the front. We were going to have a utility and possibly downstairs loo but in the end I wanted to keep it open as it makes it all feel much more spacious. Washing machine and dishwasher are not loud enough to register if the TV is on. Extractor is quite noisy but only an issue if it's turned right up.

Front lounge is supposed to be toy-free but what that means in practice is that no tits are stored there. We still play in there

We have a kitchen with door to dining room then two living rooms and a study. I like as many rooms and doors as possible. With 4 dcs it means we can all retreat when we want and gather together when we want.

Downstairs we have large kitchen with dining table that seats 8, formal living room, formal dining room, tv room, music room, library, utility, boot room, loo and study. We use the formal rooms the least, most of the time everyone is in the kitchen. I have pre teens.