Remodelling a terraced house - please critique my floorplan!

[ChocolateChoux]

Hello everyone First time poster, long time lurker! My partner and I bought & moved into a new house about 6 months ago, with a view to eventually remodelling/extending it to suit us but don't know if what we're suggesting is a good idea!

The house is a bog-standard 2 bed Victorian terrace - 2 up, 2 down with a small galley kitchen on the back and stairs in between the living and dining room. We ideally need another bedroom adding and we did initially hope to do a side-return extension to gain a bigger kitchen/dining/living space downstairs. However, our funds are limited and we therefore have decided to do a loft conversion first, while remodelling downstairs to fix the old, cold and tiny galley kitchen into something a bit more useable (and not damp!) until we can afford to do a side-return extension.

At the minute, the layout of our house looks like this
imgur.com/a/4P3hZ

But ideally, I would love to open it up like this:
imgur.com/a/n8Ow5

Can someone take a look and let me know what you think? Does this even look like a sensible idea?

Can you use the chimney breast in the current dining room as the place for your cooker (raising the height of the mantle if necessary )? A range cooker would look great.

I like your downstairs better now - have you considered the windowless small bathroom upstairs instead of loft conversion?

TheAntiBoop - I know! Luckily it’s an electric kit so DP plugs his headphones in and we’re kind of an end terrace so drums are on that side of the house.

Unfortunately none of our neighbours have done the side return, most do loft conversions or nothing at all. There is also an added difficulty that the area where the side return would go is up against a very old, beautiful brick wall that is shared with an unusual converted building next door with multiple owners and access needs. Everyone i’ve spoken to has basically said it’ll be a very expensive side return, which means we likely won’t be able to afford it for quite some time and I can’t endure the current kitchen for that long!

MrsMoastyToasty - I love that idea! I would looove a range cooker and that’d solve a lot of problems with space.

NoSquirrels - thank you! I have but having checked out the pipes tonight when I got home, I don’t think it’d work. Unfortunately the soil pipe, boiler (which is actually in our bathroom) and water all run along that back wall and the cost of moving them likely wouldn’t be worth it for the tiny space we’d create.

I think the biggest issue you have is that the stairs go down into the kitchen.

I think you need to change for the direction of the stairs. If you are a having a loft conversion done the stairs can be changed at the same time and it's not that big a job. You are going to need to change the upstairs layout to fit in the loft conversion anyway so could change current bath room into bedroom and then carve the middle bedoom into corrridor, space for loft stairs and bathroom.

You can then downstairs put your kitchen into the corner of the middle reception room and using existing kitchen space as dining area.

That way when you do the side return you won't need to change your kitchen it will just be open onto a bigger area.

What's the dimensions of your off-shot galley kitchen and dining room? Is this a mid-terrace, where's the boundary and is entry via the back door?

The ones that I've seen tends to

• use the fireplace to house their cooker
• kept the kitchen as is but extend it into the dining room a little bit by installing rsj and knocking down supporting wall(?)
• as above with kitchen door all bricked up and making a conservatory from dining wall into kitchen (attached floor plan)
• convert the kitchen into utility room and turn the dining room into a kitchen diner

I like the canaries plan for a square table in the window. It strikes me that, with some elegant storage for files etc. beside it, this could double as a workspace, thus saving you the need for the desk further up and allowing you to use the corner beside the window (below the bedroom) for more kitchen cupboards.

I'd extend the back room to create a large living dining kitchen area, reinstate the hall from the front door and make the front room your office space, keeping the upstairs unchanged.

If you wanted to save money to spend on your loft extension - with your most recent plan I would not knock out end of old kitchen wall to install french doors (cost approx £2-3K?) - I would leave the existing french doors from dining to garden (even if you need to replace doors as knocking out walls and putting in lintel is the expensive part) and not block up with window (cost approx £1k?).

I would then either close off the end of the old kitchen as a closed off utility/laundry room - or use this windowless wall for your full height stuff - fridge/freezer/ wall height ovens / larder / stacked integrated washer drier?

Again this is a much cheaper layout - by keeping utilities nearly where they are already - extend units into dining room and maybe turn the last ones to create peninsula / breakfast bar?

Spend money making a feature of the chimney breast? I also think it is nicer for guests/entertaining to walk into the dining part first rather than having to negotiate the mess of a kitchen - but maybe I am just a meesy cook.....

Thanks everyone for all your replies! I had somehow missed The Canaries plan (serves me right for trying to read the thread on my phone!) - that looks pretty much perfect and exactly what I was thinking of!

The dimensions for the building are:
Kitchen - 10'0 x 5'11
Dining Room - 11'11 x 11'9
Living Room - 13'3 (into the bay window) x 11'9

Blankscreen - I really want to do that and change the stairs around to point the other way, it'd make it so much easier to do this whole thing!

lalalonglegs - That may be a better option, actually. Gonna have to get some quotes I think and see which makes the most sense financially.

another20 That makes a lot more sense, especially with keeping utilities where they currently are - I also like the idea of a small breakfast bar/peninsula with a utility at the end of the current kitchen. I think now I need to get some quotes and see what we can manage with our budget!

Honestly, I much prefer the original layout. I'd knock out the doorway to the kitchen though, make it all one L shaped room.

I think you want to engage an architect - can you find one that will do just a few hours work?

I speak as someone who has wasted a ton of cash doing what suited at the time, but not really thinking through longer term ideas...

I also like nameusername suggestion of adding a cheap conservatory - or making the focus of an outdoor room in the side return space. I have seen this just with a covered glass canopy - so an open but dry space with natural light.

The other thing you could do - is replace your existing kitchen window and door with one full floor to ceiling glass picture window or patio doors or french doors to match the ones from the dining room - as there is likely a single lintel already in place for the kitchen window and door.

Then you could do stuff in phases. So do the kitchen diner first - then it is easy to decide if you want to add an outside canopy - bolt on a cheap conservatory - or leave as outside space.

Which way does the garden face.

Also hadn't spotted that there is no wall in hallway and think PP's suggestion of reinstating this is a good one. I don't like "through rooms" - you could put your sofa up against this reinstated wall? and dont like walking straight into a room - also once you have made your lovely back room you will find that you spend so much time out the back with your guests this front room will be come redundant....

I've seen the floor plans now.

Honestly, I much prefer the original layout. I'd knock out the doorway to the kitchen though, make it all one L shaped room.

^This

I really, really wouldn't bother doing any more work. Waste of money, won't add any value or even dramatically improve your living space. If you take out the wall between kitchen and diner you will get almost al of the benefits and it will cost hardly anything.

Do the loft and get your third bed.

I think you are listening to too many people

The kitchen space is more important than the bedroom space especially on resale value etc - by doing it twice you risk losing money

Get quotes - lots of them

The kitchen extension can double as a workroom with the right furniture, and it will be lighter than a bedroom

It will be more socialbe and useable

If there's just two of you in the house then two bedrooms should be enough so save for the loft conversion instead when you start a family

Unfortunately there's just not enough space to create a hallway in the front room. The house would have originally been cheap accommodation for factory workers so it was normal to have a front door opening straight into the living room - it's not a case of reinstating a wall that was there before. If there was space to put a hall in I would love to, but it would make the living room too small to properly use. All the terraces in this area are built with the front door opening directly into the living room so it's not an issue if we ever come to sell.

I think realistically we're likely to do what Silverspot said - take the wall out between kitchen and dining room to create an L shaped kitchen-diner. The loft has to be done - we need the additional bedroom more than we need a huge living space and having our desks out in the open downstairs just wouldn't work for us due to the types of work we do.

Thank you everyone for all your help and ideas, it has really helped and given me plenty to think about

The reason I asked for dimensions is because some people version of small/narrow can be vastly different. There's plenty of property up North with small off-shot galley and similar layout including no hallway.

I've included the kitchen/dining room picture I've seen online with regards to the previous floorplans which included a loft.

BEFORE:
Kitchen: 2.62m x 1.82m
Dining Room: 4.4m x 3.87

AFTER:
Kitchen/Dining Room: 6.45m x 4.34m
Conservatory: 2.27m x 2.22

Same kitchen dining room pic from another angle. I've also seen smaller off-shot galley kitchen 2.4 m x 1.8m and no hallways that have shot up to £180k due to gentrification.

I think the work you do totally depends on the area-I've got a house exactly like yours that I let out and it wouldn't be worth doing anything to it really (in my area) as you have some considerations like the wall if you were to build s side return I'd probably convert the left and put a wooden gazebo outside the kitchen attached to the wall with table and chairs to give the impression of how an extension would look, future buyers can see the potential themselves and you get to afford your third room. The loft stairs could eat into the second bedroom and you could run a small bathroom of that and turn the bathroom into a bedroom which is what it would originally have been.

The loft stairs could eat into the second bedroom Based on OP's floorplan most definitely. The one I've shown in order to facilitate access to the loft, the second bedroom is 3.4m x 2.17m. My previous rental property the owners were able to fit two good sized attic rooms, one with dormer window at the front and a velux at the back. I remember another OP using a loft specialist on this forum, APEX loft that travel's across UK. I've got it bookmarked for m own reference.

Sorry I think you’d make the ground floor layout weird.

Also where are the stairs to the attic?

Ok I like your 21.15 design. However can you shuffle all the kitchen units up towards the corridor so you could squeeze a couple of bar stools at the courtyard end

www.mumsnet.com/uploads/talk/201711/large-262396-houselayout2.jpg

I like this one posted earlier best.

Although the upstairs is wrong.