Anyone want to comment on a floor plan?

[FranklinTheCat]

We're planning a ground floor rear extension to create a kitchen-diner, downstairs loo and utility. Would love to get thoughts on our tentative floor plan - we've done a lot of thinking about what we want from the space but are new to this and will have missed stuff! All thoughts welcome (I can post alternatives if anyone is interested).

@Mummyshark2018, that looks like serious reconfiguring! Good luck! We are really concerned about being able to stay in the property to keep cost and disruption down. Will you move out?

Also, feel free not to answer but if you've had any building quotes, I would be very interested to know what sort of figures you've been quoted! We are working on a basis of around £2k per square metre plus vat and cost of new kitchen, which seems like a hell of a lot to basically put a box on the back of the house - and that's not allowing for, eg, a couple of stud walls.

@FranklinTheCat
The new utility/ wc is the current kitchen and we have an existing door from new utility into our existing conservatory (being demolished!) to make room for the rear extension. Our current dining room (new snug) also has double doors out the back so already an entrance into the extension. There's no structural work inside ( just partitioning off rooms) so 90% of work outside. We had similar quotes to you - between 2k-2.5k per square metre, depending on spec. So all in we're hoping it will come in around 80k.
We will be staying put as most of the work is out the back so we can use of all our current existing rooms (apart from unused conservatory) until back extension done then we can start on reconfiguration work- so it should be fine

@FranklinTheCat
Forgot to say we have a builder coming out tomorrow to give us our first quote- should have said other quote was a general one from our very experienced architect. Will let you know what builder says! We're in the SE

Thank you! We're also in the SE. As we haven't finalised our plans yet, my understanding is that no builder will take us seriously yet, so we haven't started getting quotes.

@FranklinTheCat
We got all our plans, including the more detailed building regs plans from architect just before Xmas. Just sent them off this week to council so expecting at least 6-8 week wait for approval. There is a long wait here for builders- everyone is extending! I emailed a few that were recommended and they asked me to send through what I've got. They know what stage we're at and are happy to come out to discuss which is good.

Ooh I like the last one. Does it give you enough kitchen cupboards though? You could maybe have a dresser or tall cupboards on the dining room - living room wall for extra kitchen storage.

I thought it looked like mine which worked well, but then saw the comments on the snug being a corridor
This was mine

We’ve just done an extension that is very similar. Utility with back door is best thing we did. What is your snug area, we use as a dining room and have the table there, it’s works surprisingly well. We have bifolds out to the back garden and ours is squared off across the back. What roof are you having? We were going to have pitched with velux, but didn’t have the space for the pitch so we had a flat roof and put a roof lantern in. It’s the best thing that could have happened - it’s so light and looks amazing, everyone comments on it. Also it’s meant that our dining area (your snug) is lovely and light.

Good luck, it’ll be worth it!

In fact ours is just like the option you posted with the big dining room table. If you can, I’d go for a kitchen island over a peninsular - much easier and less awkward corner cupboards

Second the Island if you can. Avoids awkward corners, and people blocking corners by standing in them, meaning you can't access cupboards.

I'm going against the grain and say consider not having an outside door in the utility. It makes it a walkway and doesn't give any room for an airer or to stand and fold washing, or iron.

Does your rear reception (the future snug on the first plan) have lovely original features you want to preserve?

If not then I would strongly consider swapping the utility to the other side of the house. I would turn the wc 180 degrees to fit all or partly under the stairs, and I would use the front half of the rear reception for a utility. The back half of the rear reception then forms part of the big open plan family room.

By doing this, you would preserve the natural corridor from front door to kitchen (plus you would be able to see from front door to garden which is lovely) instead of having to walk through any other rooms or spaces to get from front door to kitchen.

You do lose the outside door to utility, but you could still have a side door beyond the wc, it would just be off your kitchen area rather than off the utility.

Much better use of the dark windowless area doing what minipie suggests

I prefer the dining area in the 'corridor' bit rather than the snug, with the snug by the doors into the garden - but then you'd be able to see the kitchen bit from the snug which is a drawback.

I'm not a fan of open plan living tbh, the noise and smells from the kitchen would put me off but you have the living room as well which is fab! Good luck with the work, OP.

More comments! Thank you all so much.

@minipie, that's really interesting that you suggest putting the utility on that side of the house. One of the various plans we have suggests that as an option. If my phone will allow me to screenshot it, I'll attach it.

Our main concern about doing this is the level of work that would be required - we would basically have to remove a chimney breast. If we did this, then it would make sense to think about removing the chimney breast in the room above, and all of a sudden, it feels as though we're into the realms of more extensive structural work and a higher cost than anticipated. Also, would there not be issues with ventilation?

@pepperjack, yours looks lovely - I wish we had space to go out to the side.

@MrsMcnulty20, that's interesting in terms of the roof lantern as one of my concerns about using the "snug" bit for dining was light levels. Did you find a roof lantern significantly increased costs compared with velux? Also, have you been happy with a flat roof? Does yours have any pitch at all to it, and what is it made from?

We haven't decided on the external aspects yet - we're trying to nail the floor plan first. The architect wanted to go with timber frame construction and a flat roof. We've decided against the former following research and a chat with a structural engineer, but are still debating whether to go for a fully pitched roof or part pitched, part flat.

I think the main thing is working out where we position the kitchen in terms of pipework. I'm not convinced we need to commit to snug/dining room as that's surely just about furnishing and we could play around with it.

I’m not sure you would have to remove the chimneybreast would you - the utility plan could work around it? Unless you wanted the utility to stop half way across the chimney breast instead of incorporating all of it.

What I would do is either:

1. make the utility big enough to incorporate the whole chimney breast, but get a generous coat and shoe cupboard out of that space as well (invaluable) Or
2. If you want the utility partition to cut part way across the chimney breast, you can build shallow cupboards across in the main room to incorporate/disguise any remaining stub of chimney breast

I personally, would build straight across at the back and not recess this. In terms of building cost, it won't drastically increase the price. Depending on which way your garden faces, this recess may reduce the natural light entering through the patio doors. Plus this would give you more floor space.

I also would move the dining area into the 'snug'. This will allow you to have some nice feature pendant fittings above the dining tables, and this dining tends to lend itself better as a through route.

Secondly, I would keep the WC door off the hallway. I agree with PP about the garden, but IMO ground floor WCs are primarily the guest toilet, and for convenience. You don't want guests trawling through the laundry to get the to WC. Also if you move the utility door so it opens into the 'dining area' you would get more units / usable space in both the utility and kitchen. At the end of the day a utility is primarily a washer / dryer area. What does washing dirty socks, have to do with cooking?

You can extend by 3m (semi-detached) or 4m (detached) under permitted development rights. Providing you can start and complete the majority of the build by May 2019 you can increase this to 6m (semi detached) or 8m (detached) under a 'larger home extension.' Therefore you can save the planning application fees.

I really like it. My only concern would be how big is the living room area? (In feet & inches ideally please?) It is hard to judge size on the plan. A too small sitting room is no fun. If its something pretty substantial then it seems perfect, but if its only 10 or 12ft & you have a family & or guests ever then its probably too small & I'd be tempted to lengthen it a bit. I say this because our old lounge was 10ftx12ft & far too small for a family of 4.

See, I'm really torn now about this blimming utility. Part of me thinks we should put it at the rear of what is currently the snug, but then we would end up with the washing machine either against or very close to the party wall, which doesn't seem very fair on our neighbours as that's their living room.

The plan we have (which my phone is refusing to let me screenshot) involves removing that chimney breast and putting appliances on the party wall, whereas I think they would either have to go on the wall against the sitting room or the kitchen/diner. If we made it big enough to incorporate the whole chimney breast, we would only be incorporating about 1.5 metres of the "snug" area into the kitchen-diner and would end up with a massive utility! (As in, about 2 x 3.5/3.7 metres.)

How big do you think a utility needs to be? We need a washing machine in there and a hanging airer - its main purpose will be to wash and dry clothes but also to store stuff like cat food. And I'd like a sink in there as well. Thoughts?

How important is it to you to have an airer in the utility? If you have another way of drying clothes then I'd go with three socks original plan (one of the first handful of posts).

This way, you stop the snug from becoming a corridor, and you keep your costs down by having all your service connections in the same place.

You do however, lose the outside door in the utility and space for a free standing airer. It depends on how important these things are to you. You could perhaps have one of those 'pulley maid' airers which is suspended from the ceiling over the utility sink/units.

I would definately go for a flat back to the extension - we have sliding doors across ours and it gives the room wow factor.

Would need steels so may not be doable - but what about a more open layout- gives max flexibility and you minimise corridor soace loss. Also you get a fab sightlines through the house. Your stairs are on the "wrong" side though to be able to get an external utility. We never use our external utility door - we just pop out the unfolds.

For a utility you need depth 60cm for units plus at least around 90 cm, to give you space to get into the washing machine, so 1.5m across. Ours is a double galley with 1.2m between the units, and it's not over-generous. Lengthwise the usual minimum would be 3 X 60cm so 1.8m for TD, WM and sink. You can have other options eg skinny sink, countertop sink, stacking WM & TD but you'd have very little space for drying clothes. Any less than that and you might be better off with a utility "cupboard" area where you have sliding doors concealing a WM & TD area, and you accept that drying the washing will happen elsewhere.

Also if you want to use the utility for drying you might need to allow wall space for a radiator, and maybe install an extractor fan.

Utility on the external wall makes sense to me, to avoid dampness.