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).

The priority is the drying of the clothes and the ability to store stuff away from the kitchen. We have nowhere for airers which isn't horribly in the way and cluttering stuff up. So a hanging airer and a means of heating the room are essential.

@Lightsdown, I do like that as an idea. My only concerns about not having it on an external wall are noise for the neighbours, and ventilation.

We’ve got a flat fibreglass roof. It looks completely flat, although I think even a ‘flat roof’ has a slight pitch. Ours has been up a year and it’s been absolutely fine. The roof lantern was surprisingly cheap (got ours from here - they were great www.luminadesign.co.uk). I think it worked out at about £400 more as they had to do more work to the roof to make the frame. It lets loads of light in, and makes the extension seem bigger as we now have a higher ceiling height than if had gone for pitched. When you’re inside it feels like part of the house rather than an extension.

Our utility is 1.4 wide by 2.7, with a back door, door into the kitchen, 1.5 sink with 800 cupboard underneath, space for 2 appliances and a boiler which is in a larder cupboard. There’s plenty of room, but if we’d have had the space 1.5 wide would have been more comfortable and allowed for show storage etc. We’re getting a Sheila maid drier to go on the ceiling. Could the washing machine go on the other side of utility so not directly up again the party wall?

If you need space for a floor standing airer, you might have to lose the external door.

We did, we don't miss it at all, and it's so much better to not have everyone traipsing through the utility room and leaving all their discarded coats/boots etc.

Have you thought about where you'll store coats/shoes?

We’re planning our w/m and t/d on the party wall - must confess I hadn’t thought about the neighbours! We will be insulating that wall though so hopefully not too much sound would get through, and it’s not like it’s a bedroom on the other side.

Ours will be pretty titchy, 2.4m x 1.7m - a single wall run with stacked laundry machines one end, then two 600 base units (may put a sink in one, if I can work out a way of covering it for folding space) then a broom cupboard. Wall units above the two base units, and then large top boxes above the whole run, for extra storage. 1.1m clear walk way with sheila maid hanging from ceiling. Towel rail on opposite wall, also will hang a stepladder and ironing board on that wall.

I do see the extractor issue - we can duct ours out through the ceiling of the rooms behind it out to the garden but this depends on having suitable ceiling depth and joist direction. Ask your builder/architect?

Where will you store coats and shoes? With two DC we seem to have mountains of them, plus lots of hats gloves wellies, school pe kit, swim bags etc. I can only see this increasing as they get older. Might be a reason for a larger utility, a slice of which could be taken off to store coats etc? (We will have a separate coat cupboard hence titchy utility)

Depends whether your priority is a larger communal space, or a tidier one!

@FranklinTheCat thank you so much for posting this! I have been struggling to work out a layout that would keep costs down but provide us with an utility room. I love the first design (but would swap the table amd snug over, to make the most of the garden).

Can I ask, do you know how much this design would cost roughly?

@hallamoo, at the moment coats and shoes live in the hall, but would want to factor in a spot for wellies/garden shoes which are only used at the back as a rule. This could be in the utility....

@makingithappen, we're not quite sure yet. We have been told to expect costs of £2k per square metre of extension and the new space will be about 22 square metres. So that would be about 44k, plus vat, plus the cost of a new kitchen and a loo/sink. What I haven't established yet is whether the cost of the stud walls will be on top of that.

We are also likely to replace the boiler, which will mean new radiators throughout, add in a water softener, brick up a door, and possibly a few other bits. And then live with a mess outside the new back door as we won't be able to afford to replace the patio straight away....

Funnily enough, this has something to do with why we're keen to keep structural stuff to a minimum .

Two random thoughts. We have a back door in our utility room and never use it because we exit to outdoors through the kitchen patio doors. We've put a curtain across the door and a chest in front of it.

Secondly, does the washing machine really need to be downstairs? Is there anywhere you could put it upstairs near the bathroom? If you're doing a new boiler would that free any space e.g. if you were losing the water tank? Maybe that would work for you and then the utility room could be more of a drying space and storage for outdoor and cleaning things? That might solve the issue of noise on a party wall. Otherwise if you wanted to position it on the party wall with your neighbours' living room, look into noise reduction and insulation around it.

There are some fantastic ideas on Pinterest and Houzz for creative utility and storage spaces.

@FranklinTheCat
We had our first quote today - £77k (including VAT). This includes fitting kitchen (but not cost of kitchen) and includes the fitting of downstairs wc and materials. Waiting on a few more quotes.

@Mummyshark2018, thanks for sharing - that's less than I might have expected in terms of this "£2k per square metre" business! Will be interested to hear how your other quotes come out, if you don't mind sharing. Are you going for brick construction? And what sort of roof? (Sorry if you already said - haven't scrolled back through everything )

@FranklinTheCat
We eventually got our second quote -£52k including vat. This price does not include the kitchen but the fitting of the kitchen and downstairs shower room. A huge difference between quotes! We were really happy with the second builder and are going to be proceeding with him. Have you moved along in the process?