Extension plans

[Chocolate1984]

Our architect has sent over her first draft of our extension plans and I’m looking for opinions. The dining room would probably be used as a family room instead of another eating area. The original kitchen has become a hall & shower room. Our house is built on a hill so we need some sort of stair access to the garden.

I had asked to keep my dining room and front room, create a family room which looks onto the garden and make the kitchen slightly bigger so it can fit a small table for kids to draw/homework etc. If we have enough money for a bedroom on the 1st floor we don’t need the shower room downstairs.

Somethings I like but overall I don’t think it’s what I want.

Downstairs shower room seems like a waste of space

If you post the existing plans we know what we are playing with and what will work around what you already have.

What are unclear red line objectives?

Order of priority would also be good.

This is the original plan.

The main reason for the extension was to add a sitting area which looked onto the garden. We can’t see the kids playing in the garden unless we are standing at the kitchen or dining room window. We want to be able to supervise them without sitting in the garden. Open a patio door and sit on a deck or something instead of always having to go down to the garden- our house is around 3m from garden level. I definitely want a utility.

I asked to keep the dining room and living room because I wanted tidy adult rooms. We have people over a lot and I’m sick of tidying crafts, Lego and pens off the dining room table.

Although I said I wanted a shower room I wasn’t expecting it to take up so much space. I feel the corridor she designed seems like an odd space with lots of doors. The utility looks big but the doors limit usable space.

Dining room doesn't need right hand door into the corridor. The old line of dining room /kitchen wall needs the kink removing. Follow the line that makes corridor wider.
Her utility would make a better shower room *better access from garden and garage for emergency clean ups of children and dogs.
Make it a wet room rather than shower cubicle.
Wider corridor and her shower room becomes utility /laundry cupboard down RHS, storage cupboards down the left.
Google utility cupboards to see how efficient they are for space.
Very common in apartments in the States.
You can hang stuff to dry in the shower room.
Rear room. Three zones each with floor to ceiling windows for good views of garden. The traditional sink under the window position for looking out while doing the washing up became redundant with dishwashers.
Units down left wall. Big island forming right side of kitchen. Breakfast bar or attached table for the kids stuff. View of garden from there.
Small sitting area on right of back room.

Your plans look similar to ours (existing and proposed are attached) we've just got planning but won't be building for another year. I think a shower room is expensive if you don't actually want one, I'd swap it to a walk in pantry or just some cupboards.

Our Kitchen plan is only indicative on our plans and not happy with it but gives an idea of the space.

If you flip your kitchen over it keeps all the water and plumbing services grouped together with the utility making that easier. Then you would probably want to make your old dining room into a living room area as a bit pointless having two dining's next to each other. This room may be a bit dark anyway so suits being cosier with sofas. I'd personally get rid of the pocket doors and make the opening a little larger to get as much light in as possible.

I think, in all honesty, I'd agree with ditching the dining room. I'd go for a properly separated lounge then an l shape incorporating the dining room and new extension, with the dining room as a tv/seating area, dining table at lhs and kitchen over by the utility.

Given you already have the downstairs WC I would skip the shower room and take the hall section in to the dining room with the shower room space made in to built in cupboards, floor to ceiling, to store all sorts of crap! I'd try to lose the central bit of wall too.

blue=kitchen, green =built in cupboards (toy storage!), red box = lose the walls etc here (most likely require a beam but you'll be saving cost of shower room)

What is the plan for the back of the house? It seems to me like you're going to have quite a big wall facing onto the garden there. A bit of a radical change I know, but could you introduce a basement room so at least you're making some use of the height you're building?

I much prefer a big combined space at the back of the house too, rather than the separate dining room.

I love your pantry babyboy. Yours just seems to flow so much better than ours. What are the dimensions of your extension?

I’m going to speak to the architect tomorrow so I’m listing everything I like and don’t like. I think more than anything it’s just so busy with lots of doors and the shower room is a waste of space- I’d rather have storage. I would also prefer access to the garden to be via utility & patio doors. On her plans anything from the garage will be brought through the extension.

The extension is being built over the existing steps/garden. We considered excavating but it would cost far too much and being on a hill we don’t want to disturb the structure too much. The extension is going to be built on stilts with wall built around so there will be under house storage but not much. We also considered internal stairs going down into the extension but because of rules of maximum roof height from garden or something we aren’t allowed that.

Drawing with some dimensions. Think it is a little bit deeper the extension but not massively so. Took quite a long time to get here with the plans but happy with them and think it will work well for us. Also tried to think about where services are and how to keep as much of the house operational during the building works as we will need to live here, kids will be 4 and 7 by the time we start construction.

I must admit I'm surprised she put the kitchen at the opposite end of where it currently is. Im now really nervous wondering if we have made a mistake picking her. Just seems a really messy version of a simple design.

Having purchased an over extended house I'm very wary of extension which create internal rooms. With that in mind I'd consider not extending beyond the existing dining room, and instead add a large squarish space to the right with the existing kitchen in the corner. I suspect structurally this would be a challenge and may need some pillars or similar.

A downstairs toilet is great, a downstairs shower room is a waste of space unless you have people regularly sleeping down there.

I think that, with the garden stairs where they are, the kitchen had to move to the other side. If they don't have to be there and don't already exist, it may be better to switch the kitchen and stairs.

The dining room is going to be pretty dark I think. A better option to hide all the lego and craft may be to have this as a playroom so you can shut everything away leaving the kitchen diner as the entertaining space.

The corridor with the shower room is a ridiculous waste of space.

I think you could manage to get the steps going in to the utility with a small tweak - effectively you would want to move the wall between kitchen and utility to be in line with the current corner of the house, and to shrink the units in the utility room slightly. This would allow you to move the door leading to the stairs down a little (towards the garage) so that it's actually in the utility room. Because the utility would be a sniff bigger overall you'd be able to get some storage on the left hand wall. Alternatively, if storage is a priority you could actually basically turn what would have been the shower area in to two back to back sections of storage - one accessed from the new family room area for toys, craft stuff, etc and the other from the utility room, and if you wanted a pantry/larder.

See pic!

StatisticallyChallenged's plans are a thousand times better than the architect plans!

The only route for bringing stuff from the front of the house to the rear garden is through the utility then an awkward turn in the kitchen to go down the stairs. I have shitty access to the rear and is it a bit of a pain. If both utility doors were shifted to the right and the access out for the kitchen tweaked, this would be a straight line through the garage.

Good point SoupDragon. If the door was moved in to the utility room (like in my plan), I wonder if you could then put the door from utility room to stairs across the corner rather than straight which would make the route from garage a bit easier as the turn wouldn't be so sharp

I have met with the architect, talked a lot and no longer feel like I've made a huge mistake.

We have decided to add a wrap around balcony meaning the stairs can be moved giving more flexibility. The garage can be accessed from the garden through the utility instead of the house. The middle section has been tidied up and the shower room reduced in size and moved to the back of the utility. I'm hoping the next set of drawings are less disappointing. I'll post the update when I get them.

I'm glad you're feeling more confident :)

If it's any comfort the first set of drawings we had from our architect when we did our garage conversion were dreadful. We like in a conservation area so whilst we were allowed to convert the replacement frontage has to still be a garage style door (albeit with proper glass). Looking around the street there are some up and over moderns but several sets of old wooden garage doors to mimic. Some have minimal glass, just very high level windows about a foot square, whilst others have pretty much half height multi pane glass (not a million miles from a sash window).

Yup, muppet decided that the ones with tiny high level windows would be the ideal look to copy for what was going to become our main livingroom. It would have been like sitting in a dungeon! It was fine in the end (once I told him what to do!) so don't despair.