London victorian house layout query

[SarfE4sticated]

Hi there,
we are currently looking to buy a house near us, and i need some inspiration. I prefer houses with a square floorplan, so kitchen/dining room can be knocked into one and both look onto garden. Most of the houses near us are victorian with a long and narrow floorplan, so I need some help seeing the potential.
I have attached the floorplan, what do we do with that long thin living room? Garden is north facing so the back of the house would be a bit gloomy. we mostly use our living room for tv watching or reading, kitchen for eating/working, and garden for hanging out.
Most of our friends have this layout, and the back half of the sitting room always becomes a bit of a dumping ground for a piano or camping equipment!
We wouldn't have any money for extensions, so would need to make the most of it as it is now.

Mine is a bit like yours. We have original dividing doors that separate the living room section from the dining room section. They fold completely back so we have either one big room or two smaller rooms. With the doors shut the back room is dark, even with french doors leading into the side return. Ours is more like a second reception room with a lot of bookshelves and a piano and one cosy chair. There is a dining table but we tend to have it against the wall and only bring it unto the centre sometimes. I’d put a sofa in the kitchen too.

Bifold doors so you can have front and back halves so you can havevtge two halves as they were originally intended or opened up of you feel like it.
Dining table in the back half. It's nice in the evening with lamps on.
Make the kitchen more of a family space. Sofa and a smaller kitchen table too if it will further than a full on dining table. That serves as a homework zone too.
How many of you are there and what ages are kids?
Maybe open the wall between ok then and back living room? But that will need rsj etc and might cost.
If it's a forever home eventually put patio bifold doors across back of house and fill the side gap with a glass roofed extension. Makes the most of the light there is.
What's surrounding the garden and how close are surrounding buildings/ big trees?
My garden in NE. Faging. Large ish and not as dhadycas you'd imagine. All is not lost
How much do you like the house and location overall?
Any way you might be able yo sneak a nice ensuite shower and loo behind the door of front bedroom.posd Chang the side of door hinges? My friend has a really tiny ensuite but it does the job. The room it long enough from to back.

Also i hate floor plan measurements. They dont give you a realistic concept of portion sizes where through room sizes are listed. Is the house online could you pm with images? Maybe you could dm me details so i can judge better? Im pretty good at dedign I think. My sis Is a designer I could run it past her if you like ?

Is the kitchen on a lower level than rest of house. Not obvious form plan.looks like it may be.

I'd lose the utility on the end and stick it down the side which will also make your kitchen diner a bit wider. Then you can have bi-fold doors into the garden.

We've got a similar layout and tbh it's a complete nightmare. We are only renting until we buy but we currently can't get any of our furniture in downstairs. The back room of the living room is a horrible dumping ground - books, piano, boxes and other stuff as we have nowhere else to put it. And a huge sofa facing a bookcase because it is the only place it will fit!

If you can hold out for a squarer downstairs arrangement, I would. Upstairs is fine, we even have an attic conversion but downstairs not great for a family imo.

I'm looking into my north facing garden right now and it's flooded with sun! It's stepped up slightly about 1m higher than the house ground level and slopes up which helps.

Could you put in a doorway from the rear living room directly into the kitchen? Would need a structural engineer to confirm if it could be done without putting an extra beam in.

This is the exact layout of my house and I love it. I have a north facing garden and it's fine - I have absolutely no issue with it.

If you search on rightmove for areas which have a lot of Victorian terraced houses ou will find a lot of inspiration.

If you can afford it get a side return in the kitchen - it will change the ground floor to rectangle shape.

I've lived in this exact layout for 15 years and to be honest I'm fed up of long, think living.

I saw one house recently where they had turned the back half of the kitchen into a living room looking on to the garden, and the kitchen/diner was the front half of the kitchen (with a corridor running down one side to get into the back living room) and the back half of the through lounge. Not perfect but an interesting layout. I'll see if I can find the house details.

here you go www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82112126.html

CassianAndor, that’s an interesting way of going about the layout. Nice to have a sitting room overlooking the garden.

Do you have children/plans for them in future? I would spend the money either putting the wall back in (floor plan shows access from hallway?) and make it a play room/second TV room. If there is only a window looking out to the garden now then replace with a glass door. Keep the main lounge as the adult space and much better furniture placement options.

If you were already going to decorate the rooms to your own taste/change flooring it wouldn't cost a lot more to do the work at the same time (we had similar work done in the North and it cost £1000 for creating a new opening in exterior wall and buying and installing double patio doors, and £700 for stud wall and plaster patch up and new skirting, builder supplied and fitted everything), you could even do the glass door at a later date if budget is tight now

put the utility things in the kitchen diner next to where downstairs loo behind kitchen door, you could reverse the way the door opens. then change utility into a seating area with french doors or possibly use it as dining area the utility room looks huge in proportion to house

Funnily enough George Clarke did a house like this last night on Old House New House, you can probably find it on Channel 4 catch up. They made the central room as a TV room with plenty of storage. Painted the walls dark to make it cosy.

However I would be wary about buying a house with a north facing garden. That's one thing you can't change however much you mess around with the layout. And I'm not sure about having the utility room at the back of the house, surely that means you won't get garden views?

I'm the same @CassiAndor! So sick of this layout. I've found almost my dream property but unfortunately this one also has a north facing garden
here

Sorry op! not much help to you. We've changed the furniture and use of our 3 downstairs rooms quite a bit as the family has grown. When we moved in the two living rooms had been knocked through but we put the wall back, with reclaimed doors with half glass panelling between, just to give us three rooms rather than two really. Currently the "back" living room is a study and gaming room.

Next we love those houses! One if our favourite roads.

Nextphonewontbesamsung, That's a really cool house and a really big reception room. You could definitely host Christmas in there.

our current place is the ground floor of exactly that house layout, and it is a bit annoying tbh, I think we will wait for a square floorplan house. There are some near us, and are apparently not as popular as Victorian houses, so might find a bargain.
Thanks everyone, i really appreciate your help.
Love the houses in Dulwich and Sydenham by the way

Good luck, OP!

Ours is wider than it's deep and it was very easy to make it very light and practical.

Don't be fooled by a north facing garden! If it's reasonably long it'll get sun at the back. Our last Victorian semi was identical layout and orientation to this and it was fine. Our plan was to eventually extend the ground floor but we moved instead.

Kids play area/piano etc to the rear of living room.

TV, sofa in the front. Very common layout around here (SW London).

Goldpendant, the back of the garden can get light. The problem with N facing windows is the permanently gloomy interior.

We used to have a house like this but ours was worse.

With yours I’d make the front room a formal sitting room, dividing IKEA kallax and make the back part a study/playroom/extra guest room with a sofa bed/hobby room/dining room.. which suits your lifestyle. Paint the back room white and have a large mirror to bounce light around, try and keep it uncluttered with storage benches if it’s used as a play room.

I like the idea of a sofa in the kitchen it’s telly. It’s a good way of keeping family together.