Really need some advice on this before we offer

[LAlexander7]

HI,

We're going to place and offer on a 3 bedroom detached property. You can access it from the street level to 3 rooms. Kitchen/Living Room/ Dining room.

However to access the garden you have to enter the cellar to get to the garden and its looks like garden level is about 1.5 stories below the kitchen if that makes sense?

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61967313.html

Any ideas how we could improve this? This is a massive compromise for us. But the rooms are large, and location is good for us.

We felt even with a raised deck it would still be really high.

Any ideas?

Sorry I don't have anything helpful to add, but the kitchen hurts my eyes 😂

Is the cellar access good? I.e. good lighting, stairs and ceiling height?

If so, this really wouldn't bother me at all UNLESS I have very young children.

I think it's a lovely house & having to go down stairs again for the garden wouldn't bother me but I don't have young children. I wouldn't want little ones playing out alone with that configuration.

Turn the utility or garden room on the lower ground into a family room so that you can be sitting there when kids are running in and out? I think that would help the garden feel less isolated from the rest of the house.

To be honest it wouldn't bother me much.

Cellar access is OK, normal not dark or anything.

We don't have children but we're hoping to get pregnant at some point or adopt.

Do kids like to run in and out a lot or do they tend to stay outside? I would propose a fridge in the cellar and a toilet. That way there isn't a huge need to go up and down the cellar stairs.

Friends with very similar put an extension on and made the basement level into a large kitchen and family room with a utility and boot room.
Then on the ground floor they had a playroom, living room and office. They kept a small area of the old kitchen to allow them to make drinks and snacks without going down to basement level. They also had a second washing machine and tumble drier.

I see what you mean now I look at it. Yes, seems fine to me - it's just the outcome of the house being on a slope presumably so it's not like it's an odd layout or anything. Odd layouts like overly narrow corridors or rooms that have to be accessed through other rooms when you'd not normally do that are a big no-no for me, but this house looks fine. Very nice in fact! Good luck.

It could pose a problem if you have young children as you wouldn't be able to leave them unsupervised in the garden if you were say, cooking in the kitchen upstairs. As a pp said, maybe think about converting the cellar spaces to a large kitchen diner but this might be £££.

If you can afford to, I'd convert the basement level into a big kitchen diner.

I would absolutely convert the cellar into a kitchen. Think Edna's kitchen in Absolutely Fabulous. It would be great IMO. And yes, kids do want to run in and out all the bloody time

We lived in a house with a similar layout and access to the garden via the cellar which was at ground floor level at the rear of the house. Think very carefully about how the house would be used, flow and room purpose if you were to move the kitchen to the cellar. We considered doing this and decided we would end up with the current dining room not being used. We had an office cum spare bedroom in the cellar, utility room, downstairs loo and a storage room.

You could do what I've seen quite a bit in Canada and the US on property programmes and have a kitchenette/family room down there. Great for visitors, especially if you can fit a shower room and you could have a summer living room, opening up to the garden.

I'd be making deductions for the awful red kitchen though.

Versatile downstairs as possible eg bar/games room/gym/cinema while you don't have dc then playroom etc as they grow. Small bathroom a must, especially for film night etc!
The only (small) thing that puts me off this house is that it is SO staged that is it actually liveable in or are they covering something up?
And can I just say, mothers don't live in the kitchen so if you can't see them you work around it. People have kitchens at the front of the house and cope so this set up would be fine.
I love the house so good luck

Gorgeous house. Agree with previous posters, I would covert the basement level and put a massive kitchen / diner / family room down there with access to the garden. Upstairs would be more formal sitting room, dining room and you could turn the old kitchen into a fourth bedroom?

You could do things like that further down the line though. As it stands, it's still a lovely house.

Looks lovely. I’m just jealous that you can buy something for 250k

I can’t quite figure out from the blurred floor plan but does the layout have any risks for fire safety? If there’s only one exit on the ground floor, does that mean you need additional safety precautions on the stairs etc? (Remember also the cellars of any kind can be much more risky for flooding than regular houses so make sure you have a good surveyor)

You could consider putting a door and outdoor staircase down to the garden, like you might see in a city flat. I’ve no idea whether you’d need planning permission or not but it’s another option. Have any other houses nearby got a similar layout?

I can’t see a basement kitchen-diner being particularly appealing myself - it would seem very odd to me and would probably result in your ground floor being entirely under-used.

Beautiful house —but the kitchen would have to go—

sycamore there are lots of houses with a similar layout in our area. Our old house had windows you could easily climb out of if you couldn't get up the stairs or out of the door.

A door off the kitchen with an outside staircase could be added for access to the garden. Quite a lot of a Victorian terraces I've seen have that kind of arrangement. If it was permitted, a raised veranda could be put on the back of the house.