Help me with rubbish layout downstairs!

[obviouslymarvellous]

We have lived in current house for almost 9 years and desperately need more space downstairs. My issue with lounge has always been the odd shape, the fact it's a thoroughfare to rest of house and it's quite a dark space. We have always thought about squaring off the lounge and making a utility area out of that space and then knocking into integral garage. However there is still no way around thoroughfare and also we would have two nibs for joist. The other issue is the electrics box which is in garage and next to door into garage (220 cms along wall) which is also in porch (not shown on diagram) what would you do? The red line shows where we would square off lounge. I have thought about using garage as lounge but quite tight but with an opening to current lounge would it work???

Pic attached for some reason it said unable to post thread but has done three times!

Pic

I think if you divide your sitting room like that it will just be very small. I think if you want extra space you will have to go sideways into the garage, or, as you say, use the garage in its entirety. Is there anyway of moving the front door? I don't know if you're detached, semi or terraced.
Have you thought about chatting to an achitect?
Moving the consumer unit would not be a problem, but of course it's an added expense.

I would remove the door and wall at the bottom of the stairs which would free up that space and make the living room squarer which would make it feel a lot larger. I would then maybe put a glass door, or even glass french doors or biford doors through into the kitchen/dining room to bring more light through into the living room. The living room will always be a bit of a throughfare due to where the front door is but making the room squarer would help that a bit

Alternative would be to move the front door completely to the side of the house and have a porch there, but that would depend on your garden etc and may make the front of the house look a bit odd?

I would block both doors into the living room and use the garage space as the entrance. And I'd knock the wall down in between the living room and dining area. Hopefully that makes sense 😂

We are detached and moving front door not really an option. We would use garage in entirety for conversion it's just the walkway though the middle of it and then the pillars. Just wondering would it look too disjointed.

There is a downstairs toilet at bottom of stairs so if we opened it all up the toilet would be in our lounge 🤣

I lived in a house with exact same floor plan. Except the prior owner (who was a builder) put on a downstairs extension in the back off the kitchen. Then extended lounge full width of house, bringing in light. It was a lovely home. I will draw a floor plan and upload it so you can see.

Here is the floor plan we had.

Ha ha that's what we were going to do originally but a full across the back job. We were just weighing up options. These houses certainly are a weird layout downstairs and we have managed it's the thoroughfare that really annoys me and the odd angled door 🤣🤣🤣

Yeah they are weird. Ours was semi detached along garage wall too.
One thing to consider is impact of any increase in home value versus costs of different options. You could ping a local estate agent to give you an opinion on impact of losing garage but gaining internal space versus keeping garage and adding small extension on the back.
The worst is to spend tons of money upgrading a place only to find out your home value has only gone up a fraction of what you spent!

@AngelasAshes any chance of a pic of your extension (cf I know 🤣🤣🤣) no worries if not!

@obviouslymarvellous
Sorry no. We don’t live there anymore. We moved a few years ago and live in a farmhouse.

I think Bigglasses has it right but I understand the limitation with the loo. The only workaround I can think of, without an extension, is to convert the garage to a study and have a downstairs loo in the back 1/4 or so of it. It would still be a little odd. I don't think partitioning the living room is the right thing - 10' square or so is just a bit tight. Perhaps the problem is not so much that people go through the living room - that's fairly normal. Maybe the problem is that the room is a little narrow for it to comfortably function as both living area and walkthrough space. Something like using small side tables instead of a main coffee table might help perhaps?

I think you need to be really clear about what your goals are. If it is just to make your living room a bit less annoying and less dark, is that really worth 10k? 15k? 20k? Whereas if you are short of space and would really like a study/ playroom/utility/more separate loo for its own sake, then that's a better reason to look at serious changes like garage conversion or extension. Money on a good extension that makes sense is often worth it, but white elephant extensions aren't.

I've seen a great extension of a house similar to this where they used the old kitchen as a downstairs loo & utility, the old dining area became a playroom and there was a full width kitchen diner extension on the back. However, that is not going to solve your stated problem of an annoying and dark living room.