Anyone have any suggestions for my ground floor layout?

[Sweetmelody72]

Have lots of time on my hands to play about with plans before we finalise for submission to planning.

The walls with diagonal shading are new walls. We are putting a 10.5’ square double storey extension at the front of the house to give us a fourth bedroom. However, this gives extra hallway space which we are struggling to make useful. The downstairs loo is existing but would be happy to relocate. Wondering if we are better off moving the stairs too since it’s in the middle of the house and ceiling height is higher than average. Architect has put a small cloaks cupboard in the new space but we would love to have a bigger boot room with a side entrance if possible (especially since the utility room is in the centre of the house).

Latest version of the plan attached

I would put an external door into the utility room (the one that is now the study) and use that as a place to come in from outside if you have muddy shoes.

I don’t think you need a separate boot room

. Your architect is not that great is she/he? The whole layout is pretty clumsy.

@Eireni 's idea is cracking. Totally agree about having lots of small little rooms with too many doors and walk ways. It will affect your resale value, and looking at your proposed floor plan makes me itch to get out the sledge hammer and open it up a bit. It's not clear to me why you'd need a boot room AND a utility - if you live in a mansion then sure, but it's too many little rooms for a semi.

I also agree about potentially moving though - this all sounds very expensive.

@TinklyLittleLaugh to be fair to the architect, we don't know whether the OP has specifically asked to including all of these rooms though. It's a difficult task to have so many rooms in this amount of space, I'm not sure it could be done particularly elegantly given the OPs requirements. @soupdragon and others have tried but it is tricky.

OP if you are willing to reconsider the total number of rooms then I think your task will become much easier. You seem to currently have four reception rooms (music/lounge/study/snug) with potential addition of a fifth (boot room) as well as kitchen/diner and utility.

Y’know OP, there’s lots of house design enthusiasts who also have time on their hands atm.... if you fancy a bit of crowdsourced inspiration you could always post what your brief to your architect was as see what MN can come up with! How many people in family, what spaces are you wanting for what purposes, what is the outside space (what are those bifolds opening out onto, where are the focal points outside that your eye will be drawn to, how does the house sit in the plot).

If your main focus was adding a 4th bedroom, why did you not go into the attic? No planning permission needed then.

I’m not sure what the problem is with a large hallway - we have an enormous one, and whilst on one hand it’s wasted space, it’s actually really nice to have (it’s an old house and a feature enormous hallway/landing must have been part of the brief). Ours is furnished and the kids play in it quite often. The other option you have is a porch, which again, we have, and is a nice thing if you have the space. We have coat hooks and a shoe rack out there. The cloak cupboard the architect has put in is actually really great, a friend has an enormous hallway cupboard and I’m always really jealous that they can put all their stuff in it.

I also don’t get the issue about the utility in the middle of the house - again, ours is as it’s situated in some kind of scullery/utility area. It’s handy for laundry as most of that comes from upstairs, and then it’s not that far out to the garden on a fair day to hang it up. If I could manage it (if I thought the floors would withstand it) I would opt for an upstairs utility anyway. The downside is that no windows in a utility makes for a bit of a damp space - extraction is a must!

But I do agree that you have lots of odd little rooms, and I’m not sure the whole music room thing works. Also the study/kitchen. The study off the family room probably isn’t going to work either because of general living noise when everyone is around.

I also think you should consider moving house, or considering whether the build costs for this (£200k?) would actually add value to this house.

Tweaking the designs here, how about this.

Extend the cupboard in the hall to the full length with sliding doors. This neatens off the new hallway and makes it look less like an addition.

Study becomes utility/bootroom with new door. Washer/drier/units/sink on one side, full height storage with sliding doors on the other.

Utility becomes a study nook with a half height wall (green) to hide toys behind - make it a built in bookshelf/storage.

Door to old kitchen moved to avoid corridor effect.

Thanks all - delayed reply since busier then ever under lockdown. We got the house for a very good price for the area. A house which has all that we are building would cost £300k more and when they come up, they still need something doing to it.

Eireni's suggestion (and in response to @TinklyLittleLaugh's criticism) was pretty much the first proposal that the architect came back with (although he extended the living room at the front rather than adding the central space to the kitchen/diner at the back). However, it was us that pushed back to try and get more out of the space.

Maybe its the label 'music room' that is causing the problem, but if our son is to continue to pursue his drumming hobby, he needs somewhere to practise on an acoustic kit. He currently has an electronic kit in his bedroom and we said we would consider an acoustic one if we had a soundproofed space for it to go in. His drumming teacher has soundproofed part of his garage at a very reasonable cost. This is where we got the idea. The alternative is to keep the large garage as is for storing crap, and buy a garden shed and soundproof that. Which would surely cost much more.

4th bedroom extension v loft conversion - good question. the house next door (they are linked at the garage) matches ours. They have done the same two story extension at the front. We could explore whether a better value option would be a loft conversion to get a fourth bedroom

@SoupDragon crossed posts. Between you and @Eireni (and allllll the feedback on my alternatives!) you've got me to a comfortable place with this layout. In our last house we had a huge, square, open plan space with kitchen/dining/living areas. The fourth quarter was a windowless playroom with double glass doors on one wall into the open plan area, and a high, long, thin window on another wall to borrow light from the main space. Although I said I would never have open plan kitchen/dining/living again, the playroom worked well. Not ideal, but Id be content with similar again which is what youve described with the study nook.

Optically, would it not be better to stop the cloaks cupboard part way so that the front door is central to the hall and you can then also have a window either side?

Back to the drawing board with the kitchen layout though as Id be losing that back wall...

Maybe it would be helpful to think of what you are trying to achieve from all this work, what does your house not have now that you really want/need?

If you went with the "study nook" option, I'd have the music room door opening from it rather than from the kitchen. I'd make sure that the wall bordering the music room was the exact size to fit units of your fridge/freezer, even if this makes a small full height wall to the Nook.

Yes agreed - that occurred to me too about the door. Thanks

Why not have a very large living room, and an open plan living/dining/kitchen with utility where you have put the study and put in an exterior door.

Put double doors through to the now bigger living room.

Then change your garage into the study (window where the garage doors are) and sound proofed music room behind and build a shed/summerhouse in the garden to store stuff.

Or move the study upstairs to where the closet is.
Block up doors to the bedroom and en-suite and make the bottom left hand corner bedroom the one with the en suite.

I would make the family bathroom larger and more convenient by knocking through to the adjoining en-suite and having the door onto the landing by the top right and top left bedrooms rather than having to walk round the corridor to the entrance at the top of the stairs.

With 4 beds you only need 1 en-suite especially if you have a large family bathroom.

Trying to get too many rooms into a house is a definite no.

I biew a lot of houses and a lot I see all I want to do is sledgehammer down walls to get rid of pokey rooms that serve a specific purpose that could be incorporated into the house elsewhere

It makes sense to have an office upstairs.
Less noise from tv or people chatting or cooking in the kitchen.

Excuse the terrible over-marked sketch...a few suggested changes to give you more regular shaped spaces?

Very intriguing @charlielimacharlie but I’m struggling to work out the rooms. Are you suggesting enter the kitchen via a space for TV? You also still have a family room? Sorry!

Hi @sweetmelody72 .. the scale of my sketch is a bit off! By squaring off your kitchen/dining area (by tucking utility next to study) it gives you a more regular shaped room and by taking down the wall between your proposed utility and kitchen, this could be your entrance into the large kitchen/dining area. You could put a small sofa in this area or furnish it will a nice chair and bookshelves unit etc.

Having the door to the front lounge off the main entrance hall gives a purpose to the hall and it will be a space which is used more regularly. Large cupboard in the hall too for storing all the things you'd like to hide, but you can still maintain a nice wide entrance hall.

Double glazed doors from the hall into the kitchen/dining would bring light into the hall and up the staircase.

Family room/snug at the back which was labelled "kitchen" for more relaxed family time. Door into study from this room and it would be a quieter office space too

Yy to using the front of the garage as the study. Put a window where the door was. Build clever storage elsewhere.

What about something more like this? Utility would have space for bikes etc.

Great space @bernadette ! But I’m really keen to avoid a room that is too open plan. We have lived in a house with kitchen/dining/living in one room and, even with a separate reception room, we found it hard to live with the mess. But I’m taking on board peoples comments about too many little rooms.

@charlielimacharlie door to living room off hallway is a great suggestion. But I don’t think the utility will be big enough

@Sweetmelody72 hope you get the plan sorted the way you want 😊

There are some small utility room ideas online - saw this one and although compact, looks to be a good solution

You keep talking about the mess, but that’s probably related to family life rather than space (she says, looking around at toys strewn across the floor). Regardless of the space you have, it you’re not a tidy person (I’m not) and your kids aren’t good at tidying up (mine aren’t) then the house will always look like a toy shop exploded. Clever storage is the best solution (provided you use it) and you have plenty of space to build in some decent cupboards. We had a designated play room for a couple of months when we moved in here but it was a disaster because it was always messy, the kids just covered the floor with toys, then moved away from playing in it because it was untidy. I’ve found having play space all over the house but better tidying up to be the best option

switch your utility into the space marked as a study, so it's next to the kitchen and not in the middle of the house as a walk-through room.

About a million years ago maybe a month? I was looking at new houses and one of them had a utility like this in the hallway. It was so odd and felt wrong. The neighbouring showhome had it off the kitchen/with direct garden access door which felt much more sensible.

(House one was actually a combined utility and downstairs toilet, if that's any inspiration? Loo and a long worktop with cupboards/sink and washer and dryer)