Which room configuration do you prefer?

[Lostconsonants]

Apologies in advance for the length of this post.

DH and I live in a 1930s bungalow which was originally three beds, kitchen, sitting room, dining room and bathroom. In the 1970s an additional living room extension was added along the back of the house. The kitchen and dining room are both open to this room but hidden from each other by a wall. At some point in the 1980s the smallest bedroom was turned into a second bathroom. When we moved in we converted this to an accessible wet room (DH has disabilities)

The kitchen is small with hardly any work surface and a very awkward layout - pantry door halfway down one long end and door to the outside a bit further down, door to the hallway on one short end and the other short end is open to the living room. This, added to the fact it’s narrow, makes it feel very much like a walkway with an oven in it rather than a proper room!

We have two double bedrooms - one is ours, the other is the spare room which doubles as a hobby room for DH - he has a couple of hobbies that have a lot of equipment and need space - more than is actually available in the room - this is important as he is unable to get out and about much even outside of lockdown.

When we bought it was marketed as three double beds but what was presented as the master bedroom is really more suited to being a sitting room - it’s away from the other bedrooms and bathrooms and you have to walk past the front door and windows to get to them from it. It’s a lovely room and having some living space away from the kitchen is important to us - we were open plan in the last house and didn’t really like it.

So the current layout is:

2 double bedrooms (not massive but ok sizes)
Small kitchen - open to living room
Living room
Dining room - open to living room
Sitting room
Wet room
bathroom

I think the house is unbalanced and ideally I would like to move the kitchen into the living room extension and block off and rip out the current kitchen and turn that into bedroom 3/hobby room.

So then the layout would be:

3 bedrooms (2 doubles and one very small double or very good sized single)
Good sized kitchen with space for some soft seating
Dining room open to kitchen
Sitting room
Shower room
Bathroom (also considering converting this to a WC/utility)

It may not be affordable but I’d be really interested in people’s views on the potential layout versus current one.

I’ve attached the floor plan from when we bought.

Thanks if you’ve made it through all that!

Can you draw on the pic what you plan?

I agree that sounds like a sensible plan. the pantry could stay as a cupboard for the bedroom, which is very useful in a small room.

Thanks for the replies.

@WitchWindows - oh, I know - that would make a lovely bedroom/en-suite. Frustratingly we thought of that but only after doing the wet room. We didn’t have the luxury of being able to live with the house before deciding what to do as DH needed a safe bathroom ASAP. Can’t do it now as we spent a lot on the wet room. Glad you think the basic idea is a good one though.

@parietal- yes, the pantry could become a wardrobe for the new bedroom.

@intheningnangnong - sorry - can’t get mark up to work for some reason but basically it’s just living room becomes kitchen and kitchen becomes bedroom 3.

Hi Lost,
Why not move the kitchen into the dining room and the living space then remains where it is with the dining table moved into that area? I think that helps the flow of the house better. Also, you wouldn't have to move any services because the kitchen is just moving to the other side of the wall.

Would you keep the outside door opening from the new bedroom/hobby room, and would it be a dark room for hobbies bearing in mind the other rooms have more natural light?

Sounds like it would really work and you’d end up with a very liveable space. I can’t imagine the costs would be astronomically than they’d be to put in a new kitchen. What would you use the new bedroom/hobby room for? Would DH have two hobby rooms?

I like what Fartlek has done

How about just knocking down the wall the between the kitchen and the dining room and having a low line of units as a divider and possibly an island? I would have big floor to ceiling glass doors so you can see in from the front door.

Hi @Fartlek. We did think about doing that and it definitely makes sense when you look at it on paper but in reality I’m not sure it would work. The dining room is a lovely room to sit in in the evening but wouldn’t work so well as a kitchen as the natural light is a bit limited. Plus I didn’t really like the idea of people having to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining/living areas and we’d have to move the door.

@Bamaluz - we’d probably change the door to a window. Not really necessary for our needs but might be desirable further down the line if we were selling with this room as a bedroom. I don’t think light would be an issue as one of DH’s hobbies doesn’t require natural light.

@Betty98
We’d either use this room as a shared study that DH could use for one hobby that doesn’t require much light but that I could also use as a study, or DH would get the other room exclusively for both hobbies and the new room would be spare room/ my study. We’d have to raise the height of the windows in the existing living room to accommodate kitchen counters (sorry, cut this info out of my original post as it was practically turning into a novel in length!) this is what I think would push the costs up - no idea what this would cost 🤔
@bestbefore that would certainly make for a lovely space but we’d still be left without the third bedroom/study. You are clearly a much, much tidier cook than I am - I don’t think I could cope with people seeing into my kitchen from the front door

Thanks for the suggestions - really appreciate people taking the time. I’ve gone through so many permutations in my head and I think what I’ve come up would be great for us while we live here and, I hope, would make it more balanced and appealing to more potential buyers when the time comes to move. Interested in any views on current layout versus the one in my head.

Haven’t even broached any of this with DH who gets totally stressed with the idea of someone coming in to do any sort of work let alone something like this!

Thanks again