What would you do with this Victorian terrace layout??

[1Cush32]

Hi all,

I am considering buying a Victorian terrace and the house has lots of potential to improve the layout but too many options and I’m struggling to work out what’s best. This is the house with floor plan: Brompton Road, Southsea
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-76931709.html

I’ve got the upstairs plan sorted I think - we would rotate the staircase 180 degrees (so that the bottom of the stairs come out beside the chimney breast in the dining room) which frees up some of the corridor space upstairs to make room for a small bathroom including toilet, sink and bath with shower. This leaves two doubles + one single + one small family bathroom upstairs, and will leave room under the new stairs for a large coat cupboard.

Where I need help is on the downstairs. Current layout is pretty traditional: lounge at the front (with the wall already removed between lounge and hallway), a wall and stairs cutting across the middle of the property, then a dining room, leading into a narrow kitchen (2.2m wide) and onto a downstairs bathroom. We are on a tightish budget due to the ceiling price on the road so want to work within the existing footprint rather than extend. We would remove the lean to as this is totally rotten.

I’d love to know which of these layouts you think is best (or if you have other suggestions):

• Knock through the dining room/kitchen wall and knock through current kitchen into old bathroom (maintaining a small WC to one side) leaving you with an L-shaped kitchen and dining space, where the kitchen is a long galley kitchen (5.2m x 2.2m) with patio doors onto the garden at the end.
• Same as the above but also with the under cupboard stairs changed to house a washer and dryer stacked on top of one another (but then you lose the main storage space for coats, shoes etc)
• Remove dining room/kitchen wall to create the L-shaped kitchen dining room, but keep the existing walls up housing what is currently a bathroom. Change this to be a combined WC and proper Utility Room. Downside of this plan is the kitchen ends up smaller (4m x 2.2m) and you lose the direct view onto the garden from the front entrance of the house so less light, as you would now access the garden from patio doors onto the side return from either the dining room or the kitchen.

I am stuck! What would you do? And any other ideas I’ve not thought of?

Thanks so much!

It does seem alot of work and moving stairs and putting in a bathroom is expensive.

For the downstairs I would knock through the kitchen and existing lounge to have a family room. Then stud wall the lounge so it is separate. Alot of terraces have a bathroom downstairs that didn't bother me when I lived in one.

The best I’ve seen on a budget is the middle room into a kitchen and the kitchen into a dining room.

Makes more sense if the space

We had a very similar house, we put the kitchen in the middle room and had a kind of garden room at the back. After seeing a friend's new-build, I slightly regretted not putting the kitchen in the front with a narrow corridor and having a huge living room at the back (extended into the lean to). We managed to get a nice pantry under the stairs.

Moving the stairs wasn't really an option, the cost was prohibitive- have other houses on your street done it?

I would suggest looking at the plans for new-builds of a similar type and square footage. NOT to take away the character but because they are smart with every inch of space.

Are other similar houses lacking the big garden? Is that the draw of this one? In which case, you should definitely prioritise windows onto the garden / access to the garden / etc. Which means moving the bathroom and knocking the wall down between it & kitchen.

You could replace the lean-to with a conservatory - I know they’re hated on here, but would be much cheaper. Looks like it would be shaded most of the day, so useable in summer. Could you then put washer /dryer/ etc in there? If so, is there then enough space & headroom under the stairs for a tiny loo? Alternatively replace lean to with proper extension and make it part loo, part utility.

Could you split bedroom 1 into 2 rooms, with the cupboard becoming a doorway to the landing. The current doorway goes into the “bedroom” part, and the “new” doorway the bathroom. You could jig the space around to give an adequate sized bathroom and a bedroom with a slightly odd “corner missing” shape. Then that gives you upstairs bathroom & 3 bedrooms still, although it looks like plumbing services are all on the back wall it should be feasible still. Upstairs bathroom wouldn’t have any window.

Personally I’d be happier to compromise on one bedroom having an odd shape than I would on price, number of bedrooms, downstairs layout, or garden.

So I agree rotating the stairs 180degrees is best so that landing is on left. But that’s where we diverge.

-convert second bedroom into upstairs family bath room. It is directly above kitchen so the plumbing will be easy to install and much cheaper.

-expand bedroom #3 into where landing was and have closets in both bedroom #3 and #1 on left instead of right.

-knock out wall between kitchen and downstairs bath and convert downstairs bath into eat in/dining space.

-tear down lean to and replace with conservatory to maximise natural light.

-dining room becomes home office, homework area and sitting area. Consider rebuilding that knocked out wall on the right otherwise TV noise might come in from lounge.

-lounge stays a lounge/family room with TV and comfy seating, is open to kitchen so very homely. And also steps into new conservatory and garden so good for parties (Post Covid).

• alternatively can fit downstairs WC on right between lounge and old dining room by using the space there and having sink area under stairs.

And how much is all that going to cost? There are much nicer houses for £15,000 more nearby that don’t need much done. This house doesn’t have a hall and it’s one of the ugliest. The blue paint would stop me buying it! It’s over priced.

Who puts their washer and dryer in a conservatory? Expensive and ugly.

For the downstairs, I think option 3 makes best use of space for lowest investment. A utility room is my dream and will free you up from having washing drying around the house - bliss!

We have this kind of layout - the dog leg bit at the back. We have squeezed a bathroom in upstairs by stealing from the back bedroom. Downstairs there was a loo at the back. We got rid of this to do double doors into the garden. And my intention is to know through between the dining room and kitchen to connect the spaces. Our living room is at the front.

Those stairs really are backwards. How's that happened?

I live in a similar property and I don't think three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs is realistic without extending. You'll be making the bedrooms miniscule! These houses end up with downstairs bathrooms for a reason, but I think you could probably fit in an upstairs toilet.

Consider a "furniture window" in the front bedroom. I don't know if there's another term for it, because that seems un-Googleable? But I mean a window that can fully open wide for hauling furniture in and out that won't go up the stairs.

Open plan is going out of fashion, because it means noise travels. I don't think the downstairs needs much doing, though you may want to decide whether the stairs are reached via the front or back room

@1Cush32

Hi all,

I am considering buying a Victorian terrace and the house has lots of potential to improve the layout but too many options and I’m struggling to work out what’s best. This is the house with floor plan: Brompton Road, Southsea
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-76931709.html

I’ve got the upstairs plan sorted I think - we would rotate the staircase 180 degrees (so that the bottom of the stairs come out beside the chimney breast in the dining room) which frees up some of the corridor space upstairs to make room for a small bathroom including toilet, sink and bath with shower. This leaves two doubles + one single + one small family bathroom upstairs, and will leave room under the new stairs for a large coat cupboard.

Where I need help is on the downstairs. Current layout is pretty traditional: lounge at the front (with the wall already removed between lounge and hallway), a wall and stairs cutting across the middle of the property, then a dining room, leading into a narrow kitchen (2.2m wide) and onto a downstairs bathroom. We are on a tightish budget due to the ceiling price on the road so want to work within the existing footprint rather than extend. We would remove the lean to as this is totally rotten.

I’d love to know which of these layouts you think is best (or if you have other suggestions):

• Knock through the dining room/kitchen wall and knock through current kitchen into old bathroom (maintaining a small WC to one side) leaving you with an L-shaped kitchen and dining space, where the kitchen is a long galley kitchen (5.2m x 2.2m) with patio doors onto the garden at the end.
• Same as the above but also with the under cupboard stairs changed to house a washer and dryer stacked on top of one another (but then you lose the main storage space for coats, shoes etc)
• Remove dining room/kitchen wall to create the L-shaped kitchen dining room, but keep the existing walls up housing what is currently a bathroom. Change this to be a combined WC and proper Utility Room. Downside of this plan is the kitchen ends up smaller (4m x 2.2m) and you lose the direct view onto the garden from the front entrance of the house so less light, as you would now access the garden from patio doors onto the side return from either the dining room or the kitchen.

I am stuck! What would you do? And any other ideas I’ve not thought of?

Thanks so much!

Thank you everyone for your ideas and suggestions! It has definitely made me think twice about this house! We've done the sums so we know that once the work is done we would make it back by increasing the value of the property by more than we've spent, but just want to make sure we are maximising the layout and not wasting money on unnecessary changes!

Thanks again

Not from the prices I’ve seen. You have no hall. It has no front garden. You are kidding yourselves. Sorry.

I would say your ceiling price is less than this
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/76778820#/ which looks over priced if you compare with last years sold figures for that road

www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/po4-9al.html

New to the market and no expensive renovation to under take and end of terrace.
I can’t see a larger garden adding that much more value as people don’t expect a large garden in these terraces. Plus the fact that the garden might be larger but it needs some work and isn’t going to get much sun.