Help me redesign?

[Layouthelpplease]

Hi wise mumsnetters,

We're currently trying to work out a redesign of our ground floor to give us a much more useable kitchen and family space and I'm just hitting a brick wall (literally) in how best to do it.

Ideally want to create an open plan kitchen/family/dining room, a big utility and downstairs shower room while keeping the existing lounge as is. The chimney breast will be coming out the dining room anyway as we're removing it upstairs for other work so that's not something to work around but the walls between the dining room and kitchen and dining room and sitting room are both load bearing so we probably can't easily take them both out and/or will need to fact in support pillars etc. We have 2 very small children and might have a third so at the moment it's a bit of nightmare cooking where I can't keep an eye on them and we're all using the kitchen as a corridor for the back room and downstairs loo. I've added the estate agents drawings for measurements and an architects drawing so you can see the whole plot and more accurately drawn plan. We probably can't really think about extending much (if any) further for cost and loss of garden space.

So, what would you do??

(Obviously name changed as hugely outing as well)

My very bad diagram is moving the wall of the dining room back a bit and splitting the old kitchen space into utility and loo. Then the bigger dining room becomes the kitchen and the sitting room become half dining and half sofa/play space for the kids.

Not sure how you design a kitchen around the bay window though.

What about making a cloakroom and shower room where the current kitchen sink drains out, then making the main room more square? You could move the utility to this area as well. Then some coat storage to the left of the hallway behind the stairs.

@beggingforsleep

My very bad diagram is moving the wall of the dining room back a bit and splitting the old kitchen space into utility and loo. Then the bigger dining room becomes the kitchen and the sitting room become half dining and half sofa/play space for the kids.

Not sure how you design a kitchen around the bay window though.

Funnily enough I'd thought about this tonight, just such a pain all the walls are load bearing so need to get quotes for steels but I think this could work really nicely. Thank you

@PragmaticWench

What about making a cloakroom and shower room where the current kitchen sink drains out, then making the main room more square? You could move the utility to this area as well. Then some coat storage to the left of the hallway behind the stairs.

Ohh I hadn't thought about doing this, thank you, something else to work on.

Basically same as begging.

Think would have sofa near door doing in.

Kitchen near utility and dining table opposite

here is one option.

move the WC & utility into the existing kitchen (WC & U on plan), keeping most of the walls the same and making use of the existing plumbing - if the WC backs onto the same wall as it is on now, that is easier.

Open an archway from dining room (D) to the new kitchen (K). Also, open up the non-load bearing wall from the kitchen to the hall and put a new door a bit further down. This gives you valuable extra kitchen space. your kitchen then can fit a big fridge/freezer (F) plus hob (H) and sink (S) on one long run of worksurface. And there would be space for a small table too.

In the dining room, you could fit either a big table for 10 across the whole room or a smaller round table. I drew the smaller option because I think (from the garden plans) that you will be using the dining room door as your main door into the house, and so it might be good to have more space nearby. In fact, I might be tempted to build a large porch with storage for coats & boots & kids scooters etc on the outside of the dining room door if that were possible.

I'm not going to comment on the options but I would highly recommend downloading Magicplan.

You can import the floor plans and trace them.

Then muck about knocking walls down / adding doors / moving windows etc and see how it all looks. There's also furniture and kitchen units etc so you can see how it all could fit in.

I started on Friday and am addicted!!

As you are taking out the chimney breast in the dining room, could you take out that whole wall and have a steel across for support and make the kitchen diner the centre of the house?

Like this?

We've got a steel in our downstairs across the whole width of the house, it wasn't a big deal, 6 years ago about a £1,000 plus structural calculations. I didn't want a pillar.
What was surprisingly costly was moving gas, electricity and plumbing, this was downstairs.

@FusionChefGeoff

I'm not going to comment on the options but I would highly recommend downloading Magicplan.

You can import the floor plans and trace them.

Then muck about knocking walls down / adding doors / moving windows etc and see how it all looks. There's also furniture and kitchen units etc so you can see how it all could fit in.

I started on Friday and am addicted!!

Thank you, I'll check it out

@parietal

here is one option.

move the WC & utility into the existing kitchen (WC & U on plan), keeping most of the walls the same and making use of the existing plumbing - if the WC backs onto the same wall as it is on now, that is easier.

Open an archway from dining room (D) to the new kitchen (K). Also, open up the non-load bearing wall from the kitchen to the hall and put a new door a bit further down. This gives you valuable extra kitchen space. your kitchen then can fit a big fridge/freezer (F) plus hob (H) and sink (S) on one long run of worksurface. And there would be space for a small table too.

In the dining room, you could fit either a big table for 10 across the whole room or a smaller round table. I drew the smaller option because I think (from the garden plans) that you will be using the dining room door as your main door into the house, and so it might be good to have more space nearby. In fact, I might be tempted to build a large porch with storage for coats & boots & kids scooters etc on the outside of the dining room door if that were possible.

Unfortunately we couldn't bring that wall back as the stairs are fairly low and open in that hallway. I've been trying to make better use of that chunk of hallway on route to the existing kitchen as well (unsuccessfully)

@longtompot

As you are taking out the chimney breast in the dining room, could you take out that whole wall and have a steel across for support and make the kitchen diner the centre of the house?

We are as it's quite big and we have to take it out upstairs to create a corridor so seems sensible to take it out in that room as well. Good idea adding the hall in that way too, will need to see if we could support steels there as weirdly every single wall in this house is load bearing

@mandoforever

We've got a steel in our downstairs across the whole width of the house, it wasn't a big deal, 6 years ago about a £1,000 plus structural calculations. I didn't want a pillar. What was surprisingly costly was moving gas, electricity and plumbing, this was downstairs.

I'm very much hoping it's around that kind of cost but everyone is very doom and gloom about costs atm

I have been looking at your layout and it hasn't been easy to come up with an easy solution, considering all of the load-bearing walls! If the fireplace/chimney is being removed from the current dining room, why not move your kitchen in there and open up a section of wall between this room and your current sitting room? I see there is a change in level between these two spaces - you could make a feature with wide steps down from the kitchen into a dining / family space. Moving your utility room and creating a shower room where your current kitchen is a good option. You would need a steel beam where you create the opening but this could be an option to create that open plan family space without being too intrusive to the structure. Happy planning!

@charlielimacharlie you win!

@charlielimacharlie

I have been looking at your layout and it hasn't been easy to come up with an easy solution, considering all of the load-bearing walls! If the fireplace/chimney is being removed from the current dining room, why not move your kitchen in there and open up a section of wall between this room and your current sitting room? I see there is a change in level between these two spaces - you could make a feature with wide steps down from the kitchen into a dining / family space. Moving your utility room and creating a shower room where your current kitchen is a good option. You would need a steel beam where you create the opening but this could be an option to create that open plan family space without being too intrusive to the structure. Happy planning!

Wow that's amazing! Very impressed with the drawing thank you. The more we keep looking at the rooms I think this is the closest to what we're trying to achieve.

Sorry I should have mentioned but didn't think it was that noticeable on the drawings, the current sitting room is down a level but the chimney breast removal is because we're extending out over that extension upstairs which will allow us to raise that floor level to the same as the rest of the house so wouldn't even need the steps.

@Layouthelpplease even better if there's no change of level!