Can you help me plan this space please?

[SpidersAreShitheads]

After many posts and much help from MN, we now have an offer accepted on a house. Much, much excitement here.

It's an unusual move as we're splitting part of the house off to create an annexe (self-contained) for DM. We have a budget to do a bit of work on her side of the property but also to extend our side to make up for what we're losing.

The house has a generous south-facing garden. The house is very tired and needs a lot of love. That meant we were able to get a competitive purchase price and have a decent amount to spend. However, with everything we'd ultimately like to do, it will still be a bit tight financially. We may have to wait to do some of the work, but we'll see.

The trouble is I've never been in a position of being able to plan a space before! I have the details of a decent architect so I'm guessing I should contact them to plan out the extension and rooms?? Or is it possible to do that ourselves, with help from our (very lovely) builder?

I've seen some brilliant posts and ideas on here, so I was wondering whether as a starting point you clever folk could make some suggestions re layout?

I need:

*a reasonable kitchen - preferably a kitchen diner with space for a six-seater table
*a living room
*a study that also doubles up as a second living room/snug
*a shower room
*utility room or just have as part of the kitchen?

We were thinking about keeping the existing living room as the study/snug as it has a fireplace in it and it a really good size for that purpose.

The extension is planned to go out by about 15ft? and right the way across the full 25ft width. That should avoid full planning permission but still provide quite a lot of extra space.

I'm attaching a floor plan of our section of the house - I've chopped off the bit that my mum is going to have so that it doesn't confuse matters (but basically her annexe sits above my kitchen and we will be blocking that door off).

Would anyone like to make any suggestions about how we could arrange this space? The possibilities of making my brain boggle and I'd LOVE some ideas before I talk to an architect (if that's what I need to do!). Thank you!!

We got an architect in for when we d it d what ended up being a fairly straightforward extension with far less internal modelling than your suggesting- it was 100% worth it. Some amazing ideas and ended up with such a high quality, well thought out design.

@icklekid - Yes, that makes a lot of sense, thank you. I was thinking that rather than just bodging it the best we can, it would probably be better to spend the money and get it professionally planned.

I'd like to have some ideas to compare their plan with, or at least go to them with as a basic if that makes sense but I'm struggling even with that! I was originally thinking just knocking through the kitchen to the family room and then beyond to have the kitchen diner, but then I don't really want the shower room just plonked in the new living room which is what we'd end up with.

The other option is knock through to the family room to create a kitchen diner, put a good-size, decent quality conservatory (with heating etc) on the back and then convert the loft to create a new bedroom and put a shower room up there. The study could then go in the smallest bedroom. We currently use a conservatory as a second living space so I don't mind that. I think I just like the idea of a "proper" extension, especially with a south-facing garden it would be lovely and light.

Ideally I'd love both a downstairs extension and a loft conversion but I can't afford both hahaha

What's your budget? I'm wondering if you can afford to move the kitchen to extension, can get kitchen and family room into a self contained area with shower room for your DM. It does cost to move a kitchen and redo drains - definitely get an architect to draw up plans

@custardbear - my budget is going to sound very small for everything we want to achieve but I'm in the southwest, we have a good builder who we trust who is very affordable plus we can do some of the work with friends helping out (qualified tradespeople such as electricians, plumbers etc who are happy to be paid with a good meal/babysitting etc!) So the total spend is around £120k, with £70k straight away and the remainder about 3-4 months after we move in.Our lovely builder is coming round to quote but thinks we should be able to do more or less all we want for what we can spend. But I guess it depends exactly how much we want to do - he already knows that the kitchen needs knocking through and making bigger etc and that we might want to move it totally.

I think I'd rather find the very best possible layout and if we can't afford what we want to do, I'd rather save and wait rather than have something that doesn't really deliver IYSWIM.

Also re the shower room - that's for us. DM already has a separate shower room in her annexe. We have a small upstairs bathroom that has a bath - we need a second toilet and also a shower cubicle - there's no room upstairs to fit it in.....unless we convert the loft.

Once you run an extension down past the Family Room and Living Room, you no longer have any natural light in the Living Room. It is fine in the Family Room as you will open it all up.

I would:

• do the extension planned, but put the new office/snug in the bottom of the extension adjacent to the Living Room. It will have a lovely view of the garden.

• convert the Living Room to be your various utility spaces. Create the downstairs bathroom with access from the hallway, along that outside wall so you can vent externally. In the rest of the Living room, close off the fireplace - once it is gone you won't miss it - and create a utility area and a separate larder/storage space. This part of the house doesnt need natural light. Yes, it's nicer if the utility room has an external door, but I think you can trade off that nice-to-have because this is a good way to use the darkest part of the house.

It might seem like a big step to turn so much space into utilitarian space but think about it - in winter you can out a heated drying rack in there, you've got somewhere to dry an umbrella too. You arent seriously going to fit all your coats, shoes, vacuum, ironing board, stash of Reusable bags, handbags, and miscellaneous whatnots in that tiny little hallway cupboard. Get all that clutter well organised and out of sight. Then your living space can be much more comfortable. The larder/storage is indispensable - place to store all the random stuff that you need to keep a household going as well as spare dry goods and drinks. So helpful at Christmas when you are stocked up with stuff too, or if you like to bulk buy to save money.

In my experience everyone says, ooh lovely fireplace, but I know very few people who actually use their fireplace regularly. They just like the idea of a fireplace.

Well anyway, there's my solution!

Can’t you split the current kitchen in half, then turn the side by the hallway into downstairs shower room. The other side (at the top of the floor plan) can then be the utility with a door outside and a door from what is now the family room. You could then knock through from the family room to the new extension and have the new kitchen in the family room

PS I know in your wishlist you wanted a separate living room AND an office/snug/livingroom2. So in my plan when you open up the kitchen into the Family room that obviously becomes your new kitchen-diner. You now have only 1 window in that space, so when you create the extension make sure you get some veluxes/roof window thingys so you draw light in, otherwise the dining space (old family room floorplan) will be quite dull. The extended part at the top-right of the new floorplan becomes your second living area. I would consider making a partition of some kind between the new kitchen-diner and the new living room in the extension. If you installed flat internal bi-fold glass doors, that would work. It means you can section off the new living space if you need to shut out sound and smell, but open the whole thing up if you want the open-plan feel or you want to entertain.

@BasementIdeas I thought that too, but then I think the kitchen is currently at the front of the house so if you cut the kitchen in half, what so you do about the window? You don't want a massive window in a bathroom. And you probably don't want to change the frontage of the house by altering the window. Also, I think the OP mentioned that the Annexe is adjacent to the top of the kitchen, so that external kitchen door is being blocked off. And then once you do the extension along the back of the living room and family room, you lose the window in the Living Room, not that room is now dark. Not sure what the situation is, but putting a big new window in the side of the house is often a no-no for planning purposes, or isnt very nice as it looks onto next door's fence/wall.

Yes, good point and I originally crossed with your post

Here is an option (but do get a proper architect in).

U = utilty near plumbing & with door to the outside
K = kitchen
D = dining area
S = study / snug
B = bathroom (near stairs so good access to bedrooms)
L = living room

you could have a wall between D and L to divide into two spaces or leave it open.