Bungalow on an awkward plot - to buy or not?

[RusBun]

We are deliberating whether to buy a corner plot bungalow we have seen as our last home (we are 60 year olds). The house seems OK, built in the 80-s, in sound condition and spacious enough, but the back garden is small and shallow – only 7m (23ft) deep and 14m (46ft) wide. The garden backs into other shallow neighbours’ gardens, has no trees around it and feels rather confined. I love gardens that back into woods or have trees around them.

The shallow garden does not give scope for extension. The garage with a driveway are awkwardly positioned from the other side round the corner, so it is a bit of a walk with your shopping.

In addition, the chimney is placed between the kitchen and a lounge, protruding into the kitchen, making it difficult to fit a kitchen or take a wall out to create an open plan (which is what we ultimately want). The house needs the usual renovating with a new kitchen, bathrooms and carpets, but this is reflected in the price, which is unusually affordable for us in this nice area.

The property has been on the market several times over the years but did not sell and we are worried it will be difficult for us to re-sell it later on if we need to.
Boo

Excellent!

Thank you for the update OP. Best of luck with it.

Good luck OP!

I have another question. We are thinking of taking the wall down between the lounge and the kitchen. Would you or would you not? What is your experience? We currently have a very large kitchen/diner and a separate large lounge. We often use them a separate living rooms for me and DH, as I literally live in the kitchen/diner with my laptop and he lives in the living room that is combined with an office. I am a bit worried about losing a separate living space if we knock the wall, but the kitchen itself is not that big to become a kitchen/diner. So the dining table would have to go to the lounge. Any suggestions?

We’ve recently moved into a bungalow ( with a really dodgy garden! )

We had a wall taken down , so we have a large kitchen / diner / sitting room , a small sitting room , his & hers sitting rooms were an essential for us too

We’re still thinking about taking a chimney breast and ugly fireplace out ( I’m team take it out )

We love our bungalow , but we try and climb the stairs every time we see them when we’re out and about !

Lucky you with his and hers living rooms! I hope yours is the open plan one? I also hate those awkward fire places. Unless it is really nice, there is no point in having it - they just make it difficult to furnish room

If you wanted one large living/kitchen/diner (and I personally don't like the living room in with the kitchen) could one of the bedrooms become a second living room? Or have you already got plans for all three?

We need a double bedroom each and an office. But one could stay in an office or a bedroom with a laptop or watch a film in bed

Yes I would do this but also change the layout.

So personally I'd make the lounge/diner into a big social kitchen/diner at the back and make the current kitchen into a cosy living room at front of the house with a divider between that you can close or open as you wish.

So for example internal crittall doors can look fabulous to keep the light and open feeling but allow separate spaces. See picture.

Less expensive is simply bi-fold wooden doors (inexpensive - simply dual hinged doors) that you can open close to create one large open plan area or two separate rooms. Again picture below.

I really like this idea of swapping the lounge and the dining. In that case, the chimney can stay as it is and can be opened up into the cosy room instead of the large room. Would the room be big enough though, being 3.6x3.6m?

That front garden corner will be used as a dog toilet.

Ireally like this idea of swapping the lounge and the dining. In that case, the chimney can stay as it is and can be opened up into the cosy room instead of the large room. Would the room be big enough though, being 3.6x3.6m?

I believe it would as long as you choose appropriately sized furniture.

I think it would be a nice cosy space and bring square it would make for a nice layout

Look to the future. A big grade I'd hard to maintain when you're old. If this is going to be your final home a low maintainance property is desirable

There is parkland just round the corner, large open grassy space 100 meters away

I told DH about this idea, and he loved it much more over the prospect of taking the chimney and wall down. The wall can stay. The nook would only be used by DH for 2-3 hours in the evening or both of us watching a film there. We would only need a couple of sofas and a coffee table, or a sofa and armchair.

Sounds like that would work well then!

I was thinking of trying those 3D home/interior design programs, can anybody recommend one?

Sorry, no.

I like to go old school on this front.

I'm a fan of using masking tape to create "walls" and making paper templates of furniture from newspapers and lying them on the floor (or patio/lawn) and moving them around the space and seeing how I can walk around them 😀.

I find it much better to feel how it works that way (did this last for a kitchen refit despite the company's posh 3D model) and it really helped me understand how I would use the space .

Was quite funny pretending to prep a meal, cook, clean up afterwards on a floor plan taped out on the patio with paper outlines of work surfaces/appliances 😀.

What a wonderful idea! I might borrow it. I just go to the drawing board and draw to scale, or print out a plan and cut our miniature furniture pieces and move them around. This way I worked out how big we needed a round table if you put 6 chairs around it - it worked out as 135cm.

I'd definitely recommend it.

There is something really useful about being able to walk through the space that you can't get from models or scale drawings.

It does feel a bit silly but its absolutely worth "acting" scenarios (basically your usual routines) in your "taped up" space.

On the plan a thought occurred that if you do move the kitchen you might want to close off the exterior door (on the left of the plan) to your new sitting room.

Agree on closing the door. Might just leave it as a window

I think that depends on where you washer is, and how often you use it. And anything else that might be noisy.

The only way to get into my kitchen is via the living room, if I owned the place I'd block that doorway and have a door from the hall.

I think it also depends on what you like to cook, I like to make curry and the smell can hang around for a few days.

I only have a small garden but honestly it is somewhere to sit and doesn't need to be bigger.

I think that could work well with the kitchen in the current living room and the current kitchen as a snug.

With parking is there an option to create a drive at the front of the house near the front door at all? Alternatively would your DH’s garage plans allow for a car in the garage? If so you could get an electric garage door then go out of the back of the garage into the back of what is currently living room but would be kitchen if you swap the rooms.

True. We could either make a driveway for one car at the front or there is a gate into the back garden from the parking in front of the garage, and then walk to what would be a kitchen/dining room.

Don’t take out the fireplace. The way things are going, an independent heating source will be very useful.