Need inspo for our house.

[InNeedOfInspo]

Have been in our house for nearly 20 years. Me, husband, teen and dog.

We’re struggling to use it for everything we need to, with 2 of us working from home and hobbies etc. DH thinks the answer is a garden room, but I want to explore other options first.

Attached is the floor plan as it is now. In addition we have an extension on the back of a double garage that measures 4.5m x 3.5m and has a multipurpose room downstairs (currently a gym) with a shower room and an office upstairs with a sofa bed and an electric piano.

DH and I both work from home - him more or less 100% of the time and me 60% of the time. The desk in the extension is the only one with additional monitors so we end up fighting over it. I have a tiny standing desk at the back of the living room but can only fit a laptop on it.

We don’t have enough storage in the kitchen, so the dining room has become the overspill area, along with the utility room. We don’t sit to eat in the dining room, partly because it is cramped but mostly because our schedules mean we all end up eating at different times.

Upstairs I have Bed 1 and the en-suite, DD has bed 4 for sleeping, books and clothes and DH has bed 2. Again, this is due to schedules and everyone getting enough sleep. Bed 3 has DD’s toys, the family Lego, a desk and sofa bed. It’s mainly used by DD. DD and DH share the family bathroom.

We have too much stuff, and need to declutter and we need to replace the windows and doors within the next couple of years. This has led to a discussion about potential garden room (garden faces north so would take the only sunny spot) or extensions, and I’m thinking about internal layout as well.

We need a proper working space for me which is separate to the outside office. We need to house the musical
instruments more effectively and ideally together (at the moment there is a drum kit in the living room, piano in the office and smaller instruments in bedroom 3).

I would like a more functional kitchen and utility room with significant storage (the quote I had from a designer for kitchen, utility and dining room had 36 units).

We intend to stay in the house for at least another 10 years, possibly forever. Happy to spend money to make it work better for us but not so much that we never realise it at resale. We’ve biggest house on the street and the existing extension probably took us over the ceiling price.

I can’t help but think that with 3 of us in a relatively large house we shouldn’t need to extend or add a garden room
to achieve these objectives but I’m struggling to see what could be possible.

Any thoughts or ideas welcomed.

Musical instruments + cooking (steam/frying etc) don’t mix.

Adding a second desk to bedroom 3 would mean losing the sofa bed and at least one storage unit. and DD not being able to use it when I am at home for up to 12 hours a day.

not sure what you mean by a custom build at the back of the living room for office and Lego. Do you mean a partition? Have covered that off. There’s a reason I only have a tiny desk there now.

likewise a custom build in bedroom 3 - what do you mean?

I don’t know what your last line is about.

Sorry. It’s only a half wall. Kitchen base units on the kitchen side. A kallax unit for overflow storage on the other.

Can you make space in the double garage for the music equipment? Or can your DH sleep in the extension where his desk is? As there is already a sofa bed there I guess you can replace that with a bed, especially if the piano goes into the garage? Also, do you really need two sofa beds?

It seems like madness to spend 10s of 1000s to create even more space for stuff. Nobody needs this amount of stuff.

2 adults, 1 teen, 4 bed house with 2 reception rooms plus a basement?

I actually can't imagine 2 adults fighting over a single desk with monitors in this scenario. You have more than enough space and clearly more than enough money to purchase additional monitors.

I think the fundamental mistake here is to think about all the rooms/all the people/all the stuff. Make it much narrower and way smaller scope so it can actually be achieved. You said the dining room is a dumping ground - of what? Get rid or put in basement/garage. Don't even need to clear the whole dining room. Just half is enough! Your office is now the dining room. Buy the monitors and desk you need. Leave everything else as is. Done.

something like this for a hidden home office in the living room or in your bedroom.

Could DH’s office also move into his bedroom? Then the upstairs of the garage could be a music room

i didn’t realise that the dining room was only a half wall, looks like a separate room on the plan.

sort Your Life Out and Your Home Made Perfect are 2 TV programs which help with reordering your home

If any space is made in the garage my classic car will be going in it! If I could persuade him to part with the motorbikes and his childhood go kart that would be a start. He has scuba diving and skiing and camping equipment which he uses, ply we do all our own redecorating and DIY so have tile cutters etc and some other specialist kit for something else out there. There is undoubtably a lot of stuff that can be done away with but it wouldn’t be a habitable space. Or soundproof (and I like the neighbours). Have been waiting for a dry weekend without other commitments to empty stuff out and do tip runs etc. I think there is one in late Aug.

Couldn’t fit a permanent bed out here, and don’t really want anyone “living” outside, especially in their workspace. The sofa bed is there for either of us if we are working over night and waiting for systems to run so that we don’t have to keep coming back and fore across the garden.

There’s only 1 reception room? And no basement. Where has that come from?!

There isn’t anywhere else currently to fit a desk big enough to have 1 extra monitor on, never mind 2. Where do you suggest it goes? My living room desk is about 3 inches wider than my laptop and as it lifts it can’t support an extra monitor.

We have a dining table and 6 chairs and it has to be against the wall at one end to be able to get around the other. There’s a kallax unit holding reusable bottles and protein bars/powder and supplies of pasta/nuts/dog food/first aid stuff/baking tins and cake decorating kit. Can’t put food in the garage due to living next to a stream and inviting mice/rats. Also drawers for shoes and umbrellas and wet weather gear for dog walking etc. I can’t take half the room without losing the dining table completely. And can’t put a partition in to split it due to the double doors. 🤷🏻‍♀️

op the time you’ve spent on this thread

you could have cleared out a cupboard

DH’s bedroom has 2 wardrobes, a double bed and a chest of drawers. Also houses the heated airer. No room for anything else in there and I don’t think it’s healthy to sleep where you work. He’s in IT so working with more than just a laptop and screens. We had 12 servers in there last week!

The other houses of this style have separate kitchen and dining room but this one was built for one of the directors and he had it built differently. I’ve tried to photoshop the plan but clearly not well!

I don’t have time to watch telly so hadn’t heard of them. (As well as work i’m in the middle of a masters.)

I’m 203 miles away from the cupboards right now.

Whilst I accept that there are ADHD and AS issues going on in your home, I do think that clutter will just extend itself to fit any extra space you add on or reorganise.

Do you think that will happen? I'm sure many on here are finding it difficult to understand how a family of three don't have enough room in a house with 7 or 8 rooms + gym, and a garage! But it's your house and your lifestyle. I haven't read all the posts either, so forgive me for that too.

If you really really need the extra space, have you considered (if it's possible) converting the attic space into two rooms for your daughter. One for sleeping and the other for her stuff, and music etc. If you can squeeze in a tiny shower room and loo, all the better. I think that's what I would do. It would be a more flexible space, since daughter is not going to be evicted to a room in the back garden anytime soon I reckon!

Could you rejig the downstairs loo and utility to make space for a small shower room and utility? Then use your ensuite as your office?

loose the sofa bed from the multi purpose room and put the instruments in there.

What if you got rid of that shower room in the gym and moved all of the stuff out of that spare bedroom into there? Then you have a gym/hobby room basically. You can have your desk and the sofa bed in that spare room instead. The lego can me stored in the garage.

It really does feel like your Dh's stuff takes up 60% of your home, your DD's 30% and you get one room to live in and some kitchen space for your baking things. It's not evenly distributed at all and you just have to work with what's left.

There is a subreddit for floorplans - try there for ideas perhaps? Or get an architect in - expensive again but they'll be able to give you some ideas.

I do like the chuck a whole room into (temporary) storage, revamp and only return what is needed.

Roof space isn’t tall enough to convert, unfortunately.

I do agree about stuff expanding into available space. At one point we were living in 3 houses so we started with 8 bedrooms worth of furniture! Much of it is still in use - we’ve not bought much specifically for this house.

The ND is newly discovered. Coupled with changes of job and working since 2020 and DD growing up (she still has a lot of “younger” stuff due to being emotionally behind other 13 year olds, but also discovering more grown up stuff as well. She’s joined air cadets which means 3 full uniforms, boots, parade shoes, boot polishing kit, sports stuff etc.) Feels like it’s all come at once.

Not long replaced all the bathrooms at significant expense so would rather not.

Losing the sofa bed means nowhere for anyone to stay and DH’s family are a flight away.

The shower room is 0.8m x 2m and underneath a flight of stairs.

I’m working on DH but it’s hard.

I’ll try and do some drawings of how rooms are currently. Just having dinner.

I do appreciate all the comments and suggestions.

particularly interested in thoughts folk have about the kitchen.

In fairness to DD, some of the instruments are mine, but woodwind is much smaller than pianos and.drum kits!

convert some of the garage space so you have an office space - it's a double so is doable

knock the kitchen into diner and lounge to
make a kitchen diner family room- partition lounge so u have small living room or a music room if you must at the front

i think your DD should have one room and make the other a music room but even if not declutter because this is crazy!!!

cull the hobby stuff - you
mention gym, cycling, motorbikes, classic cars, go karts, numerous musical instruments .....crazy when u have a small standing desk and all those rooms

We can’t create more living space in the garage as a condition of the extension’s planning permission. And the car (mine) is going nowhere. If the garage gets cleared for anything it’s her.

At the moment DD needs 2 rooms. I agree in future that can be reassessed.

DH is at home most of the time. He is a flight away from family and can become very isolated. Cycling replaced running after a knee injury and is vital for his mental health. He does LEJOG type stuff and cycling with a local group can be the only in person interaction he has in a week (other than me and DD). The motorbikes haven’t been ridden for years and I have nagged about those.

He insisted on having the go kart for DD but we live on a steep hill and by the time she could control it properly she was too big for it. It’s not motorised or anything. He has an emotional connection to it from childhood and I think his parents threw out other stuff he would have kept so it’s not something he has been able to do yet.

the kitchen is already a kitchen diner. Not knocking through into the living room as that would be completely impractical, not to mention freezing in the winter.

I have the decluttering message now, thank you. It’s really hard when you are time poor and have a brain that actively avoids stuff like that. But we need to find a way.

It does sound like you're entrenched in seeing things as they are, rather than really having an open mind about possibilities. Try to imagine that your house is completely empty and you're about to move in. You'll only bring in the things that you really want/need.

Now list the different areas that you need, and think about where they would fit. Be practical but not ruthless. I mean, there's no such thing as The Family Lego Collection that needs a room. Pick the best pieces to display and then get rid of the rest. It is crazy to consider building an extension when you have so much stuff.

If you're not doing a baking business any more, ditch everything. You can always have a garage sale to offload things more quickly. See if neighbors want to coordinate and advertise it, then price things to get rid of them. It sounds like you could ask get rid of a lot of things.

The kitchen, utility and gym sound pretty fixed. Apart from that you have a dining room, lounge and 4 bedrooms. That gives each of you 2 rooms. DD has the smallest for sleeping, plus one as her creative/living area. You and DH each get a bedroom and an office.

Whichever is the biggest room also has to have a sofa and TV for you all to hang out in. No spare bed for visitors unless it's in an office and easy to use.

But you do ALL need to seriously declutter. Sorry.

can we please assume that I hear the decluttering message loud and clear?

I’m going to take a break and will draw the room layouts in more detail. I am struggling to see things differently and I think people are thinking things are more out of control than they are.

It’s a kitchen diner.

I will post some possible floor plans later, just marking a place.