Redesign my floor plan…

[LottieMary]

we own this quite amazing house with a beautiful garden but find the garden seems at time almost inaccessible - 2 floors from kitchen is our main issue with lack of drinks, snacks, eating outside etc which are all things I love .two under five at the moment too which probably doesn’t help as you’re carrying stuff downstairs as well as them

so… what would you do to improve this floor plan? Budget of 50-100k for the right plan.

Put a second kitchen in the garden room and a sofa if not already there.
Garden level for summer, Ground Floor for winter

Balcony platform off the kitchen with wide stairs right down to the garden.

Gives you lots of extra outdoors dining and living space and easy access to garden.

Wait....your floor names don't make sense. Your kitchen is ON the ground floor....

The garden isn't though

I also don't quite understand how you have a lower ground floor that is still above the garden level, and your garden is two floors below your garage. But I agree with Fizzadora, I would add a bar area and small fridge to the garden room to give you better access to drinks and snacks, and toy storage. Would be inexpensive.

Or extending the balcony off the lounge and adding stairs down to garden.

Swapping the bedroom floor with the kitchen/dining/lounge floor would be a bigger project. How is the light on the LG floor?

So.. you walk into the house from the driveway onto the floor with the kitchen/living room. We’re built into a hill so the garden is two flights down. There are some very steep narrow steps at the side from the drive to the garden. It means the bedroom floor is quite dark at the back (no windows in main bathroom) but the views from every room facing out are incredible

@CocoapuffPuff creating some kind of wraparound stair/balcony is a really interesting idea

@Fizzadora we’re currently leaning towards this as the simplest option but wanted to see if there were any ideas we hadn’t thought of.

light in garden room is pretty good especially as we opened up a small window to put big doors in instead which has made a huge difference already

Maybe she lives on a hill or the garden is up some steps

Ah, light dawns. Makes sense now!!

Does your kitchen overlook the garden, or is it the living space that does that? And if you build a platform out, would it negatively affect the rooms below, or throw the garden into shadow?

You've got a good budget, at least.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001pp64/your-home-made-perfect-series-4-8-louise-and-stephen

Think that this couple had a similiar issue. Their budget was massive though. There might be some inspiration there

I agree with a very large balcony/terrace with wide steps down to the garden.

Make the most of the fantastic view and make the journey down to the garden part of the experience, the views will change as you go down.

You may need to modify the conservatory? Not sure what is on top of what. Where does the current balcony sit relative to the conservatory? Which way is the view?

You could split the garden level into a summer kitchen and utility room, and a playroom/extra living space, mini kitchen to prepare snacks or simple meals, laundry one floor from the majority of bedrooms, and as the kids get older they may want a separate tv room

I'd turn the kitchen into a utility/boot room and WC or shower room and make the garden floor into a kitchen/diner/family room.

Or:Turn the garden room into a smaller kitchen/diner/family room and utility, and turn the kitchen diner into a study/guest room with en-suite shower.

Either way, I'd have a laundry shoot installed at the same time, from the first floor bathrooms down to utility.

Maybe you could enlarge the balcony too.

I’d prob look at Install crittal windows and doors or similar on living room wall to open it up.

where the balcony is expand that space… so create more of a small terrace I’m thinking along the width of the house not out into garden iyswim.
Then a stair case off that down to the garden.

I made two seriously crap pics
but honestly it’s hard to know if
you can’t see the garden layout

You could also make a terrace on two levels, so one level at the level of the living room, one halfway down to the garden room and then steps down.

Would help to integrate it with the garden, but would be dependent on being able to manage the impact on the light in the garden level.

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/34667671?viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76

This house was on ugly house to lovely house and went all out with the balcony/ platform and stairs for a similar reason

I had an upside down house. The living area did lead out to a large terrace with steps at the end to the garden. Basically I rarely went down to garden level. I wouldn't live that way again.
Summer kitchen in conservatory as mentioned is a good idea though!

There is an interior instagrammer who has a similar layout to this: banish(underscore)the(underscore)beige Might be worth a look

So I think the expensive but perfect option would be to swap over the 'Living floor' and 'bedroom floor'. the current lounge / kitchen would become 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Bed 3 and ensuite on 'lower ground' can stay but bed 2 and bed 1 would become the new living room and kitchen with a new balcony and a single flight of steps going down to the garden. And these rooms would also be that much closer to the garden room making it much easier to move between the two. obviously you'd then come into the house near the bedrooms and then go downstairs to the living space, but the overall arrangement of the house would be more traditional (aside from the front door coming in higher than normal). But this would be an expensive and disruptive option.

One simpler solution might be to put a dumb-waiter lift in from the lounge to the garden room at the location indicated with the red square. That could carry all the food / drinks / dishes down to the garden on summer days while the people could still walk on the stairs. They are pretty cheap to put in.