1930s build vs Chalet House

[Sammyjoegreen]

Please help me decide between two houses. Thank you in advance for reading and for any responses.

So I've viewed 2 properties now and like them both but I'm not sure which to go for. They are both in the same area only a couple of streets apart but very different styles. First one is a conventional 1930’s 3bed semi; main entrance at the front, lounge, kitchen and diner on the ground floor, bedrooms and family bathroom on the top floor and 80ft garden on the rear. It will need some work doing to make it liveable but nothing too extensive. The second is a 3bed Chalet with a side entrance. The thirds bedroom, the main family bathroom, lounge, kitchen and diner are on the ground floor. On the upper floor are the two remaining bedrooms only; no bathroom and no toilet. On the rear is a 140ft garden so almost double the size of thr first. It's in near perfect condition; does not require any work doing other than updating the decor as it is rather dated.
Size wise, the Chalet is only slightly bigger by a few square metres, nothing significant though it is about 30K more in price.
Prior to having viewed the Chalet, I was very excited about it thinking so long as everything checks out and it looks as it does in pictures, I would be making an offer. Now that I've seen it, I'm concerned about the general layout of the ground floor. Main concerns are; when you come in the side entrance, the lounge and 3 bedroom are on one side of the staircase and the kitchen and diner on the other. As my plan is to extend and create an open plan kitchen-diner however, my worry is that lounge on the other side of the staircase which is somewhat cut off from thr rest of the ground floor will hardly get used. The only bathroom and toilet in the house are on the ground floor right next to the entrance which is not ideal. I know I relocate the family bathroom upstairs but now wondering whether to just go for the 1930 build with a standard and more practical layout, 30K cheaper but with a much smaller garden and will need work to makeitliveable. Help please!

Personally I bought the diy house and regret it massively! If you or your partner can do the work yourself happy days go for the project. If not kick back and dismiss both. I would buy a bigger house then thinking to extend - good trades are hard to come by.

Are the both semi or is the chalet detached? Can you post floorplans? Internal walls can be relatively easy and not too expensive to move, especially if there is a £30k price difference. Is there space to put an upstairs bathroom in?

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 thank you for your response. Yes they are both semi-detached. Putting a bathroom upstairs will require extending into the eaves. I've seen that most properties have done this which has also added two additional bedrooms upstairs. Walls could easily be moved but with this is the staircase that the division between diner and lounge so it appears its not possible. Ive looked at dozens of floor plans of extended and refurbished chalers of the same build and there are lots of changes peope have done but only that lounge remains separate on all examples ive seen.

Does it have to either of these? I would be inclined to wait for option 3.

It's so tricky. I have a room on the opposite side of my stairs to the kitchen/diner/ lounge and I thought we might not use it much but we use it as a playroom all the time. As the children get older (toddler/baby currently) I think they'll use it even more with friends etc.

I don't know what your set up is - could it be a playroom, study, tv snug where it'd benefit being away from the main living rooms? Would you extend the chalet to get another lounge with the main rooms? We actually rarely use our main lounge with attaches onto the kitchen/dining/living area, and I think that's because we have a sofa and dining table in the open plan area. And so the playroom being a very separate place to have the space and mess works well for us.

Which house do you get a better feeling about?

Also, with the renovations, we spent the same amount renovating the rest of the house pretty much as we did on the extension. All those things you think won't cost too much really add up when you count up all the receipts

Also, just wondering, does the chalet have a lot more downstairs space? The ones I have seen have a wider plot and much more living space than the 1930s semis. With a 140ft garden you have a lot of scope to extend. Also they have bigger driveways and wider gardens.

The 1930s semis a few of my friends live in have a relatively narrow plot (although long thin gardens) and the rooms are maybe just 11 to 12 ft wide. They're lovely houses though.

If you did put the bedrooms in the eves, is there more scope to use the bedroom 3 as flexible living space with pocket doors and a sofa bed for example?

Would throwing £10-20k at the 1930s semi fix the issues?
Are you keen gardeners?
How does location factor into the decision?

@Sprig1 I viewed quite a few properties since summer and these are the only 2 so far that I would consider offering on. At this point I feel like there really isn't much better out there for my budget. Everything's just so expensive and I can't see it getting better.

We moved ftom a 1930s semi to a more modern house - and we really miss the 1930s one! To the point that we will move back to one (hopefully) in a few years. But at the end of the day you have to think about
A: how you live your lives, what rooms do you need and where do you need them to be?
B: what level of work /disruption are you up for?

We had a 1930s chalet house just as the one you've described. It had such a versatile layout. It was very easy to extend upstairs into the eaves cupboard which created two more double bedrooms and an upstairs bathroom.

We also extended out at the back to create a huge kitchen. It was great to have a large garden even after the new extension.

The chalet style houses tend to have a bigger footprint and for future proofing it's handy to have the downstairs bedroom and bathroom.

I also really liked having the front room as a snug and then the large open plan kitchen/dining/family room at the back.

I'd go for the chalet. They are much more flexible.

... also, we solved the issue of the front room being isolated by putting in a new doorway from the front to the back. This revolutionized our use of the lounge and meant we used it so much more.

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 so the chalet seems to present more potential for extension.
We're planning to create open plan kitchen-diner with a snug so we'll extend into the garden.
I've just seen another property's floor plan that has a door fitted underneath the stairs which connects the lounge to their dining room. I could do a similar thing. We have a one year old so the lounge could serve as a play room as we're probably more likely to utilise the snug more regularly; it will have TV anyway. Upstairs there are currently only two bedrooms and no bathroom so we'll extend to add a bathroom and at least one more bedroom. What I really like about the chalet that the 1930s doesn't have it a side access to the back garden. This means we don't need to go through the house if we plan to do anything at the back e.g.erect a shed or outhouse.

We live in a chalet bungalow and the amount of downstairs space is great. Upstairs has been stretched to 3 small double bedrooms and a little shower room (with a saniflo loo). This means we use both front rooms as reception rooms, which works well for 4 adults, one working from home.

It sounds like both houses would need work to completely work for you in the long term but you could take your time with the chalet.

The current footprint of the chalet is is not mcuh bigger present but yes, there is much more scope to extend to the side (extra 3m to the boundary) and to the back the 140ft garden.
I've always wanted a utility room and a pantry and the space will allow us to incorporate these into an extension.
The 1930s has a 2m(width) garage attached which we could incorporate into the main house to afford us a bit more square footage and then also extend out into the garden (which is significantly smaller, 80ft).
Oh I like the idea of pocket doors. I'm thinking I could turn the small bedroom downstairs which is right next to the door in to a boot/cloakroom or perhaps an office as I work from home permanently. ....aaaah we'll see. Think I'll need to get an architect or draftsman to help out.

@PickAChew thank you for your response. Yes, you're right. They're both not "perfect" and while I prefer the layout of the 1930s the chalet presents much more scope extension and tailoring to our needs

The house we brought our family up in was a chalet style. The rooms were well proportioned and spacious. The room you describe OP was first used as a playroom then the kids had the run of upstairs and we took over the playroom as our main bedroom which had the ground floor bathroom next to it.

@LetThereBeLove thank you for your response. I agree, rooms are a very good size. What did you use the small room next to playroom for?

There was no small room next to the playroom. It was always a bathroom
In addition on the ground floor were two reception rooms one of which we used as a dining room beside a kitchen/diner and a cloakroom. We also had huge front and back gardens!