It’s a floor plan one… ideas please

[BigRenoLittleBudget]

Name change as outing to family/friends as I have bored everyone I know with this and I’m still going round in circles.

Hope the picture loads ok. Black is current floor plan. Coloured sections and notes show potential options for reconfiguration/extension. The green bit is currently outside where all the drains are 😬

We have a limited budget although expect to do this work in several phases rather than all at once so we can be flexible. Main concern though is getting back what we spend in added value on the house as we will be borrowing to fund this and we might not stay in the house for more than 3-4 years due to jobs and family factors. Therefore we won’t be spending on things that are “nice to haves” that won’t add any value.

However equally we do have to live in the house and make it work for us. Our shorter term priorities in order are:

1. create utility room
2. create kitchen diner area to improve flow/be able to keep an eye on kids while cooking
3. Add bath, ideally upstairs
4. create downstairs study/guest room plus ideally a shower room for guests to use (could be added to existing WC or elsewhere). Open for this to be combined with utility if needed.

Appreciate it’s a lot of detail! TIA.

If you are only going to be there 3/4 years you shouldn't be spending £££.

I'd half the current lounge and make kitchen diner with that space. I thought k the store would be good to turn info utility.

Could the front family room be used as guest space and then create extra space to downstairs loo for use.

Turn current storage into utility - create a door to the kitchen.

Knock the kitchen through to the living room with double doors or a wide archway, with double doors through again to remainder of the living room. The kitchen/ living room would create a family area off the kitchen.

This is the thing, we don’t know yet for certain. It depends mainly on two factors that are outside of our control - work opportunities/restructuring and two separate ageing parents. So we may only be here 3-4 years or it might be 10-15.

i would prioritise making the space work for you now, then once you know if you are staying you can decide if larger investment is worth it. You’re trying to make too many eventualities work at the moment…
I think you can get what you want/need with the attached.

So moving the kitchen to the lounge diner, and then the old kitchen becomes a bedroom? I love this floorplan. Looks like we have an architect at work here !

Ooh I like this idea in terms of meeting our current needs. I hadn’t thought of the kitchen right at the front. However I think it would be pretty expensive as all the drainage is on the other side of the house and I’m worried we would spend maybe 20-25k and not add any value. Given that we might move in a few years we can’t really afford to do that hence why we were looking at converting the storage/garage so that we were actually getting newly habitable square footage which has a better chance of increasing the value?

I would convert the existing storage room you have highlighted in red into a utility and put a door through to the kitchen, then the kitchen is pretty big already so I bet you can reconfigure (also allowing for the new doorway) to make it a kitchen diner.

Then I would leave the hallway space as it is to allow for a passageway to a converted garage that you could do later.

I thought the PP drew a lounge at the front, rather than a kitchen. Kitchen stays where it is. I could be wrong though.

Yes this is what I had thought too but then when the other poster said kitchen at the front I thought ooh!
If kitchen is at the back but without a separate door then I don’t know if I’d like always having to walk through to lounge to get to the kitchen? Worried it would be a bit of a walkway/thoroughfare. I guess I could put a door from utility to kitchen as well but in that version the utility would be too small for that.

If you want to add value to your home I would pay an architect for a plan. It would be money well invested.

I have considered this, but do they actually do this?! I know they focus on design elements but do they take into account future value of the house? Also when we have dealt with architects before they seem to kind of ignore the budget for the build and will just design you something that meets your brief from a design perspective but then they say you’d need to consult a builder to get a quote for works. I would like someone to design me something that won’t cost me more than 50k to build 😂

When you said £20-25k do you mean in total? Or just for drainage?

If you’re conscious of spend, then your best bet is to avoid moving the kitchen or bathroom as this will add a lot of cost.

Personally for a low risk (cost wise) option, I wouldn’t extend at all, I’d:

• cut the bottom part of the kitchen off for the utility
• put the shower in the WC (possibly borrowing some utility space to do so)
• knock the kitchen and living through.
• convert the back half of the garage into a studio.
• keep the storage if you need it, or knock it down. Putting a door through from the storage into the house will create a doorway in a really annoying place that’ll hugely impact the flow of your kitchen.

I meant kitchen should stay where it is. Open plan kitchen living dining room. If you need a separate doorway that’s relatively easy to install and affordable

you can’t afford to move the kitchen if you only want to spend £20-25k

to open up kitchen your likely to need £5k depending on whether it’s a supporting wall. You’ll need to make good flooring, walls etc and decoration.
to put in a new shower in the downstairs we another £2-3k with stud work tiling, shower tray, door and shower system
to create stud work and doorway for utility another £1-2k by the time it’s all made good with flooring, cabinets etc

converting the garage will not be cheap to insulate it, flooring, decoration, windows.

i wouldn’t invest in an architect with a budget at this level-it’s not sensible. Someone like oneplanonhouzz may be able to help-concept planner who will look at whole space for you in a more affordable manner. May well still be on mumsnet if you search

This will be a significant cost due to location of plumbing, waste and electric

Thanks all, our total budget would be about 50k but if we were spending that I’d definitely want to convert the garage and/or storage space. If we’re not doing either of those things (and hence not adding usable square footage) then I wouldn’t want to spend more than 20ish.

I don’t known the condition of the storage room , but if it’s feasible I would convert that to a utility room. Don’t add a door directly from the kitchen as that would mean redoing the whole kitchen which is uneconomical. Instead put a glazed porch where your green box/drains are so you are protected from the weather when you put a wash on. Glazed porch useful for wellies etc
For guests I would put a bed settee in the front sitting room and add in the shower room suggested on your plan if you need the additional bathroom.
Knocking through the kitchen to the main living room would be cost effective and attractive to future buyers.

Thanks these are good ideas. My husband had suggested similar about the porch outside but I wasn’t sure if this would look a bit ramshackle.

However probably worth mentioning that the kitchen really needs replacing anyway, it’s very old and quite broken lol. So I’m happy to factor that in. We can buy some of this on finance if needed so could stretch budget slightly.

You can expect the garage conversion alone to cost £600-1250 a square metre to convert depending on spec from a quick google estimate. £30k of budget…

None of these have been moved in suggestions. Incorrect interpretation of move of kitchen in my pic-that’s a corner sofa not a new kitchen location!

we won’t convert the whole garage - only half to three quarters. So should save a bit on boarding/plastering perhaps. But yeah I was thinking around 25k to convert garage.

I think a connecting porch, done well could be a good addition.
also handy for air drying laundry, especially if you add a couple off pulley made laundry airers in the rafters.

Just bumping again for any new ideas.
I’m not sure why but I feel like there’s something I’m missing. Maybe it’s because I really want to just do the extension out to the side of the kitchen (so knock through to the storage room and extend over the green bit and then connect all this up to a converted garage) but I know if we did that, and put a utility/bathroom in the garage as well as a new kitchen, it would probably cost in the region of 80k and we don’t have that kind of budget. I just really feel like the big extension would give the house that wow factor it is currently missing?

To include storage room (may not need move of boiler), include void space which will need build over, expand kitchen to kitchen diner, replace kitchen and extend into garage for small utility-later do the extra room garage conversion if really needed, you could do something like this. Your budget would be challenging though and you would benefit from extra windows to the kitchen as will be quite dark otherwise.

Knock through into storage space and fill in green area to create big breakfast kitchen. Door into utility (convert back section of garage). Add shower beside existing cloakroom and door to family room. Add sofa bed to family room - becomes guest bedroom when needed.

Thanks for the ideas, I hadn’t actually thought of putting the kitchen on that wall - I was just assuming it would stay roughly where it is and the extended bit would be the dining area. But there are definitely options here!

I also think we will probably have to resign ourselves to doing some of the work later but I just know how much more efficient it would be to do it all in one go. But if we don’t have the money then we don’t have the money I suppose. A temporary utility could be a good solution, or we could do the utility in the pink space I initially drew on the right next to the family room but then not do the additional room until a later date. Or maybe we could do the stud work but not get it boarded and plastered etc to save a bit.

Only issue is that I don’t think a shower would fit how you’ve done your drawing, the toilet is very very small (not sure it’s actually to scale on that floorplan). But maybe like @Magnoliame says we could have the shower in the gap to the side. Not sure about drainage though as the pipes would need to stay running under what would then be the kitchen extension?