How to make more space in newbuild, any creative visionaries?

[Frazzled252]

We have bought a house in the south east, that is very far from our dream home but we panicked a little as TTC and don’t want to move once pregnant.
The house is…eugh. It’s a David Wilson Buckingham style home, and although it’s 2100 something sq ft it feels really small. I worked out that as it has an attic floor the ground and first floor would be circa 1500sq ft which is why it feels really small. So trying to work out how to live with it until we can move.
The garden is typical new build and tiny so I’m not sure an extension would work. Theres a double garage I would like to convert but I think there’s a rule we can’t change it for a few years until the new builds are all finished.
I have an elderly parent that would need to stay sometimes and can’t manage the stairs. I could use an office room as a bedroom but then there’s no shower and the downstairs wc is too small to make it into a wet room. I am genuinely at a loss at what to do. The sale has been completed so too late to back out. We are stuck.
Anyone been in a similar situation/have any ideas? TIA

The floor are is well over twice that of my house with a study and utility room that I don't have, two more bedrooms, two more bathrooms and three more toilets.

To me it's a BIG house.

If you’re a couple, with a baby on the way, I’m struggling to see how a five bed house with a lounge, dining room, kitchen and study is small. I’m sorry but I think your expectations are off.

No one walks into their first home and wants to stay forever. There’s always compromises but the space you have is much better than lots so I think there’s an element of feeling grateful here. How many of your bedrooms are unused and can be used as storage?

I read plenty of good ideas above, here's a list of options that return to some of them plus mine. I'm trying to list them in such a way that each is "take or leave".

To create a separate guest room:

• Follow the "kitchen/diner + snug" idea. Swap the area you name "family room" with the dining room and if the kitchen seating is fixed, hammer it away (it's a great way of destressing from the worry about being in that home too)
• The study door is making the space cramped (it opens where someone would sit). Replace that door with a sliding door, that would open along the wall rather than swing open, so help use the space. Sliding doors have a tendency to remain slid open when people like the open space, which is a bonus!

To find washroom space downstairs:

• What's the space like under the stairs? Can a loo be squeezed in there - freeing the current loo for a shower? [difficult option because of evacuations]
• Alternatively, could the wall between loo and study be moved, to make the loo big enough for an added shower?
• Yet another alternative, can the stairs be rearranged to create more space under them and place a shower there? [more problems to make the space but easier to create an evacuation!]

More space changes but very much a matter of taste:

• Open double door between living room and (your current) dining room (aka family room). Make it 2 sliding doors (each slide along wall to the side, or shut by meeting in the middle). When shut it's a guest bedroom / separate space... When open the party guests can move without bumping into each other.
• More sliding doors, e.g. kitchen to dining/family room.
• I would know the study wall down and make it into a study / library area of the hall, using furniture (not walls) to structure the space.

Enjoy your new home. You can beat yourself up about why you are here (and some answers are helping you do that!), but I'm sure you had reasons - jobs, what you can afford, not wanting to wait 10 years for the perfect alternative to come along. You are completely right to look through the walls to what else it can be, and with changes like above, and yet more that you will think of, it will become a place where you can have great family times.

It’s not our first home though. We had a flat then a new build house and I hated the new build house. I think that’s why I’m so deflated now. The issue is older finished houses were much more expensive. We haven’t got the time or skill to renovate so didn’t want to buy a fixer upper. Plus buying another new build meant we could part exchange which was a bonus in a sluggish market. So it wasn’t much of a choice.

I appreciate it may in terms of perspective, but I think it’s just the feel of the house also….the boxiness aspect. We originally went from a one bed flat to a four bed detached house. But as the one bed flat was a converted Victorian factory, it had hugely high ceilings, huge windows, beams, character and wide rooms. The new build house we got after was bigger on paper but felt much smaller. This house has the same kind of feel.

I would convert utility to a shower room off the study and put the washing machine and tumble in garage. That's the cheapest way to do it. Eventually you could convert some of garage into a better utility space/ boot room. I would use an upstairs bedroom as a study and just have that downstairs ensuite space as a spare bedroom for guests/elderly parent. It's nice and detached from rest of family so ideal for visitors.

Thank you so much, some great ideas here and lots of food for thought. I’m really glad I posted here as there’s so many good ideas and ways to save/use space, I am very grateful for your help so thankyou to everyone x

Perhaps but you still have larger than average home with plenty of downstairs space. A ground floor of that size would be perfectly adequate for 3 kid household.

You’re obviously entitled to want the space to work better for you, but I’m just saying that calling it a small space is a little distorted from reality.

Fwiw - as this isn’t your forever home, and as it’s a new build, it wouldn’t be worth making costly additions (lifts, garden pods, conversions), you won’t make your money back and if you want an older property in the future you’d be better off saving the money. There’s ample space for a small family with the odd guest (who can stay on a sofa bed in the lounge or study).

Convert the garage. We had the same restriction, but solicitor advised that planning permission trumps it. In the end the developer didn’t care anyway. A few houses have now followed suit.

Garage conversion will add more value that knocking down walls because it’s adding square footage.

Thankyou. I think we’ll do exactly that, do the cheapest modification possible without altering the house, maybe converting the garage as I’m sure that will add value…then once we can move get a nice older house with lots of land.

Thank you, do you mind if I ask ballpark how much the conversion cost? Was it a single garage or a double?

I don't...and we've owned houses ranging in size from under 1000 sq ft up to 3500 sq ft.

The trouble is - I think - that many new builds have too many rooms squeezed into them, so that they (particularly those over three storeys) can appear a bit cramped.

We've recently downsized to a three bed cottage and although we've been used to lots of space (outside too - our last house had a 0.5 acre garden), the 1200+ sq ft we have now, spread over two floors, doesn't seem as small as I feared. I believe that's mainly because we're opening up the space so that instead of a warren of tiny rooms, we'll ultimately have just three decent sized spaces (plus lootility) on the ground floor and three good sized bedrooms (plus one bathroom) on the first. We are converting the integral garage to add to the habitable space as it was originally part of the cottage prior to renovations in the 1960s.

My view is that @Frazzled252 would probably be better suited to an older property with a more spacious layout - not necessarily larger, just a better use of the internal space.

There have, however, been some great suggestions on this thread and I think the house can be improved - the garage conversion would be where I'd start - without going overboard by adding a lift etc, which imo would potentially devalue it.

Just over £30k for an internal double garage - done 2 years ago.

Thank you, that’s not as costly as so thought for a double garage which is good. Our hurdle will be I think that it’s not integral, it’s separate with no access to the house so not sure if that will make things more difficult. But will start getting quotes

I suspect on a new build, any garage will be a lot less well built from foundations up than the house. Cost may well be 'knock it down and start again' levels....

I found this house online and it’s really very large, with quite a good sized garden.

most people could only dream of a house that size.

MN is very weird sometimes….

Office = bedroom
Loo/utility = shower room
Garage = utility

I hope you come back to let us know how you are settling in your new home.

Thank you, I will definitely do so :). I don’t think the work will happen immediately but I have a clear plan now which I owe everyone here for…exciting times ahead

It’s not, if it was two storey I think it would be. I’ve seen 1800sq ft houses that look bigger than this house because it’s all on the two floors, plus the garden is really tiny. I think the houses are usually the same but the garden sizes depend on where you are….houses in the North get huge gardens but the further south you go they seem to shrink

And the bad thing is you have to carry heavy wet washing downstairs to hang outside.

I agree the downstairs study should be a guest room, the dining room should be a second sitting room and I'd make the two attic rooms into office spaces for each of you. My office space is in the attic and I really like walking downstairs after work, it creates separation.

Sorry if someone else has already posted about this - but didn’t that regulation change in about 1998? ie you are allowed to have a wc open directly off a kitchen…