Scope / cost to reconfigure...

[WitchetyWoman]

Hi!

Looking at buying a terraced house. Most in my area are in need of work, like this one.

I wanted to see (for anyone who's changed a layout like this particularly), what layout changes did you make, how expensive was it?

I'm considering whether we could:

• Get a bathroom upstairs (I don't think you can)
• Somehow switch things around downstairs because the house I live in now, the sitting room looks out directly into the garden, I'd really miss that (and this house I'm looking to buy has a lovely long sunny SE facing garden to boot which would be a joy after a freezing cold northeast facing living room that I could only tolerate because I can look out on the garden!).

Could I utilise permitted development to do something to help provide a more open / bigger kitchen / kitchen-cum-living space, so that my kitchen / living room is/are at the back right next to the garden? Where it says hallway this is just a very basic connection between the extension and the back of the main house that is literally just falling down it's only a short 2.5 ft brick wall with a window of above, so it needs to be replaced anyway.

The living room and dining room as there they're titled on the diagrams feel quite spacious and open but as soon as you get into the extension it feels much more cramped, tight, and no direct sight of anything green and pleasant.

Be grateful to see what reconfigurations might be possible 🏡 🌞 .

Where is the back garden that you want to look at?

Moving plumbing is the most expensive part.

I think this would be too expensive to be worthwhile. When you say moving the bathroom upstairs are you thinking of using one of the existing rooms or building on top of the existing extension? The former would be tricky with the waste pipe but the latter would depend on the depth of the foundations.

I know 😕! -Dang soil pipes! Right at the back of of the house directly behind the bathroom (see pretty red flowers on the ground floor plan).

Not really sure. I actually don't really think there's room to, to be honest it's more about, I look at a floorplan and I just can't see what could work. It's a downsizing exercise so will represent considerably less room than we have at the moment.

I do really like the house though, it has a good vibe, the garden is fab and offers an opportunity for me to have a Woman Cave as I'd like to do furniture upcycling - I'd have room to do it here. The outdoor space is probably double what I have now.

I think it would be quite a struggle as it's a long, narrow footprint @WitchetyWoman, although anything's possible if you throw sufficient money at it. But I do wonder if it's the right house - eg, is the location perfect? A woman cave sounds amazing, but does it outweigh the living room at the front? - and that's coming from an optimist who's reconfigured their two most recent houses to achieve something vaguely similar.

We were fortunate to have a more flexible layout than your floor plan both times (and bathrooms already upstairs 😉), so with a bit of jiggling about we swapped the kitchen (at the back/middle) with the living room at the front. Our preference is to have the kitchen at the front of the property and this worked particularly well in our current downsize cottage as the living room originally opened into a dining room, so now we have a kitchen diner. The new living room (more of a book-filled snug) is a much mote private space with two windows overlooking the garden.

If you could get the bathroom upstairs, I guess I'd be thinking of moving the kitchen to the current living room and opening up the entire back space to create a garden facing living room. But it's the plumbing/new bathroom location that's the issue.....

I confess that both times we've DIYed the whole project and probably wouldn't have undertaken it had we needed to pay others. Luckily DH is a conservation builder. The downside is we're 18 months in and the cottage is nowhere near done.

In your shoes, I wouldn't necessarily rule the house out if you really love it (I hated ours, lol!), and maybe get a builder to accompany you on a viewing to get an idea of feasibility?

That's a good idea on getting a builder along. - the configuration change isn't the only thing...

The agents are selling it as a 3 bed. It isn't. It has two bedrooms and a highly accessible loft space - which needs floor strengthening, insulation, fire doors, fire doorto the loft stairs and probably reconfig of the higgledy piggledy stairs to the lift room. So full building regs approval for fire and safe continuous egress, plus, to try and avoid having to encase fully the open stairs from living room to first floor, must fire system installation....

It would have to be a bargain 2 bed to be worth buying. Sounds like the sellers are completely unrealistic.

I think this could be very cool with a bit of jigging about.
It's a terrace but with a path to the rear? Is it a shared path with the neighbours? So a semi downstairs and adjoined upstairs? I'm going to assume so in my suggestions. I'm going to assume you have a fair budget.
I'll also assume that you'll enter the house via the dining room at the front, rather than the hallway in the middle.

• Replace the hallway in the middle, fill the space and have a full or partial glass roof on it. If the upstairs of the house is currently only above the living/dining room, go full height, stepped extension for 2 thirds of the space at the second storey level to add a bathroom, leaving a third to let light down to the ground floor and to retain an external window for the second floor bedroom. Existing window may have to move across depending on how you configure that second floor extension. Yes the plumbing may be a challenge on the second floor, but the height gives you options. I have a second option for this space, I'll add it below.
• I don't think you have to retain the external window in the lounge as long as the middle hallway has a door still (habitable rooms must have either an escape route or an external window). So I'd probably put in a large opening to the new hallway with a glazed sliding door so I could fully extend into the space, but a smaller extension to retain the external window would also work.
• Build a downstairs loo/utility in part of the existing kitchen, then knock all of the remaining space into one. This will be your kitchen.
• Add a small glazed single storey extension to the back of the house, fully glazed, doesn't have to be huge. Big doors onto the garden, fully open to the new kitchen. Enough for a table and a sofa.

Option 2 for the replacement hallway in the middle of the house. Still double storey and more expensive so this totally depends on budget. Move the stairs here and remove them from the living room. Upstairs you should still get room for a new bathroom and where the stairs currently are could become a hallway. You gain a nicer living room but it'll be considerably more expensive so may not be worth it.

A new bathroom being added to our Victorian is costing £12k. That’s without the fixtures and fittings. Keep that in mind

What you have got helping you is the full side access so you could run pipes externally if needs be. As pp said, anything is possible with money, and only you can decide whether it’s worth money you might nor recoup if you sell, because you plan to be there for a long time and your enjoyment is worth that investment.

If budget was no concern, I’d make the rear extension a kitchen/ sitting room looking out over the garden. I’d include a small utility at the back, and iIf the hallway corridor needs rebuilding, infill the under-utilised area for a downstairs loo.

I would then take a chunk out of one of the bedrooms for a bathroom. Exactly which would depend on what you want. Will a shower room suffice? Do you need a bath? Who is in the household and what do you need the bedrooms for?

Also addressing the building regs question for the loft is critical and moth be a deal breaker. Be prepared for that.

Yeah, it's a probate sale, no idea how much they just want to get shot at less money, hold onto it for the hopes of more money, or select to someone who actually wants to live in it instead of someone who just flipped properties for a living. It could be the light of the estate agent who is trying to sell the house as a three-bedroom house when it isn't at this time.

That's some really interesting suggestions, thank you so much!

Some great ideas from @Smallorveryfaraway!

Ours was also a probate sale and from my experience (summer 2024) beneficiaries can be stubborn in what they want/believe a family home is worth. This place hadn't been touched for 50+ years (1972 boiler and a leak that had apparently been ongoing for so long the joists had disintegrated), yet getting them to agree a realistic price was akin to getting blood from a stone.