Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 01, 2010 10:17 am Hi, New user to this forum, but I've found some good tips here before. We have the floor plan in the image below, the black lines depict walls. I'm looking to give this 60's place a more modern look - but I've come stuck on how things would change in the floor plan (we don't plan on demolishing). I've noted most of the newer houses for example, don't have kitchens with four walls, and lounge rooms such as this. I think the 'modern' trend seems to be more open plan as opposed to the floor plan below. I'd like to have some thoughts on what you'd change given the similar design, to give some thought on what it 'could' be. I'd say we need to get some walls removed.. but I could be wrong (the image is not to scale, and no, the loungeroom wall really isn't on a diagonal). Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 3Jan 01, 2010 4:08 pm With a sketch like that you're surely not expecting any serious replies ? Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. - Dale Carnegie Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 4Jan 01, 2010 4:28 pm I was, but it's pretty crappy quality, the next won't be better, but I'll put some numbers on it. My key point was that the kitchen for example, has 4 walls, it's not something I think is occurring in newer houses, and I was merely looking to see what others would do. I'm working on a rough layout with measurements, in the hope of further replies. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 5Jan 01, 2010 4:40 pm I am assuming all the rooms are a reasonable size and the laundry is not as huge as it appears in the sketch http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj187/nurselovescoffee/floorplanm-1.jpg What I would do is remove as much of the walls where I have shown red as possible (of course you will have to find out if they are weight bearing first ) and make it one open space liveing/kitchen/ dining area. I notice dining says dining/office so this wouldnt work if you want a separate study/office but I would aim to use the sun room for that. I would keep the wall between hallway and lounge - its always nice to have a separate entry and also this separates the bedroom/bathroom area from the liveing area. Hope my 2c worth helps Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 6Jan 01, 2010 4:44 pm I would definately open it all up but it really depends on what is structural and cant be removed. Do u really need the separate dinning/office? I would take out the hall wall as well if it were me and that was an option. Pictures would help. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 7Jan 01, 2010 7:58 pm I've got the floorplan with the sizes, with TWO exceptions, the bathroom is noted as 1.39, it's actually 2m across the exterior wall (i.e. it's 3m across the wall of Bed2, it's 2m across exterior wall) - the program used was too flaky - the offset is seen at the front, where it's actually not 2.4m set back . Thanks heaps for any / all feedback, different views are always helpful. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 8Jan 01, 2010 8:03 pm Mango I would definately open it all up but it really depends on what is structural and cant be removed. Do u really need the separate dinning/office? I would take out the hall wall as well if it were me and that was an option. Pictures would help. Good point, we don't need a seperate 'dining', but we do have a need for some sort of office. What would you do with the dining room ? Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 9Jan 01, 2010 8:54 pm If there are only 2 of you, I would rather have an open spacious dining/kitchen/liveing and use one of the bedrooms as an office, one as your bedroom (I assume the 2 of you share the main bedroom) and one spare room. Re your new plan - I am confused - how does one enter the house?? I assume the back door is thru the laundry but I dont get where the front door is?? Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 10Jan 01, 2010 9:02 pm I agree, i'd put the office in the spare room. You can get great desks that sort of pack up so it all looks tidy. If you dont have a spare room, maybe still open up the entire space but place the desk and computer in the corner and have the dining table infront of it. Looking at yr new plan you dont need to bother knocking out the hall wall. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 11Jan 01, 2010 9:05 pm There's actually 4 (2 kids, one in the cot in the main bedroom, 1 in bed2). The front door is located in the middle, the corner of the sunroom, facing the street. The sunroom would suffice as an office, though I think it'd be a bit cramped. I'm starting to like the idea of removing the kitchen wall, and combining the dining, but the office is here purely cause it's the only (near) practical room for it. Yes, we will eventually need 3 bedrooms.. We are currently having a view of replacing the exterior fibro walls with something else (cladding comes to mind), so, we are also taking a future view of where on earth with that 3rd bedroom end up! The back is large, but we have an outside toilet (unused), and a granny flat behind that - so an extension of some sort to the back is something to 'ponder', but then we fall back to the .. 'what do you do with the current floor plan' issue.. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 12Jan 01, 2010 9:18 pm Sorry, I must of been getting your post mixed up with another renovateing question in which they said it was just the 2 of them If you are using the sunroom as a bedroom and the front door comes thru that you may have to add a wall to create a separate entry and bedroom, by my reckoning it would create a narrow hall entry and a bedroom 2.4 x 4.2 - a narrow room but fine for a child's bedroom - On the other hand, bedroom 2 seems to be 4 x 3.3 which would be large enough for kids to share and leave smaller room as an office - perhaps later you could convert the granny flat to an office? Just a few random thoughts Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 13Jan 01, 2010 9:56 pm I'm sorry but I just felt like there's lots of questions. Have you identified location of asbestos load bearing walls plumbing Is the sunroom an enclosed verandah? What rooms do you need? What functions could you combine? What provision for future extensions would you need? Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 14Jan 01, 2010 10:16 pm Ask as many as you wish - I know I haven't given as much info as I could, I don't want to bias any decisions, I'm looking for as much feedback as I can to sit and ponder over. The obvious is to close in the sunroom as the bedroom, and maintain the dining room as the office, until the granny flat is eventually suitable for one of the kids (they are far too young for that now tho). All exterior walls are asbestos AFAIK, they all have a similar look and feel to this: http://i46.tinypic.com/rri5g6.jpg We plan to remove that, and well, we are pondering cladding - I can't find a seperate forum to discuss the options there, and we are still lost on what price that will come in at. It's needed, we are getting solar power and solar hot water as one of many measures from the sustainability assessment. Naturally, they can't drill into the asbestos, the next solution is to replace it. Load bearing walls - I'm not sure where they are. There is no detailed plans like you get with new houses (I've been looking over this forum, some of the new plans are 'nice' (but overkill)). Plumbing - we know where the bathroom is and kitchen, there isn't likely to be any plumbing under the house, but I figure it's not too difficult to 'move' it (by routing to new locations in the event the extension needed that. The loungeroom has 2 windows in the front leading to the sunroom (another of the 'weird' aspects of this 1960's home), I can only assume the sunroom was added as an extension - looking at the roof pitch, it's difficult to say yes or no (we had the roof done before move in, it was supersix (asbestos)). As to what rooms we need, there's now and then there's the future. The current floor plan, whilst 'different', we've managed to weld into, in the future, there is a requirement for the 3rd bedroom, the bathroom is narrow (oh, and asbestos lined, so we are gonna get that ripped out when they do the recladding.. yay! - I think), if an extension was to go in, the current working theory (not necessarily what we will do), is - build a tandem garage along the side - so along the exterior wall of bed1, bath, bed2 (stopping before the window). Then, we'll have an internal stairwell leading up stairs, where: - A new bathroom will be created. - A new room will be (or maybe two, there's about 20sq. mtrs there). That'll give option to move the office there, and ... well, the bedroom would be the dining room I guess. .. this is where I"m facing difficulties at the moment, I can't decide where / how we'd ever fit the three bedrooms in close proximity - it's a must in my view. We could theoretically go 'back' to the yard, there's the outhouse and grannyflat. Now, the granny flat has someone occupying it, but in 5 months that may no longer be the case - so, we could make the current house into a giant behemoth, spreading further back to the granny flat - but then we'd have more than too much floor space for our current and possibly long term future needs.. If we did expand "back" the deck would no longer be needed, as the 'under' house could easily serve those needs. We could then move the bedrooms up the back upstairs, and the bathroom could move or remain where it is - that'd be a 'value adding question' i suppose. Then, we'll be back to what we do with the current floor space. The master bedroom could perhaps become a garage, internal access. That'd be too close to the loungeroom tho (i..e the loungeroom and bedroom 1 doors are in close proximity). Add to this, the laundry also has that weird loo / hotwater room which is wasted space - it can probably remain, but the walls / roof are asbestos and are candidates to be replaced as well.. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 16Jan 01, 2010 11:17 pm Ari What about switching the office with the kitchen? Make a small office on the kitchen side and open up the lounge new kitchen/old office. Rooms are too small in that situation, 2m wide x 2.5 - allowing for a hallway past each of the two rooms. One room could be done though.. Swap kitchen to dining, Kitchen becomes Bedroom 3 (which would be office until the baby was old enough). Sunroom is currently playroom, that gets changed over to office / granny flat becomes office when the time comes. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 17Jan 01, 2010 11:25 pm There might be asbestos in the kitchen too I believe. Moving plumbing costs money, I guess it's a matter of weighing up the cost and the benefits. That's assuming it's timber floors? Sounds like the sunroom was enclosed later. I've had a couple of relatives with front verandahs under the existing roofline that were closed in later. You might find some surprises with the walls, flooring, etc there. Not sure I understand about the upstairs, are you talking about an attic or a Cape Cod or a whole extension? Don't forget the stairs will take up a bit of space, and you don't want to put something substantial in the very spot that subsequently turns out ideal for the stairs. On the other hand sometimes the under stairs space can be used very cleverly. Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 18Jan 01, 2010 11:43 pm Macy There might be asbestos in the kitchen too I believe. The walls are plasterboard (it seems they are). The floor is lino - we plan to tile that - but if we are moving it to the dining room, well - tile the dining room instead (the Kitchen was always going to be renovated, but moving it to the dining room is a better idea. See, the laundry has a backdoor that will lead out to a deck. What we could do in moving the kitchen over to the dining room, is expand the wall back, just as was done in the sunroom, and create two exits to a deck area, one from the Kitchen so food / drinks at the ready, the decking area would be undercover, shaded screens. I'm starting to like that idea over the extensions idea, it's gotta be cheaper, and delivers that 3 bedroom effect, removes the dining room (I can't foresee a use for it, we don't really 'dine', and I'm not convinced anyone does anymore.. - but if they do, then they could use the undercover deck I guess).. And, in theory, it really would be a great change to the place. We would be enjoying it for the required 10 years or so (until the bank is paid back), possibly longer, but if we decided to sell, would such an idea be viewed negatively? The hallway would expand out towards the laundry, passing the new bedroom 3, finising at the laundry area. The bedroom would consume all the kitchen space. The dining room would grow a bit to consume some back space (about 1 - 2m), there would be a deck between the exits of the laundry and kitchen. Would the Kitchen, being off the lounge room and right near the back exit (in a corner, which has townhouses as neighbours), would that seem bad at all - would it affect resale negatively? Upstairs - is the imaginary extension, either to the back of the house, or the side of the house which was imagined as being the extra space needed, but with the swap of kitchen to dining room, that wouldn't be 'necessary'. -Edit: would the flow of Loungeroom, dining, kitchen, be viewed somehow negatively? Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 19Jan 02, 2010 12:17 am A survey in this city found that 52% of pre 65 and 23% of 65-79 kitchens contained asbestos. Old floortiles can contain it too. Has the house been inspected? Where will the dining table go? Re: Floorplan - What would you change? 20Jan 02, 2010 8:47 am We can't find anyone 'competent' to inspect it. We had someone come and take a look at it. He said all the external walls and eaves were asbestos, and from my research, I agree. But the internal walls, we saw a hole in one of them when moving in, and saw that it was plasterboard (we took a picture and put it on a forum, a few people saw it for plasterboard). However, the person who quoted it said they were asbestos. We are going to double check that though - but I'm fairly sure it'll be plasterboard walls, the cupboards are timber, and the lino on the floor simple lino, and then floorboards. The ceilings are plaster of some sort, they don't have the telltale signs of asbestos. It's as if they removed asbestos from all the rooms in the house, except the laundry and bathroom which do have exact signs of asbestos. The dining table will go in the space remaining between the kitchen and the loungeroom - as a combined lounge / dining off Kitchen, in the case we were to sell - otherwise, we would have it as a outdoor dining area in the new deck.. That is, unless having that flow - 'lounge room', 'dining table', kitchen would somehow be off putting? 2 6424 Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 8775 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39724 |