Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 21, 2009 2:38 am Hi I'm in the process of building a house. I'm having trouble reducing the wasted space, particularly in the entrance. As you can see from the plan, the corridor from the front door is around 4.7m long then narrows down and is a further 4.5m long before you get to the kitchen. note that the doors to the media/rumpus room retract to give a more open plan appearance. The rooms are as follows: (clockwise on plan) main bedroom w/ ensuite and WIR; rumpus/media room; patio; living room; dining room; bedroom 2; laundry; toilet; bedroom 3; bedroom 4. any help appreciated! http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i80/danielt25/th_floorplan.jpg Our "Better Homes Queensland" Cairns Build viewtopic.php?f=31&t=40451 Current stage - 1st builder's clean done. Keys soon. Re: help me reduce wasted space 2Oct 21, 2009 7:16 am I love wide entrys, the only suggestion I have is to change the door opening of that media room so its in the middle and it opens onto the hallway (double doors), and it should break up your 4.5m corridor and open up the space for you. Have fun Re: help me reduce wasted space 3Oct 21, 2009 9:16 am Corridors and hallways are wasted space. Almost all of my hallways have been made so they are part of living spaces (such as my rumpus room next to bedrooms). If your kitchen was moved down you'd have a much larger living space than the one that occupies that space now. Re: help me reduce wasted space 4Oct 21, 2009 10:12 am My advice would be not to try and reduce the width of your entry. One of the worst possible things in a house in my opinion is walking into a tunnel before entering a big open plan area. Keep the entry wide so it has some presence when you enter the house. You can break it up a little with a couple of bulkheads (make a feature of the entry ceiling to distract from the plain walls). As the previous poster suggested, maye look at double doors along the hallway fro the theatre room. Not only will they break up the wall, but furniture placement (and speakers) is a lot harder in a room where the corner has been cut out. The only suggestion I would make is to look at the kitchen's placement in relation to the hallway. At the moment the hallway almost leads right into the middle of the kitchen. THe first thing you'll see when you come through the front door is the oven. WIth regards to the long hallways, I had similar issue with my place, and it's layout (check out the length of the hallway). I made the hallway extra wide, and built in a few bulkheads and some other elements to break up the long corridor look. I am about to start plasterboard, and so far I am very happy with the way it has come together (the kitchen layout has changed a few times however !). My plan: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It may be "wasted" space as you can't use the space, but whatever you do, don't forget about that first impression as you walk into the home. Blog is now up - http://www.jbdave.blogspot.com/ Re: help me reduce wasted space 5Oct 21, 2009 10:41 am The thing is, you still have to get from A to B in the house. Whether that is marked "hallway" or whether it is absorbed into a living area that you have to walk past/through, it is still a traffic area, and furniture placement is still a consideration. Two BIG advantages of having the hallways you do now, is that you put hard flooring down, tiles or floorboards, that won't get worn like carpet would. And also that the traffic areas are defined and rooms can be closed off. buildingwithhamra I love wide entrys, the only suggestion I have is to change the door opening of that media room so its in the middle and it opens onto the hallway (double doors), and it should break up your 4.5m corridor and open up the space for you. Have fun Great suggestion.... you could even do double bifold doors so that it can almost completely open up. Or you could leave the loung pretty much open to the hallway and put doors going through to the kitchen, you'd have to play with the plan a little to do it..... This would also help block that visual from the front door. Hallways aren't necessarily wasted space. There has to be movement from one part of the house to the other. Much better to walk past a room by using a hallway than through a room. This is my house plan... as you can see, we have quite a bit of entry way and hallway. But with the curve and the windows, it actually "makes" our house strangely enough. The hallway becomes a feature. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ With yours, I'd put a table and mirror/art in the front entry way for impact. Then on the wall opposite the media room, I'd make it a double wall (180mm) with some feature cut outs with some lighting, feature paint or art in them. Your entry and hallway will then become a WOW statement part of your home. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: help me reduce wasted space 6Oct 21, 2009 11:12 am Quote: Hallways aren't necessarily wasted space. There has to be movement from one part of the house to the other. Much better to walk past a room by using a hallway than through a room. Couldn't agree more. I could imagine after a few years in a walk through lounge room, the carpet in the walk though bit would look totally different to the carpet in the lounge room part. YOu can also break up the flooring when walking past a room creating a nice look. Quote: With yours, I'd put a table and mirror/art in the front entry way for impact. Then on the wall opposite the media room, I'd make it a double wall (180mm) with some feature cut outs with some lighting, feature paint or art in them. Your entry and hallway will then become a WOW statement part of your home. Good idea. Spend some money on creating the little features and it will create a nice visual as you enter the house. Just don't go too over the top. Blog is now up - http://www.jbdave.blogspot.com/ Re: help me reduce wasted space 7Oct 21, 2009 11:16 am I agree with everyone about the entry way... In my current house my front door enters straight into the lounge room. Not only does it mean i have to keep it tidy...it means i have to have "traffic space" around furniture so people can get in/out of the house. It has no Wow..and you are walking staight into Life..rather than a hello if you get what i mean In the house we're building..we have a MASSIVE entry..and I'm looking fwd to it so it can be fancy and have a bit of wow / welcome to the place. Built Liberty 42 - Handover 26th Feb 2010 forum thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17243 Re: help me reduce wasted space 8Oct 21, 2009 12:46 pm A bit OT but seeing as we're talking about options for entryways... My preferred option is neither of what has been discussed! I don't like walking in through a front door and being faced with a long passageway before I can get into the house. And with guests the feeling would be of tracking them right through the house - which for me is a bit uncomfortable because I assume that when I'm a guest in someone's house that doesn't automatically mean they want me taking a grand tour of the house, yet that's the feeling I get with a long entryway. If you get what I mean? On the other hand opening the door and *bang* you're in the living space is odd too. So, in our new house, we've designed in a small entry room, a vestibule if you like, that you can walk in to and divest yourself of coats & shoes, dump shopping bags, that kind of stuff. Not quite a mudroom - more like a formal mudroom Because there's a separate entry into the house from the vestibule it also acts as an airlock, improving the insulative properties of the house. And finally, being a distinct room, it's one more space that we can individually decorate without clashing with the rest of the house And indeed we've bought some lovely tiles and assorted bits to go into it. Re: help me reduce wasted space 9Oct 21, 2009 10:18 pm A minor suggestion - what about adding an angled piece of wall (maybe create a niche in it for a painting/mirror etc.) to 'soften' that square corner of the media room. At the moment it appears as if it is 'sticking out' into the entry hall and you don't lose the nice wide entry. Re: help me reduce wasted space 10Oct 21, 2009 10:35 pm The more I look at your plan, the more I want to shuffle a few things around. Please don't take this the wrong way at all, I just love looking at plans and thinking of alternate ways to get the best out of a house. I realise I don't know the orientation or anything of your block, but my mum's house is quite similar to yours, which is what made me think that maybe the media room would work better where your lounge currently is, 'flip' the hallway over and make the dining room where the media is, push the kitchen towards the big walk-in-pantry and make the big central area the living room? The link is for an early sketch (and basically the way it got built) of her house. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-ZSkuuN7XEQ/S ... n_last.jpg Hope I haven't overstepped any boundaries :/ Re: help me reduce wasted space 11Nov 03, 2009 9:11 pm thanks for all the advice. I've now hidden the kitchen bench. improved storage. rearranged the rooms so less wasted hallway space. My questions are: 1. is the island bench of 3.6m x 0.9m too long for a 4.6m long kitchen? 2. an entrance hallwa of 2260mm down to 1000mm - that's a bit too exaggerted I suspect 3. would you increase the space in front of the kitchen island bench (currenly 2600) and make the alfresco area smaller than 5600 x 5000 - say 5600 x 4500 or even 5600 x 4000? 4. would you shift the left wall of the living area so it lines up with the island bench/kitchen or lines up with the walk in pantry? thanks. Our "Better Homes Queensland" Cairns Build viewtopic.php?f=31&t=40451 Current stage - 1st builder's clean done. Keys soon. Re: help me reduce wasted space 12Nov 04, 2009 12:10 am danrts 1. is the island bench of 3.6m x 0.9m too long for a 4.6m long kitchen? 2. an entrance hallwa of 2260mm down to 1000mm - that's a bit too exaggerted I suspect 3. would you increase the space in front of the kitchen island bench (currenly 2600) and make the alfresco area smaller than 5600 x 5000 - say 5600 x 4500 or even 5600 x 4000? 4. would you shift the left wall of the living area so it lines up with the island bench/kitchen or lines up with the walk in pantry? Looking good danrts! I love the amount of storage you've got - you can never have enough. My thoughts on the above: 1. I don't think the island bench is too long, the more bench space the better. It looks nice and balanced at the moment. And it is nice and close to the pantry. 2. Maybe open up the entrance hallway by pushing the 1000 wide part back into the garage. It does seem like it might be a bit narrow the way it is. 3. I think the space in front of the kitchen is an ok width. I don't think it should be wider as it only seems to be a 'walkway' between rooms and I guess to allow space for stools at the kitchen bench? The area is better used in the outdoor area 4. As for the living room, I probably wouldn't make it smaller. Maybe work out where your furniture would go in the room and if it would comfortably fit in there. This might determine the size of your room in the end. You can really use anything you want the main consideration would be how it looks once painted/finished - or the look you want. Cabinetmakers use MDF because its cheap… 2 9959 Cupcake.girl This really depends on your local council. Each one has different definitions and ways to calculate contributions. This is called a contribution… 1 3582 dimensions on your original plan are inconsistent and with accurate dimensions (including site plan, upstairs and down) i could make a proper scale drawing with furniture… 3 7516 |