Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 23, 2014 10:51 am Hi All, We have a situation where we have the slab down and the frames up (not roof trusses yet) and are wondering if our living areas might be a bit small. We have a couple of options to rectify (if necessary) but would appreciate your thoughts... The situation is we have a square living area split into 4 compartments...at the top, the dining area and family area merge into a 8m wide by 4m deep area. Directly under these are u-shaped kitchen (on the left) and a media area (on the right). The media is essentially 4m x 4m and the kitchen 4m x 3m. The kitchen and media areas are split by an entrance way. We are concerned that 4m in the family area is too shallow and would like to deepen it as it seems like 4m from the media room wall to the outside wall (6.3m glass stacker doors) is too narrow and thus a bit claustrophobic. Options are as follows: 1) Trim the media and the kitchen both by about 0.5m to create a 4.5m family area. This would result in a media room of 4 x 3.5m. This would also result in the stovetop moving to a place in front of a window (which I believe does not require a rangehood?). Option 1 pic on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55140249@N05/13976906224/ 2) Push the outside wall in the family area out by 0.5m to make a 4.5m living area again. This would require additional slab to be laid, re-engineering of roof trusses and walls etc and the creation of some tricky angles where the family area attaches to the balance of the house (bedrooms etc). However, the media area would remain 4x4 and the kitchen as it was too. Option 2 pic on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55140249@N05/13953369016/ 3) Similar to option 2 but push it out by 1m and thus creating a 5m deep living area. The tricky angles become a little more pronounced though. Same issues with engineering etc. Option 3 pic on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55140249@N05/13976906184/ I would dearly love to have your feedback on this and thoughts. I am meeting with the builder this afternoon. Thanks all. Re: Living areas in a house... 2Apr 23, 2014 11:39 am a 4x4 living area is big enough but the way you have your enterance stops you for using the whole 4x4. if it was my house plans to fix this problem i would make the entrance straight and have the entry to the media room in the middle of the entrance hallway. if you didnt want people looking straight into the living from the enterance door a door at the other end of the hallway would stop that. looking at your option 1 pic for layout it means in your living you can push the sofa out against the media wall and it would be just a matter of swapping the sofa that runs along the hallway in the media room to the right side as the other sofa would be able to moved along its current wall. the best thing about this option it helps stop sound from the living flooding the media room and its a small structual change. Re: Living areas in a house... 3Apr 23, 2014 2:07 pm We like open plan if possible - with allowance to "divide" with furniture. We actually had a wall removed because it interfered with this idea. I'm not a good one for media rooms - so will stay out of that. But we have a spot - we call our "snug" - where we sit and read - no radio/TV etc. It is very peaceful and people seem to gravitate to it. Re: Living areas in a house... 4Apr 23, 2014 2:08 pm Saint Mike We like open plan if possible - with allowance to "divide" with furniture. We actually had a wall removed because it interfered with this idea. I'm not a good one for media rooms - so will stay out of that. But we have a spot - we call our "snug" - where we sit and read - no radio/TV etc. It is very peaceful and people seem to gravitate to it. It has a lovely outside view too. As we have a large outside area - under cover - we can lessen the need for a large family room and/or eating area. I would be wary. Is you site demilished but nothing else done? Sounds like liquidity problems to me. Our builder did the same. Got hundreds of thousands of dollars of… 2 15502 3 5714 Can anyone suggest a house layout where the kitchen-dining - living runs the length across the rear of the house left to right where our best view will be we… 0 4392 |