What would you prefer?

[Ahurani]

DP wants to add another room onto the house. It's a 2 bed 1 bath house. He wants to take the dining room and put a another room/study in with folding doors. This would make the kitchen like a galley kitchen. You would walk in to walls.

I think that we should keep it 2 bedrooms and make it another family room because the wall going up would make it too claustrophobic. And people like open plan living nowadays.

What do you guys think?

[Ahurani]

[Nelle]

Is there any chance you can draw a rough house plan? It's hard to make suggestions when I sort of can't imagine it.

Having said that, if you want the space to be open can you make a family room that using folding doors can convert into a bedroom?

[OceanPrincess]

... and put a another room/study in with folding doors.

If it isn't big enough to be a proper bedroom, I'd go with your idea! Open plan is great these days.

But if it could be a bedroom, with room for a single bed and somewhere for clothes (wardrobe/tallboy) then that could be good - on paper a 3BR house is probably worth a bit more than a 2BR with 2 living spaces, IYKWIM!

[Ahurani]

ok i tried lol

its kind of right i think, i was never a tech drawer lol

plan.jpg picture by ahurani86 - Photobucket

He'll be doing it up to sell so I dunno :/

[OceanPrincess]

Lol, I think I get the idea!!!

You walk in through the lounge, is that right? I assume that from "Front porch".

I actually think a bedroom might be better there. The lounge room looks big enough. We've only got one real living space in our house and we have a 3BR - we do have a "kitchen/meals" area, but the meals part of the area is quite small and not really a living space.

Do you use it much as a dining room?

[Nelle]

Okay I think I see too. Is the dining area a decent size? I'm thinking a small bedroom, like someone else has suggested, enough room for a bed and storage. And then the area closer to the kitchen be open as a small living/dining area?

Just thinking, then it could be two bedroom, with a third small study/bedroom?

[Ahurani]

You walk in through double doors and then there is the lounge room on the right. I think DP wants to keep it there.

We never eat at the table lol We never use it. There is a little area just above the lounge where we thought we might get a round table to have there.

He is really selling it to make money but Im thinking it needs to be livable too?

Yeah so it would be a small 3rd bedroom/study. We were thinking of putting the computer in there as well as a couch or something

[Nelle]

If it was a study nook, even with double doors (can you do double sliding doors?), then it could be a bedroom or a more open space, sort of how theatre rooms often have double doors that can stay open?

[LimeSlice]

The only problem would be that then you are losing your only other living space...so you would only have your lounge right?

Not sold here...
But then again, I detest open plan living - when I want my whole house to a be an open lounge I will cease to call them ROOMS!! rofl

[Ahurani]

Yeah so it could be a small bedroom/study/sitting room? I'm more worried that the kitchen will be claustrophobic

[AnyDream]

Can you do some sort of flexible wall arrangement like a hutch thru to the den/dining, so that you can open it to preserve an open-plan feel for future owners? Something like wooden shutters that slide across, you could opt to keep them closed or open depending on what's going on.

[Arimeh]

I'll forward this thread to my DH - he's an architectural technician and always comes up with solutions

[The_Gudism_Master]

hello

Camme-Lot's other half here. I work as a architectural technician for an architect (obviously) so I have a fairly good idea about these sort of things.

After reading this, I personally would go with the extra bedroom idea. After all, if the intention is to sell the house, then you should do what will make it easier to sell. Not always is making more money the reasoning to do certain things in a reno, you have to appeal to what people want, and help the property sell quickly and, more importantly, easily.

Yes, the majority of people love 'open plan living', but I believe 8 out of 10 people would rather 3 bedrooms than 2, rather than having an extra living space. Our old house had only 1 living space, and yes it was hard but we got by, and it was only one small living space (whole 3 bed house was only 100sq/m (or 11 squares)).

From looking at your plan, I can see your hesitation in the kitchen feeling a little closed in. The house we owned prior to moving to Tassie, was basically a galley kitchen open at one end, and it was a pokey feeling space. We ended up cutting a big hole in one wall and making a servery with a nice piece of stained timber. It worked amazing to improve not only the space of the kitchen, but also the living space as well, and it was only a small living room too.

Am I right to assume that the new wall your DH wants to put in is the one between the kitchen and the dining?

If I were you, what I would do would be creating the extra room by closing in the dining room entirely. Forget the french doors or sliding doors or any other alternatives....costly and it makes the new 'bedroom' not really a bedroom.
If you have a heap of these types of doors, the room wont be soundproof and have no privacy and it just wont work. Make the new bedroom as small as is usable (smallest should be 2.7m x 2.7m [with a built in robe]...2.7m x 3.3m [without built ins] anything less is too tight). then use the extra space for the kitchen so it may become a littlle wider and improve the crampiness factor.

Then, reconfigure the kitchen so that you can cut a hole in the wall and act as a servery into you lounge room. Structurally this is an ok thing to do, the builder would put some sort of lintel (beam) above the new hole to support anything above.

Obviously this would most probably require a new kitchen fitout, but these dont need to be pricey, do your research and dont put in top end appliances and finishes (if you are selling what does it matter?).

Thats my 2 cents, though without having a better picture of the layout, where power points are, the tv sits, etc etc, this all might be a whole pile of poppy**** and be absolutely pointless help

Hope this helpls.

Limeslice: I too hate 'open plan living', but only what most builders call 'open plan living'. Yes, all they do is make 1 big space and call in the lounge, dining, kitchen etc. And it doesnt work. Nothing to differenciate the border between the rooms. Yeah you can have a big open room, but it is how you make the spaces work that makes the differences, and how they connect. Now thats the challenge

[Ahurani]

Thanks so much for your reply.

I think the problem with not having the french doors is that at the side there is a big window where alot of the light comes from.. also there is double doors that will fall into the "3rd bedroom" area. so if we made it a room the kitchen wouldnt have much natural light. There is a skylight there but I dont know whether that would be enough. :/

Oh and we'll be fitting a new kitchen

[LimeSlice]

So glad I am not the only one TGM! lol
And yes you are right and more often than not, they screw it up to make stamp out houses.

[The_Gudism_Master]

yeah the last thing you would want is a dark space.
Having no natural light is a bugger, but a fairly cheap off-the-shelf product like Solatube would provide alot of natural light (they are basically a skylight but reflect the light, making them very effective.

and yes limeslice......I am NOT a fan of the typical project builder.
some are good....most....bad....very bad.