I can't think of anything worse than a sliding door opening from my kitchen into the centre of my bathroom, with the toilet almost opposite the door. Due to the gap around a sliding door there is little acoustic privacy. At the moment the door is offset and hinged and almost out of the kitchen. Your proposed plan makes a bad situation much worse, and would discourage many buyers when it comes to resale.

There appears to be a bit of waste space in your laundry/bathroom and some cleverly designed cabinetwork may overcome this. Small bathroom/laundry combinations are the hardest to design and get right.

I would explore other options.

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

Hi Rafael, can you post your whole house plan so that we can offer you suggestions/ideas. Knowing what spaces are next to these would be helpful. How many people live in the house. cheers

Hi rafael with a young family I would suggest the following rough idea to bring the bedrooms together. Don't know how much you have to spend but can imagine that like most of us budget will be tight.

The front of the house can keep original features and the rear with possible extension modern and light. The family bathroom could be placed between bed 2 & 3 cheers

A modern open plan family kitchen attached to a single front terrace by Chan Architecture in Melbourne, this house was pushed out to the boundary for more space

While siriuskey's suggestion is spectacular it is very expensive to reconfigure half a house as suggested. A more financially modest suggestion would be to relocate the bathroom/laundry to the bedroom adjacent to the meals area, possibly with an air-lock laundry arrangement to keep the toilet away from the kitchen/meals area. Then extend the old bathroom/laundry wall out to the south and convert the old bathroom to another bedroom. Utilise the wall between the new bedroom and the kitchen for your additional kitchen storage with shallow pantry cupboards. Don't extend to the boundary as you will still need access to the rear. While a bedroom off a kitchen is not ideal, it is a better solution than a bathroom directly off a kitchen. Dr Retro House Calls services all of metro Melbourne and beyond.

Dr Retro

Hi Dr Retro, the master suite is already extended to the boundary so access to the rear is via the other side. The two bedrooms could step back in as it already is and have a small internal courtyard between them and the boundary brick wall, with possibly pushing the family/kitchen to the boundary with sloping glass skylights.

Nothing is cheap, but you are at least building in Melbourne where you will recoup your spend

I would have a plan for doing things in stages so as to end up with a brilliant open plan small house rather than just another ordinary one cheers

Thanks Dr Retro, me me, and siriuskey. Thanks for your feedback.

I don't like the idea of pushing the house to the boundary all the way, I believe having space between my neighbors is something not only rare where the house is but also gives me a sense of fresh air.

I do have plans to renovate heavily this house in 6-7 years, but I'd go up instead growing to the boundary. Free standing houses are hard to find, but I do understand your point about maximizing the land. That touches personal preferences I guess.

I might morph my initial idea to Me Me's idea and see how it looks like.

Having a bathroom direclty off a kitchen is not ideal but I'm trying to keep this reno small at this stage.

Thanks guys, you gave me amazing ideas.

I thought something similar to what you proposed in terms of kitchen layout, but I forgot to mention - there is a bloody step between the kitchen and the Living - I could not find a single photo on Houzz with something like that.

Some snaps I took last time I inspected the house:

as you're planning a major second story renovation in the near future (and the existing bathroom space may be the ideal size and position for your new stairs) I'm wondering about more economical improvements that could be made by considering other options for the kitchen..subject to fine detail measurements my suggestions include a privacy wall between the laundry and bathroom, tall shallow storage cabinets against and inside the dividing wall (150mm - 300mm will store most kitchen supplies) sacrificing the existing pantry cabinet in favour of more counter, wall cabinets and a set of drawers, an extra cabinet on the meals side of the island bench and keeping the existing bathroom door creates an out of sight hanging space for ironing board and broom

Oops, that step could change things a bit, but any way, a cheaper solution is to have an island with pot drawers, 600w would allow approx 1 m space between all cabinets and would channel the kids through the kitchen on the other side of the Island,

I would add a bath with the shower over with tall shelves at the end for linen etc.

The bathroom Laundry measurements are incorrect but that's Real Estate Agents, cheers

It seems the kitchen size in your drawing is too long. I wish I could fit the fridge, oven and sink along the north facing wall - check the real photos I sent before.

The kitchen is about ~3.2x3.2m considering the walkway - I do like your idea of channeling the kids out - love it.

No problems, here with the kitchen back in the corner with the Island connected and a wider kitchen bench with sit up space on the family side, Going off the room sizes given by RE it makes the family approx 100m longer. Your new home looks lovely .

I just noticed your red line, I was extending the cabinets along the wall into the family before you mentioned the step but I thought to post it anyway But the new drawing now has a sit up bench. So I would suggest keeping everything in the kitchen as is and just adding the return bench (to keep the kids out) which will give extra storage, A bit like working in a galley kitchen which are great. Plus the wider bench top by removing the tall divider, more open and great for kids home work etc cheers

What is the height of step rise?

Hi Rafael, that step is a plan killer, you could still consider a narrow bench and stools facing back into the kitchen. Extra storage could be from having a return bench this should add approx 1 m of extra 600 base cabinet space and having your current pantry fitted with drawers would make that storage so much better. I attach a photo of our 400 pantry which was retro fitted with draws, so much better, the photo quality not good as my phone camera doesn't like being indoors.

I really think the best option for extra storage for the next 7yrs would be narrow 30 - 40cm flat pack tall cabinets along the wall of the family space next to the Aircon.