Floor plan advice for newbies. Please help!
Hi! We're embarking on sorting this floorpan out. Bed 2, 3 and Balcony was an extension which is why the bathroom and WC is in the centre of everything. We'd like to limit the number of walls we need to remove. The house is a post war and we have good access underneath so plumbing etc. should be easy enough to move around (fingers crossed). We've made a few scribbles but I'm not going to share them yet so that we get some fresh ideas from all of you. We're hoping to create 3 beds + study, the main with ensuite. Living area opening out onto balcony. Thanks in advance for your enlightenment!!
Comments (16)
8 years ago- 8 years ago
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Floor plan advice please
Comments (29)Hi Renai, there are a couple of things about the kitchen that trouble me. To me in some ways it looks like a hybrid of 1990's kitchens and the current direction design is taking. The L-shaped return looks like it has a breakfast bar, but so does the island bench - a duality that does the kitchen no favours. I would ditch the L- return. This achieves a number of things: 1 - It facilitates better traffic flow between the kitchen and dining room; 2- it eliminates the awkward corner cupboard, always a problem that none of the many high tech "solutions" address adequately; 3 - it simplifies the construction of the kitchen, with potential savings; I would move the island bench up the page (possibly even make it longer), providing a free wall for tall storage cabinets, and or alternative fridge location. The door to the walk in pantry would need to move slightly to best achieve this. The corner location where you have the fridge now is not good for one main reason: you will often need to open fridge doors up wider than 90° to pull out drawers and shelves for cleaning, and even at 90° most modern fridge doors require more space than just the fridge recess allows....See MorePlease help me with floor plan design for a small Australian home
Comments (20)OP, OKL's plan is better from an energy efficiency point of view than your plan (your plan wastes the northern aspect with bathrooms). But DON'T just flip OKL's plan, as the orientation would then be all wrong! It's important to get the orientation right, this will greatly effect the comfort of your home & your heating/cooling requirements (& hence your bills). Read this. It's all very useful, but maybe focus on the section about orientation first. http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design Below are some generalisations. As has been requested, it would be nice to know your general location, as climates vary across our big country, so building requirements change. But generally, you want your living areas (& a large proportion of your glazing facing north). If possible, have a smaller portion of your glazing facing south & east, for cross ventilation, & try to eliminate western glazing. Bedrooms to the south & east (if they won't also fit in the north), & rarely used rooms, like garages, bathrooms & laundries to the west. Your verandah is south facing, good, as it won't shade your home in winter. Hopefully you have north facing eaves & they aren't too large. If they are the right size you'll get sun through your northern windows in winter, but the eaves will shade the house in summer, when the sun is higher in the sky. So can you knock out windows & doors wherever you want? Would be good to know where they are currently, the size of the verandah, the block dimensions & any other structures which will influence shading & privacy. I'd also be looking at some tiny house blogs/websites. 72sqm isn't tiny, but you really want an efficient house that works well, & you'll find some ingenious storage solutions that are used in tiny houses. Well designed built in storage is definitely very important in a small home. Can't see if it all fits now, while using the app on my phone. But I'd aim for something like this. The kitchen in the NE corner, running down the eastern wall (so you get good morning sun). An island bench for dining, separating the living area on the northern wall. Master in the NW corner, with the ensuite on the western wall (if it fits - important not to have the master bedroom window facing west). Minor bedrooms (& windows) on the south wall. Main bathroom or powder room somewhere on the southern wall, in the SW corner would be nice if it fits there. No idea is that all fits, just some ideas. If you're not fussed about an easy facing kitchen, you could flip this all, & have the kitchen in the NW corner, & the master in the NE corner. If you're taking off external or internal cladding, this is a good time to insulate you're walls. Also up insulation levels in the roof cavity of they're inadequate. It will greatly effect comfort, is quite cheap & the walls are very hard to do at other times. Edit: as I got the verandah location wrong, then added to my post....See MoreHelp! We need floor plan advice for our family home
Comments (33)Appreciate the thoughts and this may be a solid option elsewhere in the country but in my circumstances I don't plan to be moving from this property any time before the kids are 18. It is located in Sydney's inner west, and in a specific high school catchment I plan to take advantage of when the kids are older. Stamp duty to buy the property was close to $100k and if moving out even in ten years to a larger property; that averages $10k a year spent on stamp duty. I know 115m2 internal is tight, as is the fixed layout due to existing bedroom walls, ceiling heights, wet areas, and the like - but there has to be a way to make this work... I have read that 4 bedroom apartments should be 102m2 or bigger. I am willing to make compromises where possible but I really want to create that extra separate room "Multi-purpose room" which can double as a study/work area/kids play area/media room/ad-hoc sleeping accommodation". Paul Di Stefano: I don't think these changes essentially equate to 'rearranging a sock drawer' - this is my PPOR so I am not too concerned what other buyers want or resale value if I plan to hold the property for 10-20 years +... (any trends we design for now may well be outdated by then anyway). Many buyers highly value indoor-outdoor integration. By moving the kitchen to centre, it opens up the rear and creates indoor living->outdoor living link. If I get IKEA flatpack kitchen and DIY as much as possible - have a friend reroute the water/drainage/+his licenced electrical friend...hopefully this work would cost sub-$20k. Adding the sliding door to rear is $2.5k. Ensuite, bathroom and laundry I believe I can fitout for $10-15k all up- let's say 15k (again, tiling, raise flooring, showers/fixtures/flat pack laudnry cabinetry install all done in-house without tradies). The only thing I really need professionals for is to move the gas line in kitchen, BIR installs, stone benchtop, and maybe a few adhoc wall demo/construction/doorway moving - lets call that 10k. All up ballpark that is 47.5k? Sirius- If I go with your style plan then I lose the potential 4th bed space and have no where for relatives to stay, babysitter, nanny; etc :( Maybe it is a possibility that the main living space be used for lounge room and kitchen, we can always put dining table in the Multi-purpose room, then when that room is needed for sleeping accommodation, the dining table be moved to the side and kids can eat dinner on island bench bar; lounge or outside table... ? those doors to each side of the fireplace as you suggest - this space is very cramped outside (2.45m width) and potentially would be used to store trailer or garden shed, there is an old terrace built on zero-boundary there and they have a DA to go 2 storeys; which will shadow the whole area. This is why I planned to make the rear south corner a raised deck and try to channel house activity leading out the existing glass french door to that deck, or the rear sliding door. See photo-(my house is on the left, terrace zero boundary on right, and front on is a wooden dividing fence which on the opposite side is the driveway/1 car park and front street....See MoreOpen floor plan layout options and fireplace location - help please!
Comments (4)I agree with comments made. You need to do a large scale plan and put all your furniture needs in place and play around with various options. You can't put a TV over the wood fireplace so this will need to be considered. Do you want to orientate your living furniture to look outwards? In which case, you probably want the TV on the outside wall too, to reduce reflection on it and have a single direction of focus. You could have the fireplce central, between the dining and living room so the heat is easily spread around. It could be a double sided one in that location. Don't forget though that the kitchen is also a source of heat. Do you want it as a free standing fireplace or situated on a wall? Do you want it also to be a focal point or more functional with the possibility of putting the winter soup pot on top? Do you want to be able to sit on the hearth on those really yucky cold days? Do you need to keep children safe from the hot surfaces etc? Work out your priorities and the location will probably fall into place. Good luck, C....See More
8 years ago- 8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
kiwimills, its always easy to make plans on "paper" the challenge will be for the tradespeople to make it fit but my suggestions includes an option for a bigger study or better choice would be an internal staircase for access to the garage and laundry and to make more use of the underhouse areas
- 8 years ago
- 8 years ago
- 8 years ago
- 8 years agoPlease excuse the scribble but you get the general idea. Like I said I hadn’t thought of putting internal stairs in or putting the main bed at the back of the house which would provide a nice view of the park which runs off the backyard. I was mostly trying to get an open plan flow from kitchen to balcony. I plan to run a deck off the mentioned concrete area below the old extension witch would be uncovered. Also, the stairs that run from the ED off the kitchen probably have 2-3m to the fence line. It’s a 600m2 block so a fair bit of room although more in the opposite side of the house than the stair side. Thanks for all your ideas and expertise!!
8 years agoHi there, Sorry I have been a bit slow with this, it's been sitting on my computer for a couple of days while I'am distracted with boring other things.
Trying to work within the existing floor plan keeping bathroom and kitchen as close as possible to original.
OKlouise internal stairs are a keeper just imagine how much extra sq m that will add to your home, study/granny flat/AirBnB.
The small study area outside Beds 2 & 3 will suit a family, you might need to add an opening skylight.
Master in the same position but with a WIR and ensuite
Kitchen now becomes part of the Alfresco as well as indoor dining plus the addition to the kitchen of a built in BBQ, because it flows through to the
kitchen no real need for extra sink etc. You could add another small sink into the Island bench.Because your climate is warmer opening up the living kitchen and dining through the house should help with cooling ventilation, especially with Louver windows cheers
Kieran Villis thanked siriuskey- 8 years ago
Hi Siriuskey, I think you made the most out of the floor plan without changing to much and you transformed it to a modern, well flowing open plan design.
I would just have some cost saving ideas to your design:
Instead of having a WIR, the new ensuite could be accessed directly from the bed 1. That would mean the western side window and the existing door opening can stay as is. To get a decent robe, the store on the eastern side of the original floor plan could be converted to extend the existing robe.
Regarding the bathroom, if Kieran wants to also have a shower in bath, the shower could stay as is and the toilet could go between the shower and the new bathtub. A single basin could go on the opposite side. Therefore the direction of the door opening can stay as is.
Please excuse my unprofessional drawing. Kieran, good luck with the renovation.
- 8 years ago
- 8 years ago
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
Hi Kieran,
I've spent a fun Sunday playing around with this... thanks for the challenge!
Jumping in to post it though, I think my ideas overlap with Siriuskey and Lucia. Isn't it funny how similar solutions can be arrived at independently!
Key points:
- As far as possible, I've tried to stick with the existing walls.
- Since Bed 2 & Bed 3 are quite small already, even though I've encroached into each to achieve separate entries, the impact is minimal, particularly for Bed 3.
- I've used pocket doors to both ends of the WIR and to the store room for optimal functionality.
- I've depicted Caroma Urbane compact toilet suites with wall concealed cisterns because they save a bit of space and both toilets can use that extra space in that direction.- It's a very stageable design. You may for instance decide to build the ensuite/WIR and reconfigure the bed 2/3 entries without doing any of the kitchen changes. Or you may decide to save the expense and not move the main WC into the existing store, though it does add a fair area to the living space (I've used the exact existing footprint of the store to save cost and demolition pain which is workable with the Caroma Urbane, but alternatively you could demolish and rebuild the wall behind the pan for a more spacious loo).
- The Family/Dining area ends up being fairly generous and very flexible. I've added a door to the end of the corridor to screen the loo a bit better from the dining area and for noise separation for the study, but you may prefer to leave this off.
- I've not mucked around with your windows, figuring the important thing was to get the concept down for you, except in the ensuite. Really good idea there to have a central mirror with a narrow window to each side to throw light on your face at the mirror. Has the side benefit of a symmetrical effect which is always good aesthetically.
- I've also flipped the main bathroom door to relate better to Bed 2/Bed 3, though not strictly necessary.
- I originally used the Bed 1 robe space as a big walk-in-pantry, but it didn't relate particularly well to the kitchen and it also left no provision for general storage. Rather than take up a lot of valuable kitchen space with a pantry which would reduce the length of the peninsula breakfast bar (not ideal), I came up with the idea of shallow shelves with a roller shutter which I think you'll find give you an amazing amount of readily accessible storage. I'd like to think it would be possible to source a horizonal roller shutter that would coil back into the dead space at the back of the fridge, but perhaps better to just go with a vertical shutter and avoid the headache!
Kieran Villis thanked ramcub
Paul Di Stefano Design