Already posted on other thread, can you confirm details as posted on sleepout and dimensions, does verandah step down,

One possible layout suggestion, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, Open plan kitchen family dining

Any changes have tried to take into consideration Ceilings, floors etc, One set of your lovely French doors could be used to close off the children's play room at the end of the day, the other would be perfect as the entrance to the future ensuite, in the meantime could be used for the office.

thanks that's a great suggestion! the verandah is slightly lower than the rest of floor and has a low flat roof. that area was originally an L that wraps all the way round the back to where the toilet is. the bathroom actually is bigger its 2.8 by 2.8 and seals space around the corner from the sleepout.

Understand that the bath room is meant to be bigger which is good but when working off your rough dimensions that's what I came up with. As per my earlier question about is the the verandah floor lower, yes they usually are but you mentioned thinking to move the kitchen into that space which is quite a lovely idea with a green open out look.. From experience the floor can be brought up and perhaps the ceiling raked to wards the house if it needs replacing. You could also just step down into the kitchen, ceiling differences are OK.

What ceiling height does the house have

2.8 and its 2.4 in the sleepout, bathroom and round to the toilet. I'd be okay with the slight drop down, it's not even 10cm. i wouldn't raise the floor. i'm liking the idea of moving the kitchen, just because it allows me to stage the build of the new kitchen while still having a working kitchen. we can tap into the plumbing from the bathroom. and then put in new wiring. It means even if it takes 6 months we could do it. we can demo the old kitchen after? I thought of maybe moving the bathroom in to where the old kitchen is. it could be an ensuite for that bedroom next door and also the main bathroom.

what do you think of this?

i'd love it if I could eliminate bed 2 as well and open it all up, but i think we need a 3rd bedroom.

i like your ideas, thanks! though I think we'd prefer a private office that isn't part of the entrance, my husband works from home a lot and it'd drive him nuts. that corner of the sunroom would work well as an ensuite off the bedroom but the plumbing is on the other side of the house so we'd have to consider that. it's a lot of pipe to get across and up there. it's why extending is also out of the question. it's just so high up. there's a lot of materials.

I understand what you are saying, but firstly it's not a large house, I think 3 real bedrooms is paramount to resale for families.

I am trying to work within the existing walls as much as possible to not only keep costs down but to preserve any ceilings and flooring.

I think the larger entrance is one place that I consider a good idea to give a feeling of space to the house, this is not meant to be an office but a drop zone mudroom for the kids, we need to find a another space for hubbie's office/desk space, or you could just keep the entrance and office as they are

The house isn't large but when you consider the downstairs space that could possibly be turned into a large room, that will make it a bigger house overall and wonderful for your climate, I can't remember all the details surrounding that

Anyway many ways to do things,

Happy to draw up your suggestion, but following for now

Thanks @siriuskey! It's lovely having a fresh perspective and you draw such great plans. It's nice to have some new options to consider. I think 3 bedrooms is the key. I can't fit 3 kids into the sunroom or other rooms. But I can give the oldest his own room. although I did think about moving the doors to the other side of the frame so they don't take precious space from the sunroom, there's space on the lounge side.

In your sketch where do you have the family bathroom?, changing plumbing in your house is quite simple because of the under house access

And this, your hubbie could use the ensuite space as his office until and if you wanted to spend the money on an ensuite

This last floorplan opens up the family /Kitchen to the North and the Western views, which should be lovely and bright and will need exterior blinds for summer western sun

that's a pretty achievable, it's pretty similar to how it is now, just upgrading the current kitchen where it is and dividing the sunroom

Is the kitchen currently open to the dining

yes completely... but there is nowhere for the fridge which is in the dining room and no pantry for the actual food. there's also no stovetop as the hole for it in the bench doesn't fit modern stovetops and to remove it means the whole kitchen professionally gutted and made asbestos safe. making a new kitchen first would help make that process more affordable and less inconvenient. building a new kitchen in the sunroom sooner rather than later is growing on me!

I prefer the kitchen where it is and the open plan it is part of, any photo's of it please

standing at the entrance to the lounge

Hi Luca, this option steals space from bed 2 reducing it to 3x3 creates b3 same size at drive end of porch using some space from b2 for bir. Office and study move to the opp end of house leaving kitchen meals dining as one big space across centre of house. Bath and toilet stay where they are, although toilet could go wherever.

Oh and add skylights to centre of house, will make a huge diff.

your ideas for kitchen dining and master bed

And this with using Bed 2 as new entrance, with kids study area including laundry. Master bed using old entrance and in the future the Office could become an ensuite

this one is very interesting!

I think your drawings show that the stairs come around past this front part of the house?, Some second hand large sliding doors at both ends of the open plan would give you lovely light and good ventilation for those hot periods. There's even room for a fire. The kids home school and laundry could act as the kitchen during renovations to the old kitchen. By opening up that one wall gives you a bigger space for your family of 5. Preserving any lovely ceilings can be done by getting the sections between both cornices to be filled in to form a coffered look

I'm thinking something like this. It gives double the living space AND gives me 3 bedrooms. I like the simplification of the layout, I can divide it into zones with all the bedrooms down one side. The living is all in one place. The 'formal dining' would in reality be a craft/homeschool room. It doesn't change too much structurally, its fairly simple to open up between the rooms and seal off the old dining room with built in robes. I'm starting to see the kitchen in the sunroom. It's narrow but because its really long it'll work. Once the walls are up I'll use painting tape and lay it all out. I've already got an idea for some rustic shelving. I sanded some old boards a while back and they'll be perfect. It doesn't matter that one bedroom is smaller for resale, most houses in this town are only 2 bedroom. I was thinking later on when the bathroom needs upgrading we can swap it with the breakfast nook and open up the back to the views then. I'd like to open up the living area with an arch like this. it'd look great in the deco house.

Paddington Project · More Info

Is that dining in kitchen and dining two feet away from dishwasher ?
So two dining areas?
But no pantry...
Laundry is where?
1 loo?

Maybe just have 1 dining and use that banquet area for a laundry/pantry ?

Think back to how you said the is dark and gloomy, Opening up the front room and through to the rear of the house is to allow for an overall larger living space for your family of 7, but also to allow light and ventilation,. Adding an arch is a lovely idea but will add extra cost to your reno and also close off some of the room.

The other point for light is the position of the exisiting kitchen, which has the advantage of the North and western aspect and being at the rear of the house A VIEW, a bedroom in that position will take that view plus being a very hot bedroom.

The separate toilet is in a terrible position and should be moved/removed to another part of the house, even dropping it down below at ground level for use when outdoors?

What happened to the laundry

okay so obviously the lousy drawing was unclear! it's more like this, I don't know why I labelled the homeschool room dining except i plan to use our current dining table. No, that dinky scribble wasn't another separate loo it was meant to be the washing machine. I thought I could reuse the plumbing and the raised up tiled floor would fit the washer and dryer. I could put some doors over it.

@kiwimills I don't have room for a walk in pantry and actually I'm not a fan of them... I love to cook, but I love my kitchen pretty simple. I'd prefer an upright cupboard pantry, which should fit next to the fridge, there's more space between the 2 french doors than it seems, I measured it out today and it'd fit. or I could even fit another cupboard where I drew the dishwasher and shove it over a bit.

We are only a family of 5 not 7! I only have 3 kids.

@siriuskey I'd really love the arch but I'll see what my builder can do. Our walls have picture rails and a dado on one side but not the other so we'll have to think how to make it look balanced. I would always have just opened it up but not completely remove the wall, it's a pretty cheap alteration. leaving a little bit of wall gives us places for pictures and shelving and stuff and I prefer to keep the original layout of the walls visible. I'll see how much of a curve we can do, we might need it more straight at the side and then curved. I was also thinking of how to close up the old kitchen/dining into the kids rooms. rather than try to restore a smooth i could leave all the trims etc and make an insert to enclose it. I want to make a massive shadowbox for my natural history collector son and fill the space that way. I'd make the other side a big pinboard for the other kids, with wadding and fabric. The other opening could be filled with a wardrobe.

the north and west side gets oppressively hot, and till we can afford the remove the asbestos cladding and hire a scissor lift and re-clad all in one go, the back view will have to wait. we'll catch the view when we swap the bathroom and dining area, it's cooler on the south west side. I really like south facing houses in this climate.

It's probably not what is conventional 'for the market' reno, but honestly anything in this area sells well no matter what condition so I'm going to balance those thoughts with our actual needs. I've been trying to get more bedrooms but also more living space and I think this is the closest I've got. I also want a simpler layout. I've redesigned this so many times, and I'll probably change things more as it unfolds... but every time the design gets more tight and the renovation less complex so I think it's worth it. Thanks so much for all your feedback and advice, it's been so interesting and helpful to see all your suggestions!