help changing house layout

[hunter77]

I' living in modern terraced townhouse - its very narrow i think with kitchen to the front of house.

Living room goes across back of house.

I'm thinking of knocking the hall out and making the house open plan down stairs.
I will make small porch as u enter house to keep noise out of upstairs i have small kids

Toilet currently eats into kitchen so will move toilet to cubby hole understairs. However toilet will now really be in kitchen - what do people think of that ? I l know its not ideal but toilet will mainly be used by kids.

kitchen is currently very cramped and hard for a family to eat at table.

Was thinkingof running kitchen down the left handside of kitchen 5.5meters and across window. Do you think that leaving not enough space for my kitchen table or storage.

Really looking for some inspiration at this stage dont know where to start.
some pics attached.

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• hunter77
• 23 Aug 2011
• 1

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• hunter77
• 23 Aug 2011
• 1

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• hunter77
• 23 Aug 2011
• 1

 

[Steve]

I'd be very tempted to loose all the walls. Put the toilet under the stairs, partition this off, have the door facing the kitchen (as opposed to the living room!!!). To get enough space/headroom there in the toilet you would have to extend the rear wall into the living room I think. Dont forget to include ventilation in your plans!

If the soil stack goes through that loo, you'd have to relocate that too, and any adjoining toilets upstairs.

Have the kitchen across the front windows, and down the side it is now. You then have free space to have the dining table, sofas and other clutter.

Loosing the hall/kitchen wall would work too, but dont forget headroom in the toilet - you may need to extend the space there.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

You cannot lose all the walls, you need to retain a means of escape from upstairs and that means the kitchen must be separated from the stair. You can remove the wall between the kitchen/living room no probs but not the others.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Or just do this assuming its structurally do-able:

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• freddiemercurystwin
• 24 Aug 2011
• 1

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

consider this too:

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• freddiemercurystwin
• 24 Aug 2011
• 1

obviously some are poo but you can see what can be achieved though.

 

[hunter77]

thanks a million for your help .

I forgot to mention that this is a 3 story house so i would have to keep a little porch at front of house to seperate kitchen from Hall as a fire protection.

Steve - thanks so much for your drawings makes things so much clearer for me. I only have rough handrawn sketechs. At least this is better to go with.

I am thinking that plan number 3 (of the 5 plans) would be the best plan to go with as it creates the most space.

Do you think that having the kitchen go the whole way down the Left hand side of Kitchen and go across window in an L shape would leave enough room for kitchen table and some sort cabinet.

Also I had met with a builder who said that he could use the same waste pipe as in the current toilet and attach another pipe to extend out to new toilet under the stairs - does that sound right ??

I think I now need to get interior design advice next on where to best place furniture ect !! ...

 

[Steve]

consider this too:

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• freddiemercurystwin
• 24 Aug 2011
• 1

obviously some are poo

especially the middle one. Two doors?

Never thought about fire regs. Sorry. My lack of knowledge.

 

[Steve]

Also I had met with a builder who said that he could use the same waste pipe as in the current toilet and attach another pipe to extend out to new toilet under the stairs - does that sound right ??

No. What is the pipework arangement to the toilet? Is there a soil stack in there? Floor to ceiling? To a toilet above? Is the downstairs floor wooden? Mind, if its modern, even if its wood, it'll probably just have polystyrene underneath so it means nowt. Is there a cavity under the floor?

If the pipe goes up to another toilet, chances are you wont be able to carry it across to under the stairs, because it has to negotiate the landing, which sometimes have complex joist arrangements, and there isnt much space between a floor and ceiling for the soil pipe to fall sufficiently. Then theres the joist direction - this could be an issue. Soil pipe CANNOT go through joists!!!

If there is a soil stack, you could leave this in place and make a feature column out of it. But not ideal if you want flexibility in the space. You'd have to make alternative arrangements for drainage under the stairs, perhaps tapping into the soil pipe under the stairs or using a macerator (yuck).

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Steve - thanks so much for your drawings makes things so much clearer for me.

Freddy's the name!

 

[hunter77]

Sorry Freddy .... meant to say your name !the drawings were fab



Steve [/quote]
Your post made me realise I dont have a clue about toilets i thought it would be easy job to move to move toilet across the hall.
As it stands I want to move to toilet across the hall to under the stairs.

Currently my upstairs bathroom is directly above the downstairs WC and above the upstairs bathroom is my ensuite on the 2nd floor (2story house)

Im attaching a pictue of my downstairs bathroom if it helps. I thought the builder was going to take up the tiles in my WC and take up wooden floors in hall and run pipe under the foor Perhaps im a bit niave to think its that easy.

House is 7 years old so floors are concrete.

My waste sump is out my back garden a metre from my patio door if that makes sense.
Cant answer any other questions i'm afraid will have to go and ask builder how he proposes to do work. What will I ask him.

Heres a picture of my current toilet if that helps

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• hunter77
• 24 Aug 2011
• 1

[net][/img][/net]

 

[hunter77]

also this picture

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• hunter77
• 24 Aug 2011
• 1

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