How much work is it to split the Living Room up?

[redrabbit]

Hi everyone,

I've recently bought a house... I'm getting ahead of myself as we are only just instructing solicitors so hopefully this doesn't all fall down.

Floorplan

Here is the ground floor layout. As you can see the living room is very long and quite narrow. It nearly put me off buying but the rest of the house is lovely - the living room too but it's just an awkward shape.

Photograph

There's two thumbnails here showing the different ends of the room. The fireplace in the middle makes it even more awkward to lay things out. It's just too long a room I think.






My Idea

I was thinking that I could split the living room up.

1) 30% of the room as a study. There is a window at the bottom end of the room. I could get a builder to put a wall up near to that (good for re-sale value as it could even be advertised as an extra bedroom).

2) Then 70% will stay as the living room.

3) Get rid of the fire place and then I can use the back wall and it's not in the way. I don't believe there is a proper chimney as there's no real space for it.

The result would be this... red line showing the wall and study space. The blue box showing a doorway. The room is that long that I think the living room would still be a decent sized, but just far better proportioned.

My Questions

1) What do you think?

2) Any idea how feasible this is? I have no clue about DIY and building up walls, putting doors in, taking out fire places...

3) Realistically how much work is it?

4) Cost? I'm in the South East, am I looking at maybe £1500k for the work? Or double that? Am I even close?

Thanks everyone

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Easy enough to throw up a stud wall and knock through a door. But the other part of me thinks the days of people putting up with tiny rooms are numbered... I don't se the problem with a long room.

 

[redrabbit]

Easy enough to throw up a stud wall and knock through a door. But the other part of me thinks the days of people putting up with tiny rooms are numbered... I don't se the problem with a long room.

Thanks for the response.

Not sure if the rooms would be tiny... will have to look at dimensions. If things do ago well and house purchase completes then I will do as someone else suggested and hang a sheet up to see what it would be like. It may be immediately obvious that it's a bad idea.

The problem I have the long room is how to lay furniture out. It's an awkward shape, you can see one of the chairs near the fireplace sticking out. Even the TV is about 2 metres from the sofa at the far end. Just a bit cramped.

Also I'd struggle to know what to do with the living room space at the far end. There's a dining room table in the kitchen area, so it just feels a bit of a nothing space to me.

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Live in it for 6 months before coming up with grand schemes for remodelling. You'll probably discover things that annoy you much more in that time.

 

[JP_]

Ignore Gerry, start planning now! I planned my extension and remodel before moving in, well worth it so you can hit the ground running!

I moved from a 6 "bedroom" house that had separate study and gym rooms, to our bungalow. I'll be having my desk in the living room (which is long) instead. Depends on how the family is though - my kids are more likely to be on xbox in their rooms than watching TV. My point is, the living room might be a nice place to also do some work, rather than making a small study that will be underutilised. You can always put on headphones to drown out noise... although maybe not perfect.

Maybe an alternative idea would be to put in a partition wall with glazed double doors, or a bifold door across the width, so you can close off the study area, but have the option to open it all up. Also, you don't lose the wall space to a new door. But then you might run out wall space for the sofas and TV .... are you happy to have the TV in the bay window?

 

[Ian H]

I'd split it.

The cheapest/easiest way would be to have the door in the new stud wall. Only draw back is going through a room to get to another.

 

[geraldthehamster]

I wouldn't divide it, personally. I think a short narrow room is going to be pokier than a long narrow room.

Also I'm not certain that having an inner room, accessed through another room, would conform to fire regulations.

I notice the front door is not on the same elevation as the sitting room windows. If that side is not deemed the principal elevation, I'd consider a full width single story extension to what appears to be the side of the house. Make the room wider. Though if that side faces a road you might struggle to get it through as permitted development, and probably wouldn't get planning.

 

[^woody^]

I'm struggling with the concept of making a room smaller to help with the furniture arrangement, and reducing a main room to create a pokey additional room to add value. A four bed house would normally require a bigger front room that what would be left too.

But its your £0.5m

 

[JP_]

maybe instead, knock out the back wall and knock down the conservatory, extend out and make a large family room with kitchen, dining, sofa and TV, and have a nice big office / home cinema room to the front.
OK, that will cost a tad more ....
I know, I'm not helping much.

 

[redrabbit]

Hey everyone,

Really appreciate your views on this. Bear in mind I've not even bought the house yet, only had offer accepted and the paperwork is all going through. So it's just me jumping ahead and potentially over thinking things. I may move in and think this was all a ridiculous idea.

I also thought maybe I could leave the room as is, but just remove the fire place as it's not really my thing. That too would free up more wall space and help a little.

It's only me and my partner that will live there, we have no kids. But in about 2-3 years we probably will try so that's why we are upgrading to quite a big house.

 

[^woody^]

maybe instead, knock out the back wall and knock down the conservatory, extend out and make a large family room with kitchen, dining, sofa and TV, and have a nice big office / home cinema room to the front.
OK, that will cost a tad more ....
I know, I'm not helping much.

LOL

Or maybe instead just buy a house that you don't need to knock about for a year or two and spend thousands extra on?

 

[redrabbit]

maybe instead, knock out the back wall and knock down the conservatory, extend out and make a large family room with kitchen, dining, sofa and TV, and have a nice big office / home cinema room to the front.
OK, that will cost a tad more ....
I know, I'm not helping much.

Haha yea, great idea but after buying this house we will be very very tight with money so probably wouldnt be able to afford anything as grand as you are suggesting! Good idea though

 

[^woody^]

But in about 2-3 years we probably will try

We used to try several times a week. 3 years is a looooong time.

We try less nowadays though.

 

[JP_]

LOL

Or maybe instead just buy a house that you don't need to knock about for a year or two and spend thousands extra on?

Where's the fun in that?

 

[^woody^]

Where's the fun in that?

My missus would think it was fun. She would think there could be nothing funnier.