Townhouse Conversion

Tony255

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has ever done this, i'm looking at buying an old three bed townhouse and completely gutting the place. Thinking of bring the small three bedrooms down from upstairs and using the extension on the ground floor to make them into three largeish bedrooms and making the upstairs an openplan kitchen/living room and also converting the attic into an office. this is extremely unique to my area so i was wondering if anyone has ever taken on such a task and how it worked out. Also would you ever consider buying a townhouse that was arranged like this?
cheers
tony

antoinolachtnai

Years and years ago we considered doing something a bit like this.

It's often a really good idea from a design point of view.

The problem with it is that it's a bit unconventional. If you are going to live in it yourself, and you like the arrangement, it'll be great. However, I don't know how well this arrangement would sell. I would ask an estate agent what they think.

I would consider buying it, but I fear that many people wouldn't.

That's (more or less) why we didn't do the project in the end.

I have heard that some of these houses were actually arranged in this way originally, with a large sitting room on the upper floor. I don't know if this is true.

godtabh

It sounds like a good idea to me if it was done right.

I would've thought some thing like this would sell easily and for more as it is infact diifferent

The_Conductor

I'd be with Antoin on this one. It is quite unconventional in modern buildings, and may have a negative impact on resale values.
I would suggest possibly an openplan kitchen/diningroom and a seperate living room on the ground floor (possibly walk-in to the Kitchen/dining room) reason for the seperate living room- is smells from the kitchen..... You would comfortably get your three bedrooms into the second floor (most probably one en-suite and a main bathroom there too) and then your attic/loft conversion could either be another bedroom (a massive plus from a selling point) or the office you were suggesting.

Try to minimise the amount of "dead space" in the house- and get as much light into it as possible.

antoinolachtnai

I can see why the OP has come up with this plan though; the upstairs is probably all these tiny little rooms that would be ok as bathrooms or a kitchen, but not as good as you would like for bedrooms.

Sad to say though, most buyers and renters are conservative, even if they think they aren't.

Victor

How about noise when people are sleeping downstairs and someone is moving around upstairs or there are people on the street?

godtabh

Victor wrote:

How about noise when people are sleeping downstairs and someone is moving around upstairs or there are people on the street?

Floors can be sound proofed and if he has a front garden out side noises might not be to bad.

I live 20m from the N4 in Lucan. You get used to the noise.