New build bachelor pad. Advice please.

POCKET.ROCKET.

Ok, finally caught myself on that building a 4000sqft house is madness.

The 4000sqft house has been passed and the foundations and footings have been in the ground for almost 4 years. Nothing else has been done apart from a site boundary fence and beech hedge planted.

With the down turn in work (landscaping) there no longer is the amount of money available to carry through with the original design, plus there is no sign or inclination of myself settling down and having a family, so the need for such a large house in pretty much redundant. I'm 31 btw.

At the stage where I really need to kick start the whole redesign of the house, to accomodate my change in circumstances, and to design it is such as way as to facilitate what is on site at the moment which is the 2000sqft of footings.

So the purpose of this thread is to ask fellow boardies, what if you were in my position, what would you leave in and leave out design wise, with regard to rooms, size of kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms etc. Any special features or elements you have now in your own home, that you could absoloutly not imagine your life without.

Plus, do you think I'm crazy in thinking that 2500sqft is small enough? or should i go smaller.

Any advice, tips or catching myself on, greatly welcome.

Thanks,

Andrew.

BryanF

Hi Andrew quiet a big question you're asking. First of all I presume you're aware that a reduced design will require:
> a fresh Planning submission
> and really competent arch to see you through the process

You could certainly build a 3/4 bed for circa 200sqm but maybe your single status and financial situation should dictate the size of you dwelling... Anyway a good arch/ arch tech will advise

Best of luck

JD6910

delighted to see that you are scaling back - i did the same recently. i think we were all gone mad. if i didnt scale it back id be in a monster house with the mortagge to match. i think that you need to think long term here. yes you are single now but that may not always be. therefore allow for the family room, the laundry room, the big utility etc...

muffler

To me, personally, 200m2 is more than enough to accommodate the average or a bit above average family.

Andrew only yourself can make the decision on this but have a think of what you "need" and work from there. Visit family and friends houses and have a look at the various room sizes and make note of the sizes and decide if they are too big/too small etc. Its always helpful to see an occupied house furnished and talking to the occupants to see how they find the layout, sizes etc but no two people are the same as they say.

Reducing the size will result in a considerable reduction on not only the building costs but also the "running costs". Things that spring to mind are substantial reduction in the level of development contributions payable to the council, decoration, heating, insurance etc etc not to mention a possible saving on the household tax when it comes around next year.

Do-more

What is your current accommodation? Do you live alone and in what size of a house?

I would look at it from a practical perspective, every sq. ft. you build is a sq. ft. you will have to keep clean and tidy the whole time and heat every winter. Same goes for bathrooms/en-suites, there was a time when it was "OMG you've built a new house and you don't have an en-suite to every bedroom!" well when you are down on your knees scrubbing them every week the shine quickly goes off that idea.

As BryanF points out you will need a new planning permission and so you will be building to the new regs which will force you to build a more energy efficient house so I am not sure that you will be able to use or adapt your current foundations. I may well have to start again.

I would consider building a dormer of about 2500sq. ft. but only develop & use the ground floor for the moment. I am sure you will find that that will be more than adequate for one person and if it is intelligently designed it should be possible to adapt it's use in the future to whatever your changing needs are.

Ddad

We (a family of five) have a 2100 sq ft bungalow and we have no shortage of space. We have a spare room and a study in that. We have one ensuite and a really decent family bathroom for the kids. There's loads of easily accessed storage in a garage and attic. There's an easy option in place if we do need to expand again, but I can't see it happening. Given the nature of your work build a big utility from the get go. You can leave the muddy boots and overalls in there and build a shower room off of it so that your not dragging muck into the house. A well fitted out utility is great as it'll soak up equipment, laundry, excess dry goods from the kitchen etc etc etc. Ours is 100sq ft and I'd have doubled the size of it if I'd had the budget.

I'd also have a look at the way you live. Do you need/ want a good kitchen. Do you have or anticipate having friends to stay a lot. Will one living/sitting room do you or do you need more. Do you need a sunroom? It's all money and the last thing you want is an albatros around your neck; when what you really need is a comfortable home.

Why don't you talk to an architect/ technician about using the existing footings to build in a modular way. So that you can build enough for you now but with scope to expand the house with relative ease in the future. In that way you can work to a tight budget to begin with and finish it out well.

It's a pet hate of mine that a lot of the massive celtic tiger houses concentrated on huge size but the plumbing, joinery insulation etc were the bare minimum because all of the money went into the structure.

Radonman

Just be careful when scaling down - i did the same recently by mostly getting rid of en-suites (massive expense too) and combining by downstairs bedroom en-suite to act as a downstairs toilet too. The main mistake we made was making the Utility too small, you would be suprised how much you use that room. Remember the main rooms of a house in your main bedroom and kitchen/eating area.