Extension layout

dc14

Hi all, we are planning to extend our house and have met with an architect and an engineer. We want to have a good sized open plan kitchen/dining/living area, but we want to keep the existing TV room and we also need an office as we work from home.

We wanted to extend out to the side as we have about 12 feet out there. This side is south facing and gets lots of sun. We also want to go out into the back a little bit so that the open plan kitchen is not too long & narrow. I thought a curved wall would look good here and the engineer says that it would be possible, although it will add to the cost (no idea how much yet!)

Anyway, the latest plan we have received is attached as Proposed Layout 1. The engineer drew this up based on what we wanted. I was happy with this initially, but the more I look at it, the more I worry about the position of the living space. I don't really want people having to walk through this area every time they want something from the kitchen (I have 3 kids that are always in & out). We are going to need a pillar on the wall into the dining room, so the idea was that we would build the fireplace around it & disguise it. If we swop the living area & the kitchen table, we would have a big support pillar sticking in the middle of the wall.

Anyway, I am now thinking about Proposed Layout 2, as I think this will give us a lovely open plan space. We could hopefully build the support pillar into the island unit. However, this may be more difficult and costly as we would be getting rid of the existing wall between the kitchen & dining room which is a supporting wall. I'm thinking it may be possible for the Support pillar in the island to support a steel beam going this way as well?

If anyone has any opinions or thoughts, I'd love to hear them before I go back to the engineer again.

Thanks,
DC14

sinnerboy

Hire an Architect. The engineer is not doing you any favours by drawing up simply "what you want"

dc14

Hi Sinnerboy,
We did hire an architect, but it's the engineer that is drawing up the plans for us.

The more I look at it, the more I think it's not quite right. It will be a decent sized room, but I think it may not feel that way if you walk into the room and are almost walking into the back of a couch. So, I'm just looking for opinions of the design before I go back to them to ask for changes.

DOCARCH

dc14 wrote: »

Hi Sinnerboy,
We did hire an architect, but it's the engineer that is drawing up the plans for us.

How does that work? Who are you paying?

sinnerboy

dc14 wrote: »

We did hire an architect, but it's the engineer that is drawing up the plans for

It looks like you've involved neither. The drawings don't state metric dimensions which is most suspect. And the "designs" lack - design. Seriously you need to find a real Architect.

dc14

Both, the architect came up with the design and was paid for that, but the engineer is doing the drawings, planning permission and supervising the build. The architect is also available for consultation throughout the build at an additional charge. A number of our neighbours have used this engineer without using an architect, but, we decided to use both, so we went with the architect as well.

Like I said, I'm just looking for opinions of the design before we go back to them to discuss again.

dc14

Hi Sinnerboy,
The Jpegs I have attached are just my sketches of the design from Floorplanner. I can't scan the engineers plans in today, but can do this tomorrow when I'm back in the office if you would like to see them.

If you don't like the design, can you let me know what you don't like about it. That is all I am looking for, your thoughts or opinions. I didn't realise it would be so difficult to get

And btw, of course our architect is a real architect.

Dr Bolouswki

you need a flow for the normal routes you walk - so you need to think about doorway postions, if you're like most folks, that allows minimising distance from tv couch to kitchen and also to the bathroom. It looks to me like to get from the kitchen to the utlity on layout 2 you need to do a full circuit of the house?

I would question the need for a completely seperate dining area - why not combine your dining area into being part of the kitchen - this free's up an awful lot of space.

I like layout one - but would consider removing the dining area, stretching the sitting room into where the utility room is so that you can enter it from the kitchen also - and putting the utility occupying half of that pictures dining room length ways - thus your kitchen is bigger and drop the seperate dining area idea. Open plan is the dream!

Anyways - doorways and walkflow. You want to face your seating area when you walk into a tv room - its very welcoming. You're dead right about not wanting to hit the back of a couch as you enter.

best of luck with it! It's great when this sort of thing works out well - give it a lot of thought on walking space!

dc14

Thanks for the input Dr Bolouski,
I think you are dead right about walkways, which is why I'm unsure about the seating area of the open plan kitchen in Option 1. I just think it could end up looking cramped, even though it would be a good sized room.

We will need to have a support pillar in the room as we will be removing supporting walls, so I thought that we should build around this (eg. build the fireplace around it in Option 1, or building the island around it in Option 2), I'm not mad on the idea of having a support beam in the middle of the room otherwise.

Re: utility in Option 2, there would be a door from the from the kitchen through to the utility room (right beside the fridge/freezer). The images I posted are just what I drew up in Floorplanner to play around with things before we go back to discuss with the engineer & architect & I forgot to put that in.

Re: the seperate dining room, we have three children & figure that the TV room in the front will be given over to them as a playroom/TV room, so we would like another quiet room that we can sneak off to when they have their friends over, or to read the Sunday papers. I've called it a dining room as that is what it is right now, but really, it would be an adults room, a cartoon/toy/noise free zone that we would use occassionally if we have friends over for dinner, but we would also use it more regularly ourselves as a bolthole from the chaos of the kids. I think we have room for it and the room may be too big if it is all open plan, but maybe it's just that I can't imagine it.

Thanks again!:)

sydthebeat

without elevations and descriptions of how you intend to roof the project, its hard to offer an opinion on the design. It seems a sever engineering project to remove the whole south gable wall of a house just to push it out by 8 foot... AND most of the rear west wall too......

dc14

Hi Syd,
I have now attached the elevations as well as the engineers drawing of the proposed plan (which I had drawn up yesterday in Floorplanner as Option 1, as I didn't have access to scanner).

We are going out upstairs as well. At present, the office, utility & kitchen is single story & the rest of the house is two storey. We want more bedroom space upstairs, so we planned to go up above the office, utility & kitchen as well as above the new extension to the side. This will give us the extra space, but also means that we will not be removing supporting walls on the south gable end, but rather moving them out in line with the upstairs walls.

Moving out the rear wall wil be a bigger challenge as this would involve supporting walls, so we will need a supporting pillar to carry steel beams. The engineer is happy with this in Option 1 and had drawn up initial plans based on this, but I haven't discussed Option 2 with him yet. It may not be possible, but I think the layout may be better.

Re roofing, there would be a regular pitched roof with skylights over the dining room. Both the architect and the engineer have suggested a lead roof over the curved area of the kitchen but to be honest, I have never seen one & don't really know what that would look like. I have tried googling images, but can't find anything that seems to match what they are talking about ??

sydthebeat

thats a mammoth construction project for such a simple extension.

it doesnt look like any remnants of the south gable are being retained so supporting the roof during construction will be fun, unless your removing the roof completely.

on the plan, to be honest theres not much "design" in it. it seems the spaces are borne from necessity, both options have pros and cons.

dc14

Hi Syd,
You are right, the south facing gable of the downstairs would be removed, but this is the single story area (Office, utility & kitchen), so that part of the roof would be removed anyway to make way for the upstairs extension & new roof. The double height wall from the entrance to the office up the south side of the house to the roof would remain although we would be knocking through a small part of it to allow for an entrance to the upstairs extension.

The reason we were going out to the side is that it is wasted space. The only thing out there is the bins. So, we decided that we should use this space rather than reduce our garden space to the back which is used. That's what most of the other houses around here have done too, but I'd be delighted to hear an alternative if anyone has one.

There is only one window on this side of the house downstairs (in the Utility room) and it gets great light, but is looking out onto the side of our nextdoor neighbours.