Building a modern farmhouse

Teach30 wrote: »

Hi all,

Currently planning a new build on farm.

I’m new to this lifestyle so am seeking advice on what type of designs work and features best for farming lifestyle eg storing wellies, wash area inside the back door etc. I’ve heard that having office for blue cards etc close to kitchen can be handy.

So it’s this sort of advice and tips I am looking for and any suggestions would be really appreciated!

Friend of mine connected the house to the garage via a kinda glass walkway kinda thing...
Fierce handy - throw off the wellies, leave the worst of the muck in the garage... handy for getting sticks then as well, don’t have to be going out in the outside...

A shower downstairs inside the back door can be handy, depends on what kinda farming you do...

Similar here.
Inside back door there is utility with storage for coats, boots etc, off that wash room/toilet with washing machine, tumble dryer sink and toilet.

Our kitchen is smaller for food prep only with minimal seating. Living/dining area is 9m x 5m. Dining table one end and sofa and seating the other end with stove and tv.

Small office/study on ground floor.

Then just for some 70’s nostalgia we have a sitting room too separate to living room. It gets lots of winter use but we watch little to no tv over summer so it’s less used then.

Teach30 wrote: »

Perfect some great ideas thanks.

Apparently new builds are not allowed burn fossil fuels so no stove or fireplaces will be accepted our architect has said. Unsure as to whether or not we can get around this.
I am also keeping kitchen separate from sitting/living room as I don’t like open plan but hoping to have plenty of space for island and a big kitchen table.

Great points on utility an trying to convince himself it needs to be quite big!

We built a house before there was any plans for farming, and the utility is very small and it’s a disaster...
Big utility and lots of storage...

Teach30 wrote: »

Perfect some great ideas thanks.

Apparently new builds are not allowed burn fossil fuels so no stove or fireplaces will be accepted our architect has said. Unsure as to whether or not we can get around this.

That's not true about the stoves anyway. Stoves are fine once they have their own external air supply. I'm building atm and have two. House will be A2 or A3

Open fires wouldn't work though.

Definitely an office somewhere. If it’s not right beside the kitchen, I’d still have a designated cupboard in the kitchen or utility for farm related paperwork that somehow makes it’s way into the kitchen.

I wouldn’t bother with an island, it would just become a dumping ground in this house anyhow. I’m forever clearing off the kitchen table, if we had an island I’d be clearing that off too.

I’d also have somewhere under cover for drying clothes in winter. Whether that’s a shed or a utility room, whatever is best.

Plumb a seperate washing machine into the utility/mud room/whatever.
Firing in a pair of jeans with grease/slurry/diesel on them on top of the Mrs's glad rags seldom en-dears you to them......
If I was doing it again, the stairs and first floor would be concrete instead of wood.
Kids tearing around upstairs sound like they are breaking in an arab stallion or something...(or an elephant)

Base price wrote: »

My advise would be to build a large utility room with en suite (shower) and a annex off it with a radiator along one wall where you can hang wet coats, leggings etc and a rack where boots and wellies can dry out. An office/study is a must within the main house as if they are located in a shed/garage everything gets musty, damp and mice move in and eat your paperwork.

Re your oil fired AGA - get it converted to electricity or buy an electric one and power it with solar panels from your roof.
http://www.agaliving.ie/our-products/aga-range-cookers/electric-aga-range-cookers

BP that's a very good idea - have you got this setup working yourself?.

Base price wrote: »

My advise would be to build a large utility room with en suite (shower) and a annex off it with a radiator along one wall where you can hang wet coats, leggings etc and a rack where boots and wellies can dry out. An office/study is a must within the main house as if they are located in a shed/garage everything gets musty, damp and mice move in and eat your paperwork.

Re your oil fired AGA - get it converted to electricity or buy an electric one and power it with solar panels from your roof.
http://www.agaliving.ie/our-products/aga-range-cookers/electric-aga-range-cookers

I'd advise that that drying room that you're talking about should be in the garage or else you will have a distinct farming smell in the house 24/7!

White Clover wrote: »

I'd advise that that drying room that you're talking about should be in the garage or else you will have a distinct farming smell in the house 24/7!

+1
We never let wellies, boots or waterproofs into the house........ in fact anything that stinks of the farm isn't brought in to the house.
A lot of our english cousin insist on us taking off our shoes going into their houses

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Where do you put boots/wellies.
I hate cold boots, if there was some way of keeping them warm and leaving them in the yard I'd happily do it.
We currently dont have a utility room, it's in the pipeline but not for a while yet. A wet day is the worst, waterproofs and wet jackets are dropped in the kitchen which is open plan and everyone knows how they smell!

We've a small shed near the house that has the Kerosene tank and we have boots and waterproofs there, it's only twenty foot from the back door, hate wellies in the dwelling house they fairly stink

jimmy G M wrote: »

Put a large canopy outside the back door.... better still extend the roof out so you have a decent covered area.... had one in the old house with walls on 3 sides open to the south.... invaluable as a play area for kids on a wet day, drying clothes, bbq, turf bucket, put a decent bench in it and take off the boots / wellies outside...
+1 on the hollow core floor also...

Always liked American styled porches. Great especially on wet days. Strange houses here never really had something similar tbh ...

If I was building a farm house now I would look at heating it with a W2W heat pump, making use of the supply from your own well in an exchanger. You could use underfloor heating or aluminium radiators. IWT with that renewable set up you'd be allowed have a wood stove.

Alana Proud Pluto wrote: »

Can this be done with a Stanley? Currently on oil.

I don't know tbh.

wrangler wrote: »

We've Pat Smiths company doing us a price for doing this at the moment....... should be interesting.
40% grants at the moment

Will you keep us informed as to how you get on please Wrangler. I’d be very interested...

C0N0R wrote: »

Grants for converting an aga?

No, For alternative energy

This is teh company we're talking to at the moment,
http://localpower.ie/smart-solar-power/

Seai do community projects if you have one in your area or can set one up you can get grants of up to 90% depending on your situation and the amount of works undertaken. I got it done on my house and went above grant on a few items. The pv panels are a complete waste of time imo.

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Internet (Cat5) connection to every room and farm buildings from office

I don't know if this essential now. Have them here but don't use as have Wi-Fi. 2 routers, one up, one downstairs (hollowcore floor).

Have setup as many have promoted boot room, downstairs shower room and large utility/laundry room. Tbh l don't use that shower as strip all off and head for ensuite in bedroom. Rarely organised enough to have a change of clothes downstairs.
It will be handy in years to come when using bedroom downstairs.

Another small diy thing l did for convenience was fit a pir photocell sensor on boot room light. When open back door now on dark winters night the light comes on. No looking for switches hidden behind jackets and leaving paw marks on wall with dirty hands. Handy in a space you are just briefly in.

My Tuppence worth,
We built on the farm six years ago about 60 metres from the main yard. We built what is referred to as the 'upside down' house by friends kids. Kitchen, living area, small bathroom, office and kids playroom all upstairs and bedrooms, bathrooms, large utility room and dedicated mud room all downstairs.

The thinking behind it was to maximise the views as we overlook the sea and mountains and spend most of the time in the kitchen, living areas and want to see the views. It's fierce handy too for looking stock, seeing whats going on in fields and keeping an eye on things rather than being on the ground floor and having a restricted view.
It also means the majority of the washing to be done, bed linen, clothes etc. are all on the same floor as the washing machine and don't have to be carted around the house, large hotpress on the ground floor too.

The washing machine sits on a plinth about two feet off the ground, the wife has a bad back and it reduced bending and lifting and means you just pull the washing out of the machine straight into the linen basket below the opening. The utility room has also three small clotheslines to take advantage of the ufh, we have no tumble drier. It has a chest freezer and full length worktop with sink which is handy when mixing beistings or milk for lambs, washing dirty hands.

The mudroom is solely for me/farm stuff, it has a washing machine only for farm clothes and a shower and boot rack and all the kids boots, hurling stuff is in there. It means i just come in the back door and go straight into the shower and change before i enter the main domain of the house, everything dirty is contained in this area.

Outside the back door is a covered walkway about two foot wide so you can take off your boots staying dry and also access the bins without getting wet.
There is a set of external stairs with access to the kitchen, so you don't have to go through the house if you just want to go in for tae.

Bison slabs definitely needed if you go upstairs living.

AntrimGlen your giving me good motivation to start work on the upstairs here, for which I had a very similar idea, living space all on that level for the views and keep an eye on the farm!

Teach30 wrote: »

Some wow ideas thanks everyone.

It seems an area to dry off clothes is a must I was hoping the aga in the kitchen could be used for this at night, my cousins do this. Garage isn’t attached to house but I’ll see if a cover over back door is possible. V unusual and lovely idea to have kitchen upstairs for the views but wouldn’t be for me - I’m not that adventurous!

It’s v difficult to avoid having a corridor inside back door if you don’t want to go straight into utility, I’m trying to come up with a way for himself or visitors to washup before coming into kitchen and not use up my pantry/kitchen/utility space at same time.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions v much appreciated.. I’ve a long road ahead of me to get it all right.

They say that by the time you build your 3rd house you'll have everything sussed out.

Teach30 wrote: »

Thanks some really practical ideas there. So far the ground floor is at 152sq m and I still feel it’s tight on space for utility and kitchen. I’m not v good with sizes and so far the kitchen is 4500 x 4250 and the utility is 3000 x 4250 - I’m clueless as to how big this is but at the minute we’re trying to get layout right and then look at room sizes.

Himself now thinks a separate shower/toilet in utility would be useful and have another one in hall for visitors.. I’m of the opinion we won’t be having that many visitors so it’s a waste to have two and means more for me to clean.

Also the architect is very keen on putting in a playroom we have no children, and no plans for them so this drives me mad. I never had one growing up but I’ve been told it’s useful for a few years, but at the minute I’d prefer to see that space used elsewhere if necessary...

House is apparently a good size but on paper everything seems so tight for space and I’m scared it’ll all seem claustrophobic!

If the ground floor is 152 sqm, it’s big. You won’t be tight on space. The house will need to be cleaned and maintained, and you can only be in one room at a time! A playroom is a good idea, or even a room downstairs that could be a playroom now if you plan on having kids, (obviously if you don’t, that’s a different story), and later a spare bedroom, that could be used by yourselves if you needed downstairs accommodation later in life.