Critique our design please!

[Helen Vowls]

Hi - we have planning approved on a 1 acre plot for a house! Super exciting but having never done this before we’d love any help we can get to achieve the right design. It’s a plot in a village, we are a family of 4 plus dog!

 

I’ve attached our designs.  The unmarked ones are the ones that have planning approved but we want to change for the following reasons:

 

- the majority of the garden (south facing) is in front of where the current lounge is situated.  We don’t use a lounge much - only really in winter and in the evenings so want the focus to be on the kitchen diner area, which is where we spend the majority of our time

- the lounge jutting out into the garden and taking away from the patio doens't make sense to us.

- haven’t tried to reconfigure upstairs yet - but want to maintain 5 beds, 3 of which will be en-suite and my husband likes that our room is separate to the kids rooms.

 

would love any critique / ideas 

 

TIA

Woodland House Plot North and East Elevations OL.P06.pdf Woodland House Plot Site Plan OL.P01.pdf Woodland House Plot Ground Floor Plan OL.P02 4.pdf Woodland House Plot First Floor Plan OL.P03.pdf Woodland_House_Plot_Ground_Floor__Plan_OL.P02_2.pdf

[Jilly]

It looks great, I quite liked the first footprint, but would have jigged the use of the rooms. If you change the footprint, you may have to resubmit for planning permission, but if you just change the internal layout, then its only Building Control you have to inform. 

[Helen Vowls]

Thanks Jilly. I think we are going to have to resubmit which is fine as this will be our long term home. But will see! 

[PaddyP]

Would you consider swapping your WC with the pantry? They appear to be a similar size and your pantry would then be beside your kitchen. Could also enter the WC through the utility if you did not want a door directly into your dining area.

[H Kaur]

Hi Helen,

 

Congratulations on your upcoming build! This is such an exciting stage of the process as you have the possibility of creating a really special family home. My approach to this is going to be from an interior design perspective (every trade will have it's own angle) and I think it's really important to think about the details of the space in terms of functionality and internal layout from the very beginning. 

 

I totally understand your concerns about the kitchen/dining area eating into your patio space. I think one strong consideration is whether you hope to have additional large windows in the new dining area you have marked in red. This would really help with the flow between your dining space and garden whilst maximising your views.

 

I also think it's a great idea to make the study smaller as you've marked on your plans - I would perhaps adjust the proportions of the dining area and make it wider or potentially even square that area off in line with the study. This would allow you to have a large run of floor to ceiling windows/crittall style doors onto the patio which will really elevate the look and feel of the space.

 

Another thing from having a quick look at the ground floor - you've marked that you plan to repurpose the dining room into a family/cinema room. It would be really nice to have a sliding/pocket door which can be used as and when needed to separate the spaces and make the rooms more versatile. At the moment, that probably won't be possible but now is a good time to decide whether you think this would be useful to your family and something you'd like to include!

 

Hope this has been useful and all the best for your upcoming build!

Harman