Questions regarding my ground floor layout

[Dan_the_man]

I have decided on a ground floor layout and was wanting peoples thoughts on it.

 

I will place the gas boiler along with the consumer unit in the downstairs toilet. I assume this will be ok regarding building regulations.

 

I will place the washing machine & drier in a cabinet in the kitchens behind the stairs. This can be seen directly behind the kitchen island sink in the images.

 

The hallway into the kitchen and downstairs toilet will be 900mm wide. When the door is open I do not have enough space to rest it against a wall. If I place it on the left hand side it will protrude into the bathroom door and on the right it will protrude onto the beginning of the stairs. My solution to this is to use either a fr30 bifold door or my preferred option a folding pocket wall door such as https://www.scrigno.co.uk/product/frames-for-sliding-doors-applauso-p20. I assume the scrigno pocket door meets fire building regulations.

 

 

I am knocking down a load bearing wall so I have to place a support beam in to support the upper floors. To the side of the steal beam there is a wall that juts out 91mm so I was thinking of just plastering the bridge between the two walls. This does mean I lose 61mm of space in the kitchen. I have made the space between the kitchen and island 1050 but I could afford to make the 800 island 750 to allow 1100mm space. My one concern is between the island to the support beam is only 768 wide, is this wide enough? It does means the passageway is far narrower than the kitchen passageway. I can afford the island to be 300mm shorter at the top so this would reduce the narrow corridor from 1000 long to 700.

 

 

 

 

I will have 45mm of space beside the hinge side of each of my 400mm kitchen cabinets. Will this be enough clearance to allow drawers to fully extend from the cabinets, I intend to use blum zero protrusion 155 hinges.

 

 

 

On the above two images you will see the wasted space behind the two corner cabinets. I intend to leave the chimney breast in place knocking down 554mm of it as seen in red. This makes me feel less guilty about leaving that wasted space as to knock down the whole chimney breast would cost extra money.

 

 

Would love to hear peoples thoughts on my plan.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Dan_the_man

[ProDave]

Where are you?

 

That kitchen would fail Scottish building regs on activity space and circulation space.  I am not convinced it is big enough to support an island.  Check building regs where you are to be sure it is compliant.

[Dan_the_man]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Where are you?

 

That kitchen would fail Scottish building regs on activity space and circulation space.  I am not convinced it is big enough to support an island.  Check building regs where you are to be sure it is compliant.

 

I am in Northern Ireland. The build is not a new build but an extension onto a 1910 terraced house.

[ProDave]

3 minutes ago, Dan_the_man said:

 

I am in Northern Ireland. The build is not a new build but an extension onto a 1910 terraced house.

So check NI building regs for activity space. circulation space or whatever else they call it.  Perhaps others from NI could advise?

[Dan_the_man]

Here are detailed dimensions.

 

[Dan_the_man]

58 minutes ago, ProDave said:

So check NI building regs for activity space. circulation space or whatever else they call it.  Perhaps others from NI could advise?

 

Here are the NI building regs for activity space. They do not appear to be as strict as the Scottish ones. Would need to look through it in more detail.

 

http://www.buildingcontrol-ni.com/assets/pdf/TechnicalBookletR2012.pdf

Edited February 2, 2021 by Dan_the_man

[Dan_the_man]

Managed to answer my door hinge question.

 

[the_r_sole]

Thats not a good plan, too much kitchen, too little room to move around it, the pinch point of opening the door onto that island is not good, ditch the island entirely imo

[oldkettle]

The boiler may be easier to connect on the outside wall. And the space where it is now would happily accommodate your laundry cabinet - well, the two machines stacked. 

[Dan_the_man]

5 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

The boiler may be easier to connect on the outside wall. And the space where it is now would happily accommodate your laundry cabinet - well, the two machines stacked. 

 

It is a terraced house. There will be a lightwell directly above the cooker hood. It is fairly easy to vent the gas boiler out as it is less than 5 meters in length. Having a washing machine in the toilet is bad for two reasons, cramped to work in and secondarily means I have to reduce my food storage cabinet by 100mm to 300mm wide.

[Dan_the_man]

1 hour ago, the_r_sole said:

Thats not a good plan, too much kitchen, too little room to move around it, the pinch point of opening the door onto that island is not good, ditch the island entirely imo

 

If I made the island 300mm shorter does it help somewhat? Or is the island still in the way especially at that pinch point. I would at least have easier access into the understairs storage if I changed the door opening direction as the island is less in the way when walking into the understairs storage. I would apricate your thoughts.

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Dan_the_man

[pdf27]

44 minutes ago, Dan_the_man said:

If I made the island 300mm shorter does it help somewhat? Or is the island still in the way especially at that pinch point. I would at least have easier access into the understairs storage if I changed the door opening direction as the island is less in the way when walking into the understairs storage. I would apricate your thoughts.

I think you're better off rotating it 90°.

[Dan_the_man]

I have been able to make another 101mm of space which I can use either side of the island. This would be as good as I can do space wise is it still too cramped?

 

 

[Dan_the_man]

1 hour ago, pdf27 said:

I think you're better off rotating it 90°.

 

I have never considered this design. I will have to spend tomorrow playing around it with. The dining table would have to go in the middle of that kitchen as there is so much open space.

[the_r_sole]

It's just all too tight, I would lose the door to the wc and have that accessed from the hall, and just run the kitchen along the full width of the back wall - kitchen islands work well in big spaces, you'll be falling over that all day - the pinch point is where you have 778mm right where you come into the room, what width is the door, and presumably it's an existing one?

could you not move the laundry cabinet and have a door which opens into the dining/lounge at the end of the corridor and get a u shaped kitchen in?

It would be good to know what the existing layout is and what you are trying to achieve with the alterations!

Edited February 3, 2021 by the_r_sole

[Mr Punter]

It would be helpful to see the existing ground floor plan.  Just a plan view with stairs drawn on.  There may be a simple solution.

[Dan_the_man]

2 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

It would be helpful to see the existing ground floor plan.  Just a plan view with stairs drawn on.  There may be a simple solution.

 

Here is the existing floor plan with what walls will be demolished. I have since made a change where I am demolishing the wall directly opposite the to be demolished chimney breast. I will have to butt up against the party wall a 152 x 152 steel beam and place the other steel beam as close to the existing stairs as possible. This can be seen in orange on the drawing.

 

I am trying to fit in a decent sized kitchen, dining area, and living area along with a 1m wide downstairs toilet all starting from the living room back wall. I will be leaving the yard wall as exposed red brick.

 

[the_r_sole]

Do you need another living area given you have one not very far away at all?

The other thing you could look at is whether you could have overlapping areas, so maybe have a long run of units and storage all the way along from the current dining to the yard and then have a big table working as your dining and extra worktop space when you need it (rather than a built in island) I'd say try and make it feel like a decent sized kitchen which you can sit in, rather than a kitchen, a dining area and a sitting area all jammed in...

[Dan_the_man]

14 minutes ago, the_r_sole said:

Do you need another living area given you have one not very far away at all?

The other thing you could look at is whether you could have overlapping areas, so maybe have a long run of units and storage all the way along from the current dining to the yard and then have a big table working as your dining and extra worktop space when you need it (rather than a built in island) I'd say try and make it feel like a decent sized kitchen which you can sit in, rather than a kitchen, a dining area and a sitting area all jammed in...

 

I really want the living at the back too. The views are nice out the back.

 

I have decided to ditch the kitchen island and make it a kitchen peninsula. I do not know if this is cheating or not. This gives me 1100 wide between the two kitchen worktops. The pinch point is 880. The door for the understairs storage has 923 to the back of the peninsula. The laundry is behind the stairs inside a cupboard with two doors. This can be seen on the third image. I could make the peninsula 650 wide to give even more space at the pinch point.

 

Would apricate peoples thoughts.

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Dan_the_man

[Mr Punter]

A small point is that if it is a combustion boiler it will need a flue to outside air and the whole length of the flue must be accessible for inspection.  Also you need below ground drainage for both the WC and the kitchen sink and nothing is indicated.

 

The plan does not work for me.

[Dan_the_man]

1 hour ago, Mr Punter said:

A small point is that if it is a combustion boiler it will need a flue to outside air and the whole length of the flue must be accessible for inspection.  Also you need below ground drainage for both the WC and the kitchen sink and nothing is indicated.

 

The plan does not work for me.

 

I believe the flue will work. Please see the below image. The flue is brought outside to a lightwell just past the red beam, this would be classed as outside air. The total length of the flue is 4m and it can be hidden as the ceiling in that part of the house is 2.8m high where as in the extension the ceiling will be around 2.4m high.

 

I can fit two 300 x 300 flue inspection hatches along the top of the boxed in flue which should satisfy gas safety requirements.

 

The below ground drainage for the WC and kitchen sink will be included in the final plans.

 

So if both of your issues are resolved you have no other issues with the peninsula.

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Dan_the_man

[Mr Punter]

You will just need to make sure it complies.  Is it above or below the beam?  Are there any openings above where it exits?

 

You will also need an extract fan in the WC and there are regs regarding the distance between extract and flue terminals.  There may be another duct from the cooker hood.  Better get it all settled at the design stage.