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Extension Design Feedback


jayc89

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Hi all, newly registered here, but a long time lurker.

 

We're in the process of getting designs drawn up for our house extension. The idea being to create an open plan kitchen/living area and a new master suite upstairs (bedroom, dressing room and ensuite).

 

Our plot is a little odd in that our back garden doesn't extend directly beyond the rear of the house, it curves around behind our neighbours and then extends out.

 

1401443038_Screenshot2021-10-10at00_00_06.thumb.png.0f3966a2b3d9fa76bea08bca9e333da9.png

 

The extra building to the rear of the property is our garage. It's location on the plan is slightly misleading, it's 18m from the rear of the house and approx 5m from our rear boundary. The extended section of the plot was used as paddocks by the previous owners.

 

The idea is to build out far enough from the current building so that the new day room and bedroom benefit from better views of our garden (and not the neighbours back garden!)

 

The current floor plans are fairly simple. A largish living room/dining room and a separate "sitting room" (which is actually a home office). 3 bedrooms upstairs, one with ensuite. (North is to the bottom of the drawings)

 

202127471_Screenshot2021-10-09at23_53_45.thumb.png.473a62cef40208690b17035fe86af67a.png

 

484108370_Screenshot2021-10-09at23_55_36.thumb.png.a79e88479679f81a80c3f1b0115f8381.png

 

Because of the odd shape of the plot, to avoid intruding on our neighbours, it means we have to built out quite far. The idea was to make use of the additional internal floor space and add an extra bedroom to the north of the building, but because of how close it would be to our boundary wall, our architect suggested that bedroom would need a frosted window, which we weren't keen on. So the entire north face of the upstairs extension is now the master ensuite and dressing room - which makes for a spacious master suite - perhaps too big?

 

The extension will also cover up an existing window over the staircase. The 2x Velux windows and wall window on the new landing are meant to mitigate that loss of light.

 

We're also a little unsure on the placement of the pantry and utility room - the pantry doesn't need a window (especially a south facing one) and given it's where the kitchen sink currently is, it already has the plumbing needed for the utility room - maybe it's worth switching them around?

 

1777178402_Screenshot2021-10-09at23_56_46.thumb.png.2244a41984e3176b413126902f0259c3.png

 

1759149824_Screenshot2021-10-09at23_58_03.thumb.png.665de189254b221fbf579ff5ff01693a.png

 

Overall, we're pretty happy with the proposal, other than the points mentioned above, but from being a "lurker" around here for some time, I know there are some great contributors on here that will almost certain spot things I haven't even considered yet - the property was built around 1870 so we don't want the extension to be anything ultra modern, but suitable for modern family life - so I'd love your feedback!

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Don't under estimate the cost of removing that downstairs corner wall to form the new kitchen and it will need a pillar to support the corner.

 

Bi fold doors are like marmite on here, you love them or hate them.  Many will tell you they are draughty and leak heat out like it is going out of fashion.  Consider good quality sliders instead.

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Overall not a bad job. 

 

Couple of things I’d like to see.

 

You have 3 en-suite bedrooms but no wheelchair accessible shower. Maybe put one on the ground floor and move a living room upstairs. We’ll all be old soon enough.

 

I would mimic the glazing arrangement in the kitchen with the one in the master bedroom.  

 

Otherwise it will be difficult to heat. I’m in the bifolds are rubbish brigade. 

French doors or sliders or tilt and slide every time.  I’d give a thought to large areas of westerly glazing causing overheating in summer too. you may need to provision for external blinds.

 

 Have you considered the thermal performance of the house? If you haven’t had a comprehensive look at this you could end up with an expensive energy bill or a drafty cold existence. 

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50 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Don't under estimate the cost of removing that downstairs corner wall to form the new kitchen and it will need a pillar to support the corner.

 

Bi fold doors are like marmite on here, you love them or hate them.  Many will tell you they are draughty and leak heat out like it is going out of fashion.  Consider good quality sliders instead.

 

The walls to be knocked down are the existing ground floor extension, nothing above them, so I don't think we should require any additional structural support there?

 

9 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Overall not a bad job. 

 

Couple of things I’d like to see.

 

You have 3 en-suite bedrooms but no wheelchair accessible shower. Maybe put one on the ground floor and move a living room upstairs. We’ll all be old soon enough.

 

I would mimic the glazing arrangement in the kitchen with the one in the master bedroom.  

 

Otherwise it will be difficult to heat. I’m in the bifolds are rubbish brigade. 

French doors or sliders or tilt and slide every time.  I’d give a thought to large areas of westerly glazing causing overheating in summer too. you may need to provision for external blinds.

 

 Have you considered the thermal performance of the house? If you haven’t had a comprehensive look at this you could end up with an expensive energy bill or a drafty cold existence. 

 

The bifolds are a good point, the window/door company our builder and architect both, independently, recommended offer a sliding/patio door range which I suspect we'll end up using instead - http://www.conservatec.com/Aluminium_Sliding_patio_doors_visoglide.asp

 

In terms of build up - I've totally bought into the passivhaus concept, although I'm a realist too and don't plan to spend £££ getting the original part of the house (solid walls, lime mortar, plaster etc) up to that level. So for the extension, it's still TBD but I suspect we'll land on something similar to that used at Golcar.

 

150mm full fill cavity, 150mm reinforced conc built into the inner leaf sitting on 200mm EPS and Thermalite blocks used on the inner leaf below DPC.

 

Internally, we'll wet plaster, rather than D&D.

 

Does that sound reasonable?

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5 hours ago, jayc89 said:

 

In terms of build up - I've totally bought into the passivhaus concept, although I'm a realist too and don't plan to spend £££ getting the original part of the house (solid walls, lime mortar, plaster etc) up to that level. So for the extension, it's still TBD but I suspect we'll land on something similar to that used at Golcar.

Glad to hear it. Passivhaus + renewables is the finishing line for construction.  Build  out of materials that were once plants and you've decarbonised an entire industry. 

 

Green building store are an excellent source of knowledge. I based many of the details of our house on Denby Dale. However remember it's a holistic concept. Taking one corner of your house to PH levels and leaving the other corner uninsulated isn't a recipie for success. If you have the time and interest get a copy of PHPP. It is a great costing tool if noting else as you can quicker see what difference extra insulation makes. 

 

Don't write off your old house. GBS did a retrofit in the Pennines. Well worth a read. 

 

https://passivehouseplus.ie/magazine/upgrade/radical-retrofit-transforms-pennines-historic-barn

 

 

Edited by Iceverge
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1 hour ago, Iceverge said:

Glad to hear it. Passivhaus + renewables is the finishing line for construction.  Build  out of materials that were once plants and you've decarbonised an entire industry. 

 

Green building store are an excellent source of knowledge. I based many of the details of our house on Denby Dale. However remember it's a holistic concept. Taking one corner of your house to PH levels and leaving the other corner uninsulated isn't a recipie for success. If you have the time and interest get a copy of PHPP. It is a great costing tool if noting else as you can quicker see what difference extra insulation makes. 

 

Don't write off your old house. GBS did a retrofit in the Pennines. Well worth a read. 

 

https://passivehouseplus.ie/magazine/upgrade/radical-retrofit-transforms-pennines-historic-barn

 

 

 

Thanks - that was a super interesting read!

 

We're by no means writing the original building off - when we moved in we found the ground floor joists to be rotten so we replace the floor with an insulated slab + UFH (100mm PIR, 25mm PIR upstands). All the original plaster is still in good condition, 1 inch thick in places(!) and it's direct to brickwork, so whilst not perfect, it does provide a certain level of air tightness. 

 

The windows are probably 30 years old, we had planned to replace them first, but when we got the keys it was the heigh of lockdown/brexit aftermath and frames coming in from Germany were on a 12 week lead time which we couldn't afford to wait for (paying 2 mortgages whilst we renovated etc). They're to be replaced at the same time as the extension now.

 

The roof does need some TLC, there's 300mm rockwool between/over the joists, but some of the slates have slipped so they need putting right really before winter sets in.

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We're now thinking of something like this (my terrible mock up, not the architects!)

get.aspx?id=489978632&floor=0&w=600&h=60

 

The main reasons being;

 

  • The original pantry was on the south facing wall with an existing, large, window - it seemed a better use of this area as a utility
  • The rear entrance was straight into the kitchen area, potentially causing drafts on cold days when the door's open and it also didn't provide anywhere to store (AKA hide) shoes/coats/bags etc. By moving the entrance to the new utility room we can store this stuff out the way (and the kids have somewhere to go to the toilet/wash hands etc when they get in from school)
  • The extended hallway towards the north of the building had the potentially to be quite dark (no natural light around there) so we've pulled part of it into the kitchen space to try mitigate some of that.

Thoughts/comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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It's tricky, fascinating and enormously time consuming coming up with house designs. 

 

I would be slow to loose too much of the precious southern windows to non living rooms. I imagine your current kitchen is lovely and bright. Don't take it for granted. 

 

Is the rear of the house the most commonly used entrance? Do guests normally come this way too? 

 

 

Edited by Iceverge
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2 hours ago, Iceverge said:

It's tricky, fascinating and enormously time consuming coming up with house designs. 

 

I would be slow to loose too much of the precious southern windows to non living rooms. I imagine your current kitchen is lovely and bright. Don't take it for granted. 

 

Is the rear of the house the most commonly used entrance? Do guests normally come this way too? 

 

 


You’re telling me. I can spend hours trying to get a plan right and the architect seems to be able to do it in a few minutes. Clearly it’s not the trade for me! ?

 

That south window faces along the drive (approx 3.5m wide at that point). Directly opposite is a 4ft boundary wall and 8ft of hedges at the other side. So it does let in light, but not vast amounts. The new southerly windows in the extension at further set back from our boundary so should let in significantly more light.

 

We pretty much exclusively use the back door, in fact it’s a bit of a faff when we get deliveries to the front. Anyone who comes to the house, that we’re expecting, knows to use the rear.

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As you are making a lot of changes, I think I would go further and do more with the space.

 

I personally would never ever have a WC open onto the kitchen, it is not good for privacy.

 

I am not clear what that space outside the pantry and WC is supposed to be used for. Also why would the pantry be so far from the rest of the kitchen Do you need a pantry, it looks like you have plenty of kitchen cabinets.

 

Is that space behind the stairs a study at the moment? I would think you have room for a study and with everyone working from home now that's would be good to have.

 

Did you consider having an entrance to the kitchen at the back of the stairs so you can go straight there from the front door instead of through the lounge? Maybe that space is too tight.

 

If you had a more central door in the kitchen, I would take the area  behind the stairs and make half of it utility room and half of it WC.

 

Then I would make the whole WC/Pantry/Entrance area a study or even downstairs bedroom/en suite.

 

IF you cannot get the kitchen door into that area then it might be too far to get to the WC from the kitchen.

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2 minutes ago, AliG said:

As you are making a lot of changes, I think I would go further and do more with the space.

 

I personally would never ever have a WC open onto the kitchen, it is not good for privacy.

 

I am not clear what that space outside the pantry and WC is supposed to be used for. Also why would the pantry be so far from the rest of the kitchen Do you need a pantry, it looks like you have plenty of kitchen cabinets.

 

Is that space behind the stairs a study at the moment? I would think you have room for a study and with everyone working from home now that's would be good to have.

 

Did you consider having an entrance to the kitchen at the back of the stairs so you can go straight there from the front door instead of through the lounge? Maybe that space is too tight.

 

If you had a more central door in the kitchen, I would take the area  behind the stairs and make half of it utility room and half of it WC.

 

Then I would make the whole WC/Pantry/Entrance area a study.

 

IF you cannot get the kitchen door into that area then it might be too far to get to the WC from the kitchen.

 

I think you’re looking at an older drawing. I pretty much agree with all your points and the majority of them are addressed in the latest drawing on this thread.

 

The stairs have two quarter landings so we don’t have the height to get a full size door through to the kitchen there.

 

The current space to the side of stair case was a bathroom on the first quarter landing that we’ve already removed. As it was a bit pointless being there and it gives us the space to expand the hallway into the kitchen, without going through the living room/dining room.

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16 minutes ago, jayc89 said:

That south window faces along the drive (approx 3.5m wide at that point). Directly opposite is a 4ft boundary wall and 8ft of hedges at the other side. So it does let in light, but not vast amounts. The new southerly windows in the extension at further set back from our boundary so should let in significantly more light.

 

If my calculations are correct, even in the middle of December the sun will be shining directly in that Kitchen window, hedge or no hedge. 

 

53 minutes ago, jayc89 said:

 

We pretty much exclusively use the back door,

 

I can see your architects point here with the larger entrance so. I would consider a dedicated hallway to celebrate the welcome to your home. Add an adjoining WC and utility/boot room/laundry. From the hall have access to the kitchen .In fact I would sacrifice a corner of the existing living room and drive a hallway right through between both doors. Front to Back.  Possibly look into a new window in the south wall here too. You have a large house. No need to be too economical with the required circulation spaces. 

 

Like @ETC says bin the pantry. I would put a bathroom with an accessible shower in the area beside the stairs and take down the store outside to have a window. Your current design has 7 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms and not one of them can be used by someone less mobile. You could provision to change the sitting room to a bedroom in future. 

 

46 minutes ago, jayc89 said:

The current space to the side of stair case was a bathroom on the first quarter landing that we’ve already removed.

 

The old bathroom on the stairs trick was like a bad joke back in the day. Making the one room in the house every needed as inaccessible as possible for the most amount of people!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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image.thumb.png.6fb4fa11f6cb99cef686bdc94e087a66.png

It's taken a few hours so I'm no architect either. 

 

See what you think.  The door to the study has sidelights and is glazed/frosted to light the hall. as are the double doors to the kitchen. 

 

I would provision for an external porch too. 

Edited by Iceverge
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On 15/10/2021 at 01:51, Iceverge said:

image.thumb.png.6fb4fa11f6cb99cef686bdc94e087a66.png

It's taken a few hours so I'm no architect either. 

 

See what you think.  The door to the study has sidelights and is glazed/frosted to light the hall. as are the double doors to the kitchen. 

 

I would provision for an external porch too. 


thanks @Iceverge I really like the flow of light from the boot room into the kitchen. I’ll suggest that to our architect.

 

I'm not so sure on the side lights in the study though. Given it is a period House the interior won’t be ultra modern so I worry the sidelights might just look a little too office-y for the property?

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  • 2 months later...

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Our planning permission got knocked back on the grounds of it being too dominant in relation to our neighbour. Given the site plans, I'm not convinced that is the case, but rather than going down the route of appealing, we're back to the drawing board, so to speak.

 

The council requested the extension be reduced by at least 3m so our architect is suggesting we do that, but build out the full width of the existing property instead so we don't actually lose that as floor space. Something like this;

 

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Key points;

  • The extension is stepped in 0.5m from the existing property because our boundary also slopes in, so this gives us enough width to still get a car (and wagons, during construction) to the rear of the property
  • The extension footprint is actually bigger now, the first floor is arguably too large to accommodate what we want on the ground floor, resulting in a 6th bedroom being added, just to fill the space, really.

 

As ever, your feedback is greatly appreciated!

 

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Edited by jayc89
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Hard luck on not getting planning. It's a frustration but if they've only asked you for 3m it's a roundabout way of saying yes! 

 

It looks generally fine apart from a couple of things. Mind you I'm a pedant so don't take any of the below to heart.

 

1.No accessible shower on the ground floor. 

2.No southern windows in the open plan living room. 

3. Utility looks a but small for the size of the house.  Also the shape is lightly to lead to it becoming very cluttered unless you run your house with military discipline. 

4. Given the new porch+hallway is the main entry it's a little un generous given the scale of the house.

5. Both hallways are lightly to be very dark. 

6. Maybe it's a mistake but the master bed has no windows. 

7. The doors from the snug to the kitchen will become the main thoroughfare as the alternate route North of the stairs is twice the distance. The snug will feel like a corridor. 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Iceverge said:

Hard luck on not getting planning. It's a frustration but if they've only asked you for 3m it's a roundabout way of saying yes! 

 

It looks generally fine apart from a couple of things. Mind you I'm a pedant so don't take any of the below to heart.

 

1.No accessible shower on the ground floor. 

2.No southern windows in the open plan living room. 

3. Utility looks a but small for the size of the house.  Also the shape is lightly to lead to it becoming very cluttered unless you run your house with military discipline. 

4. Given the new porch+hallway is the main entry it's a little un generous given the scale of the house.

5. Both hallways are lightly to be very dark. 

6. Maybe it's a mistake but the master bed has no windows. 

7. The doors from the snug to the kitchen will become the main thoroughfare as the alternate route North of the stairs is twice the distance. The snug will feel like a corridor. 

 

 

 

 

I pretty much agree with all your points;

 

1) I don't think we will include an accessible shower. If push came to shove. we'd likely transition the downstairs w/c utility into a wet room, but I hope it won't be a concern for the next 30-40 years at least!

2) That's one of my concerns too - there will be light coming through from the kitchen window, which is reasonably sized (approx 1.5m) and the door into the new hallway will be glazed so will also allow some light through, but it's far from perfect. I'm not sure how best to remedy this though.

3,4,5) We're not entirely sold on the new hallway, porch, utility, w/c layout. I'd be just as happy to have a larger utility (with an external door) and w/c, to give us more space. The hallway in general feels like it's there just because we have the space so is less of a concern if we lose it. The porch would have its merits, but again, I'm just as happy to hang our coats in the utility!

6) The master bedroom has light from the south aspect through the wardrobe area and then doors to the north-west corner. We did concern one/two windows on the westerly aspect too, but weren't 100%

7) Totally agree with this and it's one I've racked my brain and spoke to our architect about multiple times. There is a (currently glazed) window in the north-easterly most corner of the section of hallway running along the stairs (where the bottom most cupboard is shown) but it gets very little light anyway so won't remediate this concern on its own.

 

I think in general, the rear hallway/utility area needs a rethink and the lighting in general needs deeper consideration. We have the space to play with, I'm just struggling to make it all "flow".

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1 hour ago, jayc89 said:

1) I don't think we will include an accessible shower. If push came to shove. we'd likely transition the downstairs w/c utility into a wet room, but I hope it won't be a concern for the next 30-40 years at least!

 

 I've had this fight a couple of time on here. DO IT BEFORE YOU NEED IT.  It's less than 1m2. You can use it to store junk once it's done but for heavens sake build it while you can. 

 

https://www.rte.ie/radio/doconone/1243580-ill-send-you-butterflies#:~:text=I'll Send You Butterflies tells the story of a,active woman in her seventies.

 Listen for 2 minutes from 21:21 about this very discussion. About a poor woman who with ME who faced trying to remodel the house in the middle of a terminal illness. 

 

Anyway without the gloom of succumbing to a nasty disease it's perfectly possible you'll need to avoid stairs for a week. I did a couple of years ago when I came off my road bike and bashed my knee. Washing yourself with a cloth in the sink soon gets old. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 I think we're pretty much settled on the upstairs layout, but a couple of things to callout;

 

- 6th bedroom (directly below the master) would be overlooking our neighbour so our architect suggested we may need a frosted window in there

- Architect is suggesting we replace the existing extension roof with a new one that spans the original extension and new extension as it would look more sympathetic (only 2 different roofs, rather than 3). We don't particularly mind this as it will give us a better loft area, but appreciate it will be more expensive. The biggest concern here is we'd lose the Skylights and have to replace them with sun pipes (the black circles on the plan)

 

 

get.aspx-4.png.24f8010ffeac363b77fd3bcfcfcac050.png

 

The thing that's really not clear in my mind right now is the downstairs;

- We have a long southern aspect which we're not currently making the most of, ideally we'd use that to add more light into the open-plan space, but I can't figure out how to do that whilst keeping a porch/bootroom at the far corner (west), nearest the garages/drive.

- We want a downstairs w/c (happy to make that a shower room ;) ) and don't have any strong preference where that goes in the grand scheme of things.

- The north hallway, past the stair case will be dark, I don't think there's a good way to fix that, so have resided ourselves to the fact it can't really be used as a hallway. Possibly a utility room, or the downstairs w/c instead?

 

Any tips/hints/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

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Cool Cool,

 

A couple of things I've figured out along my house journey ( and a couple of things I wish I'd known before) BTW a good architect will have these sorted but sometimes they get curtailed by the existing building and the clients requirements. 

 

    (i) The main entrance should be into a dedicated welcome space, ideally with some natural light shining into it from in front or above or beside. It is pleasant to have a sense of "opening            up) once in the door, A vaulted ceiling or a view up a stairs to a large window can do this. 

    (ii) This should include discrete storage or be very near to a coat/boot room.

    (iii) A WC should be close at hand. 

    (iv) Think of the flow through the house like a road network. For instance, the kitchen and stairway will be big paths for traffic.  

           These should be accessed directly and via large "trunk" roads. If there is a circuitous route and narrow doorways and hall's it'll  be a pain to live in. 

    (v) Natural light is super important, if well designed for it can give the impression of a much larger space without any of the actual cost or hassle of building it. 

   (vi) Light from the South is ten times better than E/W and 100 times better than Northern light. 

   (vii) Tricks to get it into a house

                                                          (a) South facing windows and glazed doors (obviously!)

                                                          (b) glazed internal elements to suck some light into the inners. ( fan lights, glazed internal doors etc)

                                                          (c) Atrium style skylights to get it into the centre of a fat building. 

                                                          (d) Clever use of mirrors and colour to reflect it inside

   

   (viii) You cannot have too much storage

   (ix) Natural light entering a room from two directions can make it feel much bigger. 

   (x) The ratio of ceiling height to room size is important. My parents with 2.65m ceiling in their 4m*4.5m kitchen feels much taller than ours at 12m*4.5m and 2.7m high. 

 

 

I'm sure there's more. 

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Thanks @Iceverge, that's super useful.

 

What do you think to this?

201036467_Screenshot2022-01-27at21_05_35.thumb.png.4959862bf6b097b426c08e1bee9c2a95.png

 

- The utility is moved down to the side of the staircase, north wall, with very little light anyway

- Boot room to the west, with a southerly window, opening into the open-plan space to let light through from that aspect

- Similar from the kitchen so the open plan area has light from North, West and South now.

- It even has a downstairs shower room ;)

I think the crux of the problems come from working around the existing staircase. The property was built ~ 1850 and has a lovely, original, monkey's tail handrail, which isn't to our taste, but given it's original, we're loathed to mess with, as it will never go back the same. If we could have moved the stairs, say to that north wall, I think it would have opened up the house to so many more options.

 

This is my first stab at designing an extension, so I'm by no means an expert, but I'm stumped for any better layout now.

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That's much better. 

 

A few suggestions just on resizing the boot room/porch.  You could have a window with a 500mm high sill. It would be lovely.

 

Are you happy with the transition from the back to the front of the house? You will still be treking the long way round through the utility or through the kitchen and the snug. These will effectively become hallways. 

 

image.thumb.png.5dc6e389bd10e09c808afc1e8ee459c6.png

 

 

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