Early layout plans for rural renovation… would love a critique :)

[Bozza]

Very nice. Glad your building something for you not the mass market and has individuality.  
 

In my opinion your upper corridor, 4ft wide, will be long, thin and dark as is, and could compromise your grand design / spacious house somewhat.   The size of your building will definitely accommodate more circulation space and you may wish to think about that here.  Moving the internal walls of bedroom 1 and 2 down to expose the top of the left side staircase won’t big a big difference to those already large bedrooms, and should open up more light from the left hand side staircase.  Obviously this will widen the upper hallway.

 

Even though you only need 3 beds I think you are right to make it four bed for future resale.  I’m assuming you’re a family of 2-3 maximum, but if only 2, I think you’re mental building such a massive house but it’s you’re money

We ended up with one more living room than we actually needed but it’s quite handy TBH to have a clean fancy living room for visitors and a normal messy TV room for actually living in.  My tip for your multiple living areas would be from an interior design perspective have them decorated and looking/feeling quite different to each other and ensuring each has a specific use.  Eg watching telly, or after dinner seating, or reading or whatever.  Having multiples of the same use room would be weird.  If all those rooms looked similar your house might look and feel a bit weird / Groundhog Day.  Our livingroom has a lux / gold / quality  feeling about it but our tv room is more relaxed practical Scandi design about it so both rooms feel and look quite different and have different uses.

 

Practically have loads of sockets in the communal areas to plug in your hoover as the cables won’t stretch that far.  Or plenty of spare batteries if cordless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fatgus]

1 hour ago, Blooda said:

Looks good - a couple of comments, probably reflecting others.

 

The "Dog shower" may restrict location of sockets in the "utility" as it may now become a "bathroom".

 

Very good point... not something I'd considered. The shower would be very useful, so we would need to look into this.

 

1 hour ago, Blooda said:

 

Not enough Ensuites for the size of house.

Think as if you were going to sell it ?   what others would require. 

 

A common sentiment! I think we must be in the minority... having had one house with an en-suite and holidayed in many, we're really not fans. The one we've added is a concession, on the basis that it's through a "dressing room" () and we don't have to use it. 

 

1 hour ago, Blooda said:

 

Rename the "Walk in wardrobe" to "dressing room" [unless the window is a route of escape] if you have a door to it, as it may be construed as a "room in a room", plant room, cine room, boot room may be construed the same, but may not as it is open plan. 

 

Great point. There won't be doors between the dressing room and the bedroom. We've changed the window in the plant room for a door, so hopefully that will make that one more acceptable.

 

1 hour ago, Blooda said:

 

There is a almost a line of sight from the kitchen to the downstairs, should you forget to close the door when you turn your bike around 

 

There is... you've had to be a pretty determined voyeur though  We could maybe add a small return on the adjacent wall?

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Blooda said:

 

Also don't just think of your needs now, but in the near future [ie in 4 / 5 years time when it will be complete, and of course even later [you may curse that single up stair and down stair into the cinema room.

 

 

 

We did think we could replace the steps with ramps if necessary but I think they will probably just go, provided that doesn't compromise the pitch of the stairs too much. We hope to see out our remaining days there, so it's a valid point. I did half heartedly start investigating the provisions I'd need to make for future lift at the end of the cinema room corridor, but it was too depressing a thought so I kicked that particular can a bit further down the road...

 

[fatgus]

1 hour ago, Bozza said:

Very nice. Glad your building something for you not the mass market and has individuality.
 

 

Thanks Bozza 

 

 

1 hour ago, Bozza said:

In my opinion your upper corridor, 4ft wide, will be long, thin and dark as is, and could compromise your grand design / spacious house somewhat.   The size of your building will definitely accommodate more circulation space and you may wish to think about that here.  Moving the internal walls of bedroom 1 and 2 down to expose the top of the left side staircase won’t big a big difference to those already large bedrooms, and should open up more light from the left hand side staircase.  Obviously this will widen the upper hallway.

 

Another point we've agonised over!

 

In the evening, there should be some light coming into the corridor from the open first floor living room at the west of the house.

 

Originally, the corridor extended all the way to the eastern gable, so it would have morning light too. That reduced the size of bedroom 1 though so we decided to ditch that idea. Then, we thought about a large (4x10ft?)obscure glazed internal window in place of bedroom 1's door, moving the door to the adjacent wall so bed 1 was accessed through what is now the dressing room. Then we ditched that idea too  Another thought was a series of sun tunnels just to the south of the roof ridge, into the corridor.

 

As far as possible, we're trying to work with the walls of the existing house (at least, the good bits that won't be removed). I'll mark them up on a sketch.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bozza said:

Even though you only need 3 beds I think you are right to make it four bed for future resale.  I’m assuming you’re a family of 2-3 maximum, but if only 2, I think you’re mental building such a massive house but it’s you’re money

 

Me, wife, two kids and other animals. One is at university and another will be heading off to do 'something' in a couple of years. I wish we could have done this years ago, like most self builders I imagine, but obviously that's not how life works. We are trying to design for the future... we'd hope to see grandchildren and would like it to be a house they want to visit  When I was young I had one set of grandparents living in a small suburban bungalow and another in a large, old, rural house they'd renovated, with a cellar, turret, massive gardens and woodland. They were less than five miles apart, but my sister and I would never want to spend time at the bungalow... there was nothing to do. All our extended family gatherings were at the old house... it had the capacity, but it was primarily a wonderful place to be. Maybe it is mental and a waste of money  but we live quite modestly and would rather spend it on bricks, mortar and a lovely garden than extravagant holidays and shiny things 

 

Also, it's quite a good size plot and a small house would seem to be a wasted opportunity.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bozza said:

We ended up with one more living room than we actually needed but it’s quite handy TBH to have a clean fancy living room for visitors and a normal messy TV room for actually living in.  My tip for your multiple living areas would be from an interior design perspective have them decorated and looking/feeling quite different to each other and ensuring each has a specific use.  Eg watching telly, or after dinner seating, or reading or whatever.  Having multiples of the same use room would be weird.  If all those rooms looked similar your house might look and feel a bit weird / Groundhog Day.  Our livingroom has a lux / gold / quality  feeling about it but our tv room is more relaxed practical Scandi design about it so both rooms feel and look quite different and have different uses.

 

That makes sense. We've naturally gathered loads of pics on pinterest and from magazines and there are several styles we're drawn to, so that would work well. The interior design is probably my main concern... it would be a shame to have this lovely space and squander the potential with poor decor.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bozza said:

Practically have loads of sockets in the communal areas to plug in your hoover as the cables won’t stretch that far.  Or plenty of spare batteries if cordless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God yes. When we renovated our bungalow we added them everywhere, along with eighteen CAT5 sockets that I insisted on. I think we use four, but the others are there if we need them  

 

 

 

 

[Thorfun]

22 hours ago, fatgus said:

The passage to the cinema room is pretty much a deliberate folly 😁 It’s 4ft wide (as are the other corridors) so not too narrow. We could add that to the cinema room, but it doesn’t really need to be larger than it is (18x15ft) and we don’t see the need for another room.

actually, i believe the experts suggest rectangular rooms are better dimensions for a cinema than square! so removing the corridor and making the room 22'x15' might get you a better cinema experience. 😉

 

wrt your design and to throw a massive spanner in the works, have you considered an upside-down house? if you say that the best views all round are from the first floor then by having the bedrooms on the ground floor and the living spaces upstairs it means that you get the great views during the day.

[fatgus]

56 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

actually, i believe the experts suggest rectangular rooms are better dimensions for a cinema than square! so removing the corridor and making the room 22'x15' might get you a better cinema experience. 😉

 

It would save a few quid too. Does that mean I can have a better projector? 

 

 

56 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

wrt your design and to throw a massive spanner in the works, have you considered an upside-down house? if you say that the best views all round are from the first floor then by having the bedrooms on the ground floor and the living spaces upstairs it means that you get the great views during the day.

 

That's a very sensible spanner  We fleetingly considered it as our first house was upside down and worked quite well, but decided against it as we're constantly popping in and out, not least because of the dogs... in/out every thirty minutes 🙄 It would be a bit of a faff if the living space was upstairs, so the first floor living area was a hopefully decent solution. At the western end, it should be a nice place to watch the sun set

 

 

 

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, fatgus said:

It would save a few quid too. Does that mean I can have a better projector? 

man maths wins every time.

 

1 hour ago, fatgus said:

That's a very sensible spanner  We fleetingly considered it as our first house was upside down and worked quite well, but decided against it as we're constantly popping in and out, not least because of the dogs... in/out every thirty minutes 🙄 It would be a bit of a faff if the living space was upstairs, so the first floor living area was a hopefully decent solution. At the western end, it should be a nice place to watch the sun set

make sense. although you could install a dog slide.

[fatgus]

49 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

man maths wins every time.

 

make sense. although you could install a dog slide.

 

 

Ever since I saw Ben Huggins (anyone remember him?) put a slide into his barn conversion I've fancied one. Tricky in a bungalow though

 

Maybe now is the time! Interested to see the dogs trying to get back up....

 

[fatgus]

Made some changes to the first floor layout….

 

 

It gives us a nicer size main bedroom with a larger dressing room. It also moves the surplus bedroom (4) further from the main one, which seems to make sense.

 

By doing this we’re moving the wet rooms a little further from the plant room, but it’s not too significant so hopefully won’t impact on plumbing too much..

Also made some changes to the window layout and introduced some small roof lights, or maybe sun tunnels(?) to the corridor (obviously not shown in the sketch  )

 

 

 

 

 

[Iceverge]

It's a really vast building. I make the first floor alone about 200m2.  Packaged well you could get the house done at 250m2.  Have you looked at a budget for this yet? We had 3 set of planning permission. One because of land registration issues but the last change to scale the design to something affordable. It would have been much easier to start with the dosh and make the house fit first time. 

 

 

I think the stairs needs reworking. Maybe circle it around the tree. That would be lush! 

 

Mentioned already but office is a bit pokey and given you have such access to scenery, a desk with a view would be nice.  

 

There's 3 bathrooms in close proximity to each other in the SE corner. You could move the door of the master bedroom and use the shower room as the ensuite and make the dressing room larger. 

 

The laundry room will have a washing machine backing onto a bedroom wall. This might be a noise nuisance. I'd sandwich it between the bathroom and the shower room. 

 

Thinking about natural lighting I read on another forum that natural light in the Northern hemisphere penetrates about 4m from the South and 3m from the North. I drew our house with this in mind and it seems to work well.

 

What drawing program are you using?  Does it offer the option to draw in mm and metres?

It's a mind boggling experience to begin with but will be worth it long term as you'll be au fait with the nomenclature of construction (Unless you're in the States).

 

 

Keep at it, it's an interesting project. 

 

 

[fatgus]

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

It's a really vast building. I make the first floor alone about 200m2.  Packaged well you could get the house done at 250m2.  Have you looked at a budget for this yet? We had 3 set of planning permission. One because of land registration issues but the last change to scale the design to something affordable. It would have been much easier to start with the dosh and make the house fit first time. 

You’re absolutely right, it could be much smaller, but we don’t really want it to be  We’re not planning on building again and we’re comfortable we can finish it with the funds we have. I know it might not look like it, but we’ve already reined it in quite a bit…. Our original ideas were nudging 600sq.m, which would have been really insane.

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

 

I think the stairs needs reworking. Maybe circle it around the tree. That would be lush!

 

My wife has an almost pathological loathing of circular staircases, but I’d love some ideas
 

That being said… IMHO the tree is the main feature and the stairs are largely a means of getting to the next floor!

 

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Mentioned already but office is a bit pokey and given you have such access to scenery, a desk with a view would be nice. 

Bear in mind that the study is one corner of an open 22ft x 31ft space, which will have a vaulted ceiling and a tree! It should be a lovely place to be.
 

The lack of window/view is deliberate. My current study faces very roughly the same direction and has a window with a decent view, but any sunlight, even indirect, makes it uncomfortable to use the screen, so the blinds are always closed. As the study is currently laid out, if I look to the right I’ll have a view into the garden and left I’ll be able to see the mountains across the valley, but ultimately, if I have work to do I want to get it done as quickly as possible with least distraction, so I can crack on with something I actually enjoy  And if I need a break, the upstairs living area is only a few steps away!

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

There's 3 bathrooms in close proximity to each other in the SE corner. You could move the door of the master bedroom and use the shower room as the ensuite and make the dressing room larger. 
 

We could do, but then we’d only have one shared upstairs bathroom. I’ve mentioned before that we’re not really into en-suites, so we could ditch it and just use the shared shower room/bathroom, but several people have noted that the building size really demands at least one en-suite, should we ever decide/need to sell. We’ve kept the bathrooms & laundry together to make plumbing easier, hopefully, and eliminate noise from pipes/waste travelling under/over/past bedrooms.

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

The laundry room will have a washing machine backing onto a bedroom wall. This might be a noise nuisance. I'd sandwich it between the bathroom and the shower room. 

 

That bedroom will be used very infrequently. Our washing machine and dryer are incredibly quiet, but even so we figured it’s better to have the machines backing onto an unused bedroom than onto the bathroom which will be used daily, sometime for long periods. It’s not unusual for one of us to spend a couple of hours in the bath (it has a tv, which we’ll certainly have in the new house too). It’s probably not obvious from the sketches, but placing the machines on that wall means they’re closer to a ground floor supporting wall too, which I thought would make sense. We’ve done the same with the bath… it’s directly above a supporting wall.
 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Thinking about natural lighting I read on another forum that natural light in the Northern hemisphere penetrates about 4m from the South and 3m from the North. I drew our house with this in mind and it seems to work well.

 

Interesting… I didn’t know that. Something to bear in mind

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

What drawing program are you using?  Does it offer the option to draw in mm and metres?

It's a mind boggling experience to begin with but will be worth it long term as you'll be au fait with the nomenclature of construction (Unless you're in the States).

 

We’re in the UK. I’ve been using ArchiTouch… It does metric, but for some reason I much prefer feet & inches. Weird, considering I was born the year before decimalisation 🤪
 

 

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

 

Keep at it, it's an interesting project. 

 

 

 

Thanks… it really is  

 

I’m very grateful for every comment & suggestion, even if I’m not necessarily in full agreement 😁 👍👍👍👍

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by fatgus
Stray punctuation and crap grammar

[Thorfun]

7 minutes ago, fatgus said:

That being said… IMHO the tree is the main feature and the stairs are largely a means of getting to the next floor!

it's a shame that the main entrance is at the side of the house. I would've thought having a central atrium with the tree and staircase as a main wow feature as you walk in the front door (central-ish to the property) with rooms leading off it would be amazing. it would also mean you'd be able to remove the corridor feel upstairs to the bedrooms. you could treat the house as having 2 wings. one side of the house upstairs a large and luxurious master bedroom and then 2/3 bedrooms the other side of the house (personally I don't see the point of adding extra bedrooms just for the sake of it. if you're like us and never want to move again then the financial return of the extra bedroom will never be realised except for your dependents who inherit it. we're building a 400m² house and only have 3 bedrooms as we only have 2 kids). then you should still have room upstairs for an upstairs living room.

 

I also don't see the point of a laundry room upstairs and a large utility downstairs. why not put the laundry in the utility room?

 

the above comment are with the caveat that I'm not a designer! we used an architect and let him let his creativity go wild within the confines of our brief. he came up with a few ideas of which we liked bits of each. he then amalgamated those bits into a design that we love. you're doing a great job but I wonder if with the size of the house your budget would stretch to using an architect or architectural designer then they might come up with something that you hadn't thought of? anyway, I'm not (or not wanting to) raining on your parade. as I said, the house looks lovely, I just feel that professionals are there for a reason as they do what we can't even though we think we can! during our build there are some things I've simply left to the professionals as I know it will be better than I can do as I know my limits.

[fatgus]

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

it's a shame that the main entrance is at the side of the house. I would've thought having a central atrium with the tree and staircase as a main wow feature as you walk in the front door (central-ish to the property) with rooms leading off it would be amazing. it would also mean you'd be able to remove the corridor feel upstairs to the bedrooms. you could treat the house as having 2 wings. one side of the house upstairs a large and luxurious master bedroom and then 2/3 bedrooms the other side of the house (personally I don't see the point of adding extra bedrooms just for the sake of it. if you're like us and never want to move again then the financial return of the extra bedroom will never be realised except for your dependents who inherit it. we're building a 400m² house and only have 3 bedrooms as we only have 2 kids). then you should still have room upstairs for an upstairs living room.

 

I agree… a central entrance could be nice. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t seem to lend itself to that… the access & parking is from the west, so a central entrance would probably necessitate a bit of a walk, given the size of the house, whereas we’ll be able to park directly outside the entrance with the current layout. I know this is very much a personal thing, but I love the idea of opening the front door and having an unobstructed view 70ft through the house to the eastern garden  The corridor doesn’t bother us particularly… it’s 35ft ish, so 10ft longer than the one in our bungalow (off which we have four bedrooms, bath and showe), but it’s over a foot wider. We’ll have some alcoves with nicely illuminated ‘art’ (upcycled tat from eBay, bits of tree…) and the roof lights will mean it’s much lighter than we’re used to. It will also have a 12ft(ish) high ceiling. The second staircase breaks it up nicely too. 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

 

I also don't see the point of a laundry room upstairs and a large utility downstairs. why not put the laundry in the utility room?

 

Upstairs laundry is my wife’s idea… I’m in favour too. Almost all the dirty laundry is generated/discarded upstairs, so the rationale is… why bring it all downstairs to wash and iron, only to have to then take it back upstairs? We’ll have one of those ceiling mounted pulley drying racks and I believe (could be wrong!) that the MVHR will lead to it drying quite quickly.

 

The downstairs utility is really a dog room  We only have two at the moment because we just don’t have the space for more, but we’ll be adding more when we move. The shower is for the dogs, or me if I’m filthy from whatever I’m working on outside at the time. We’ll very probably have a washing machine in there too, for dog bedding and work clothes, but the room is primarily for the animals.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

 

the above comment are with the caveat that I'm not a designer! we used an architect and let him let his creativity go wild within the confines of our brief. he came up with a few ideas of which we liked bits of each. he then amalgamated those bits into a design that we love. you're doing a great job but I wonder if with the size of the house your budget would stretch to using an architect or architectural designer then they might come up with something that you hadn't thought of? anyway, I'm not (or not wanting to) raining on your parade. as I said, the house looks lovely, I just feel that professionals are there for a reason as they do what we can't even though we think we can! during our build there are some things I've simply left to the professionals as I know it will be better than I can do as I know my limits.

 

I agree absolutely! We’ve spoken with nine architects (or architectural designers) and met on-site with six. We will certainly be using one of them, but dear god they were a mixed bag. We gave the same brief to all of them (wants, needs, likes, dislikes, budget etc). Some were great, very receptive, asked loads of questions and tried to get to understand us and the way we live. Others stuck their chest out and spent an hour telling us how amazing they were (ironically, not something necessarily reflected by their portfolio). Some seemed intent on designing the house they wanted. Their fees ranged from a few grand to many tens of thousands and there seemed to be little correlation between cost and ability. We’ve narrowed it down to two. I think the most likely is a small, relatively local practice. I really liked the guy and he’s done some good work for one of my neighbours. He also collaborates occasionally with quite a well known architect. If he designs something that works well for us, we’ll very willingly drop our plans in a heartbeat  

 

With that in mind, what we’re designing ourselves may never be built, but there are, I think, good reasons for going through the process anyway… We’ve really thought long and hard about the way we live, the way that’s changed over recent years and the way it is likely to change further over time. From morning coffee to late night routines, weekdays & weekends, the best and worst bits of our current house, previous houses, old family houses. What we’ll miss when we move, the things we care deeply about and what we don’t give two shits about. The more depth we go to now, the better we’ll be able to inform the architect. We may not actually show them our design at first (or maybe even ever, if their proposal is stellar) to see what they come up with. Primarily though, we just really, really enjoy the process, particularly me. We’re now on iteration 128, excluding the hand sketches I did before I got an iPad  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by fatgus
Typo

[Thorfun]

23 minutes ago, fatgus said:

 

I agree… a central entrance could be nice. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t seem to lend itself to that… the access & parking is from the west, so a central entrance would probably necessitate a bit of a walk, given the size of the house, whereas we’ll be able to park directly outside the entrance with the current layout. I know this is very much a personal thing, but I love the idea of opening the front door and having an unobstructed view 70ft through the house to the eastern garden  The corridor doesn’t bother us particularly… it’s 35ft ish, so 10ft longer than the one in our bungalow (off which we have four bedrooms, bath and showe), but it’s over a foot wider. We’ll have some alcoves with nicely illuminated ‘art’ (upcycled tat from eBay, bits of tree…) and the roof lights will mean it’s much lighter than we’re used to. It will also have a 12ft(ish) high ceiling. The second staircase breaks it up nicely too. 

 

 

 

 

Upstairs laundry is my wife’s idea… I’m in favour too. Almost all the dirty laundry is generated/discarded upstairs, so the rationale is… why bring it all downstairs to wash and iron, only to have to then take it back upstairs? We’ll have one of those ceiling mounted pulley drying racks and I believe (could be wrong!) that the MVHR will lead to it drying quite quickly.

 

The downstairs utility is really a dog room  We only have two at the moment because we just don’t have the space for more, but we’ll be adding more when we move. The shower is for the dogs, or me if I’m filthy from whatever I’m working on outside at the time. We’ll very probably have a washing machine in there too, for dog bedding and work clothes, but the room is primarily for the animals.

 

 

 

 

I agree absolutely! We’ve spoken with nine architects (or architectural designers) and met on-site with six. We will certainly be using one of them, but dear god they were a mixed bag. We gave the same brief to all of them (wants, needs, likes, dislikes, budget etc). Some were great, very receptive, asked loads of questions and tried to get to understand us and the way we live. Others stuck their chest out and spent an hour telling us how amazing they were (ironically, not something necessarily reflected by their portfolio). Some seemed intent on designing the house they wanted. Their fees ranged from a few grand to many tens of thousands and there seemed to be little correlation between cost and ability. We’ve narrowed it down to two. I think the most likely is a small, relatively local practice. I really liked the guy and he’s done some good work for one of my neighbours. He also collaborates occasionally with quite a well known architect. If he designs something that works well for us, we’ll very willingly drop our plans in a heartbeat  

 

With that in mind, what we’re designing ourselves may never be built, but there are, I think, good reasons for going through the process anyway… We’ve really thought long and hard about the way we live, the way that’s changed over recent years and the way it is likely to change further over time. From morning coffee to late night routines, weekdays & weekends, the best and worst bits of our current house, previous houses, old family houses. What we’ll miss when we move, the things we care deeply about and what we don’t give two shits about. The more depth we go to now, the better we’ll be able to inform the architect. We may not actually show them our design at first (or maybe even ever, if their proposal is stellar) to see what they come up with. Primarily though, we just really, really enjoy the process, particularly me. We’re now on iteration 128, excluding the hand sketches I did before I got an iPad  

 

 

 

 

 

 

sounds like you've very firmly got your heads on right! it's great that you've considered lots of different options and the beauty of building your own house is that you can build what YOU want and not give a hoot about what anyone else says. 😉 

 

I really look forward to following your journey if you're willing to share with us.

[fatgus]

15 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

sounds like you've very firmly got your heads on right!

 

We’ll see!!

 

15 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

it's great that you've considered lots of different options and the beauty of building your own house is that you can build what YOU want and not give a hoot about what anyone else says. 😉 

 

Indeed… and no-one else to blame for the mistakes.

 

15 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

 

I really look forward to following your journey if you're willing to share with us.

Very gladly… warts and all 👍

Yours is one of the builds I’ve followed… it looks lovely. You must be delighted with it

 

 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, fatgus said:

Upstairs laundry is my wife’s idea… I’m in favour too. Almost all the dirty laundry is generated/discarded upstairs, so the rationale is… why bring it all downstairs to wash and iron, only to have to then take it back upstairs? We’ll have one of those ceiling mounted pulley drying racks and I believe (could be wrong!) that the MVHR will lead to it drying quite quickly.

Drying rack with mvhr works well.

 

Upstairs laundry, you trade taking baskets of clothes up and down, for having to get a washing machine up the stairs.  Not I job I would wish to do or regard myself as strong enough to do without doing some serious harm to the stairs.  It's good to get some exercise taking the washing up and down from time to time.  A laundry chute would deal with the "down"

[fatgus]

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Drying rack with mvhr works well.

 

👍

 

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

Upstairs laundry, you trade taking baskets of clothes up and down, for having to get a washing machine up the stairs.  Not I job I would wish to do or regard myself as strong enough to do without doing some serious harm to the stairs.

 

Only got to do it once though, well, until it needs replacing…

 

It’s a valid point though… Our first house was upside down. We installed oil central heating and I remember three of us battling to get the floor standing oil boiler up the dog-leg stairs to our kitchen. I think it was something like 150kg. Not fun  Our current washing machine is much lighter than that thing though… around 80? Still not easy, but doable  

 

 

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

 

It's good to get some exercise taking the washing up and down from time to time.  A laundry chute would deal with the "down"

 I guess so, but we‘ll be fine on the exercise front. Maybe the laundry chute could give me the slide I’ve always fancied?
 

It would be really interesting to know if anyone on here has a first floor laundry room? 

 

 

 

[Iceverge]

I think upstairs washing machines are good so long as you have somewhere to dry clothes up there too and can isolate noise. 

 

Given that it is a house for staying in can you provision for a lift. It would be a shame to have to limit the use of the house in old age because you can't use the stairs. Either that or a downstairs bedroom. 

 

Something with a big house is the physical distance between rooms. Going to the kitchen from the bedroom for a glass of milk or from the car to the kitchen with groceries is a trek in huge houses. We really noticed the difference between our 60m2 rental cottage and the 185m2 new build. 

 

Given it's a big building with a good form factor I would definitely put it through PHPP as with some care with glazing and airtightness you'll be at passivhaus levels or better. It'll really highlight any overheating issues too. 

 

Thinking about the tree, it'll need some water and sunlight I'd have thought. Have you looked at that? 

[Dave Jones]

you appear to have a tree in the hall ?

[fatgus]

13 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

I think upstairs washing machines are good so long as you have somewhere to dry clothes up there too and can isolate noise. 

 

👍👍👍

 

13 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Given that it is a house for staying in can you provision for a lift. It would be a shame to have to limit the use of the house in old age because you can't use the stairs. Either that or a downstairs bedroom. 

 

It’s a very good point. We figured the cinema room would be Ok to repurpose as a downstairs bedroom if necessary. I’ve only halfheartedly looked at lifts, but thought the end of the ‘folly’ corridor by the cinema room could work for that. We could presumably design the joists over it so the appropriate ones could be easily removed. The corridor is 4ft wide… just did a quick Google and that should be sufficient for a small wheelchair lift. Interestingly, they sometimes seem to need a trench underneath them… if we keep the steps to the corridor, the floor would be naturally raised so no need for a trench, and we can replace the steps with a shallow ramp if we need wheelchair access 👍

 

 

13 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

Something with a big house is the physical distance between rooms. Going to the kitchen from the bedroom for a glass of milk or from the car to the kitchen with groceries is a trek in huge houses. We really noticed the difference between our 60m2 rental cottage and the 185m2 new build.

True. Other than the stairs, we’re kind of used to that… current bungalow was less than 100sq.m when we bought it but we’ve extended it to over 200sq.m in a way that deliberately segregates the bed/bath rooms from the living areas. It works really well, but means there’s a fair walk between some rooms… We’ve never felt it was a nuisance though.

 

Because I’m very sad indeed, I just measured a few…

 

Living room 2 (our current ‘screen room’ with home cinema… my evening space) to main bedroom = 57ft

Swing chair in living room 1 (my favourite seat in the house) to main bedroom = 56ft.

Both the above to nearest loo = 33ft.

 

Our current design means the main bedroom will actually be closer to the kitchen, shower room, bathroom, and all three living rooms than in our bungalow. The dog room is further away, but only about 15ft so we’ll cope with that

 

 

13 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Given it's a big building with a good form factor I would definitely put it through PHPP as with some care with glazing and airtightness you'll be at passivhaus levels or better. It'll really highlight any overheating issues too. 

That’s a really good idea 👍👍

 

What are your thoughts on PH certification? We’re not really that interested in a certificate, provided the house performs well, but I wonder whether we should look into it…

 

 

 

13 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

Thinking about the tree, it'll need some water and sunlight I'd have thought. Have you looked at that? 

Indeed it will  I’ve learned from bitter experience. I made a living wall in our office a few years ago, watered by a mains fed drip on a timer. It was lovely, until we had a two week break for Christmas… I turned the water off, fearing a flood that would go unnoticed until the new year, with the intention of popping in every few days to manually open the flow. I was struck by some grim bug, really ill over the whole of the break, forgot about the wall, the office heating got stuck on full whack and by January 90% of it was dead or dying 🤬

 

The plan is to have a large rooflight above it but it should also get sunlight through the corner window of the first floor living room. Hopefully that will be enough. We’ll have plumbing to deliver water directly to it… I’m thinking of changing from an enormous pot to a kind of ‘raised bed’ that is attached to the cinema room and boot room walls, which would make the plumbing a lot easier. One of our friends is a horticulturalist, so we’ll be making use of her expertise

 

[fatgus]

18 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

you appear to have a tree in the hall ?

Umm… yes, we do

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fatgus]

Maybe something like this, although not in a hole in the floor…

 

pic from designboom…

https://www.designboom.com/architecture/abraham-cota-paredes-cave-house-la-cueva-mexico-06-29-2017/

 

 

or this… 

 

https://www.nshoremag.com/northshore-home/your-guide-to-growing-a-happy-ficus/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by fatgus

[Iceverge]

29 minutes ago, fatgus said:

What are your thoughts on PH certification? We’re not really that interested in a certificate, provided the house performs well, but I wonder whether we should look into it…

 

It depends.....

 

If you are confident to oversee the passivhaus aspects of the build yourself then I wouldn't bother. 

 

If you are going to be more hands off it is probably the only standard I would put faith in. Building control, SAP and other surveys can be woefully inadequate as one of the ongoing threads here sadly found out.

 

It will add cost though. 

 

Re the lift. 

 

I would put a dedicated bedroom with ensuite downstairs instead. 

It gives privacy from the main occupants for guests staying over. 

 

Unfortunately the inability to use the stairs can occur rather suddenly ( like when I fell off my push bike) and always in times when you have health struggles, long or short term. 

 

The hassle of fitting a lift or new ensuite is not something you need to be thinking about when in ill health. I listened to a heartbreaking documentary when a woman who had MS was having builders in while dealing with an awful illness. 

 

Do it day one if you can afford it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fatgus]

3 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

It depends.....

 

If you are confident to oversee the passivhaus aspects of the build yourself then I wouldn't bother. 

 

If you are going to be more hands off it is probably the only standard I would put faith in. Building control, SAP and other surveys can be woefully inadequate as one of the ongoing threads here sadly found out.

 

It will add cost though. 

We’ll be very much hands-on and reasonably confident 😉

 

3 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

Re the lift. 

 

I would put a dedicated bedroom with ensuite downstairs instead. 

It gives privacy from the main occupants for guests staying over. 

 

Unfortunately the inability to use the stairs can occur rather suddenly ( like when I fell off my push bike) and always in times when you have health struggles, long or short term. 

 

The hassle of fitting a lift or new ensuite is not something you need to be thinking about when in ill health. I listened to a heartbreaking documentary when a woman who had MS was having builders in while dealing with an awful illness. 

 

Do it day one if you can afford it. 
 

 

That does make sense… we’ll have a downstairs shower room regardless, two if you include the dog shower. Having an ensuite for a downstairs bedroom doesn’t really bother us. I think if we get to the point that one or both us can’t use the stairs, we would look at a lift. They’re not outrageously expensive, if the alternative is only being able to access half of the house. We were going to have a full annexe (back when we had the original, crazy 600sq.m plans!) but we have outbuildings that lend themselves to conversion for that purpose instead, and possibly even nicer for guests?

 

[Iceverge]

9 minutes ago, fatgus said:

I think if we get to the point that one or both us can’t use the stairs, we would look at a lift

 

You may find yourself trying to organise it from a camp bed in the cinema room, simpler now with a few strokes of a pen. 

 

 

 

 

[fatgus]

26 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

You may find yourself trying to organise it from a camp bed in the cinema room, simpler now with a few strokes of a pen. 

 

Do you know something I don't? 😳😂