Utiity and WC with an exit to the garden

[Eldad]

We are considering a new open plan layout and extension to our halls adjoining semi-detached house (west garden). The plan is to

1. knock down the wall between the 2 reception rooms and the wall between the kitchen and the reception room.

2. Extend the house up to the utility/wc wall and have a kitchen/dining room

3. do something with the utility and WC????

We want to have the WC accessible from the garden as we plan to have a future home studio and think that we won't have enough space to place WC in the home studio.

We'd ideally want a utility room, where we can also air dry cloths (we hardly use a dryer).

The initial design we thought of was to move the door out to the garden to the west side, and extend the current utility room a bit so we can have a decent place to dry cloths (see amatuer drawing I made for illustration). However, this is limiting in a few factors:

1. toilets next to the dining room? is this awkward?

2. I think the kitchen will be losing site of the garden which is a bit of a shame

3. This will create a smallish area 3mx2m for a dining table which might make it feel disconnected from the rest of the space

 

Second option is to move the kitchen to the south side, maybe open a window over the sink and place the dinning table between the utility room and the stairs.

 

Third option is to move the WC and utility room to the south side and perhaps create a view from entry hall all the way to the garden.

 

Any other ideas/suggestions/recommendations?

Any thoughts on the layout of the utility room itself and the WC?

[ETC]

[Eldad]

Thanks @ETC, but the WC are not accessible from the garden in your plan.

[ETC]

I suppose it depends how far you want to walk.

 

What is more important to you - a toilet next to the garden or an open plan k/d/l?

 

Let me know what you need and I’ll take a look.

[ETC]

[ETC]

@Eldad

[Dave Jones]

flip the toilet so the bog door doesn't open into the kitchen. 

[torre]

Perhaps to fix a future garden studio issue you're putting a bit too much emphasis on this toilet/utility? Possibly to the detriment of the rest of the downstairs layout?

 

With around 5.5m total width onto the garden, toilet/utility will take around a third of the space next to the garden, rather than the kitchen/dining etc having better access to outside and more light.

 

You need to design for your own needs first but

@ETC' first suggestion would probably appeal more to future buyers.

 

A dedicated WC in your garden studio would probably be more usable too (if you're working there on a wet day and need the loo!)

[Eldad]

Thanks all. We need the WC to be directly accessible from the gardens because we plan to have pottery classes in the studio and would want to minimise disturbance to the house when students need to use the loo. 

Of course that a WC in the garden studio would be ideal but this will take more space out of the studio which is not ideal given our planned usage. 

 

I would love to keep the plan as open as possible and avoid keeping the front reception room closed by a wall. Perhaps there's a way to put a utility room in the middle of the house but still somehow keep an open plan as much as possible?