Final(ish) Drawings

OK. Subject to building control, prices, problems, complications and me just changing my mind here are the final set of before and after plans for both floors.

Whilst I am not going to have a main contractor as such, there is one person who will do most of this work. These are the plans I will send to him to get more estimates and quotations.



Click on the picture for a larger image.

Kitchens and Cloakrooms

Here are my two initial plans for the kitchen. One still incorporating a downstairs cloakroom and one not.

Irrespective of what building control have to say I quite like the idea of an extra toilet and, as the room space without it would be long and thin, I think it works quite well. There will obviously be a sink in the cloakroom but my copy of Visio didn’t have one small enough. The washing machine is in the corner of the toilet. I have seen this done before and it seems a good use of space and a I don't think people object to the principle of a washing machine (with a tumble drier above if required) in the cloakroom.

The cupboards on the left of the kitchen are wall level units on the floor with a cut back worktop on top. I have seen this done before and it also works quite well.

With a cloakroom



Without




The windows are in different places as I am expecting to move them around a bit to make the kitchen fit.

As before any comments (especially critical ones) are very welcome.

More Bathroom Thoughts

Following Tim’s comment he sent me a private email which informed me he had left some alternative plans under the mat outside his front door. This is clearly the one of the benefits of knowing who is reading your blog!

Anyway at 6:15 this morning I duly collected said plans from under the mat, scanned them in and reproduce them below.


This is an interesting idea and not one I had considered before. There are a couple of difficulties with it as I see it. One of them, as Tim acknowledges, is the waste route. The toilet close to the outside wall wouldn’t cause a problem but getting the pipe work from the toilet attached to the front bedroom would cause some difficulties. There is no obvious route through the other bathroom; in addition there needs to be a “drop” from the toilet to the waste otherwise the contents of the pipe may just sit there. Clearly this is best avoided!!!! I don’t usually like multiple exclamation marks but I think they are probably justified in this case.

A further consideration is that the plan involves building out slightly over the stairs (whilst maintaining headroom for the stairs below). I like this idea and it makes sense but it would add considerable expense to the project. It would also mean that the house does not have a bath unless I revert to having one downstairs. Does not having a bath matter if you have two showers?

Who is likely to rent this house? If it is two individuals on a house share I think Tim’s plan is a good one and there is a key benefit in having two en-suite rooms and no bath. If a family, I think a bath becomes more important. On balance I think that the house is more likely to be purchased / rented by a couple or young family so perhaps the cheaper option where the bath is maintained is the best.

It does go to show what can be achieved with some thought and a little time. When I first saw the house I was looking to put a simple cloakroom upstairs vented by a fan and soil pipe that had to run through the house.

Initial Specification

Whilst it is still my intention to project manage the work myself I am going to get a quote from a main contractor for comparative purposes.

In any event I am going to need a specification of work required so here is my first version of it. It is not particularly detailed in as much as it does not specifiy where light switches should go and what radiators to use but it is a start.

I am sure I will have missed out some major items but you've got to start somewhere.

Outside

1. Remove / repair / replace all damaged render from left flank wall as required.
2. Re-point right flank wall as required.
3. Bond “falling” bricks above the front door.
4. Clear front and back garden.
5. Paint all masonry and front door.

Inside

1. Remove current kitchen, bathroom, fitted wardrobes and cupboards, flooring (not floorboards), electrical fittings and heating / plumbing.
2. Remove all plaster from front and back rooms to ceiling
3. Remove plaster as required to all other rooms including back bedroom ceiling.
4. Repair / replace downstairs joists as required and ensure that they are not touching outside walls.
5. Repair current stair treads as required.
6. Install airbricks to provide adequate under floor ventilation.
7. Install chemical DPC to outside wall in two reception rooms.
8. Treat all wood for worm etc.
9. Install new window with lintel to new upstairs bathroom.
10. Install studwork for new upstairs bathroom and hall.
11. Install new soil pipe and waste to upstairs bathroom and connect to main drain.
12. Re-wire house including new fuse box.
13. Install new boiler and heating system.
14. Brick up windows no longer required.
15. Plaster all rooms as required.
16. Replace / repair skirting board as required.
17. Replace all windows as specified.
18. Install and fit new kitchen
19. Install and fit new upstairs bathroom
20. Sand downstairs floors if possible.
21. Re-glaze existing internal doors and re-hang.
22. Line walls if required.
23. Install insulation into the loft.
24. Paint and decorate all rooms
25. Tile kitchen and bathroom walls and floors as required.
26. Carpet stairs and bedrooms.
27. Fit laminate flooring if sanding downstairs floors is not possible.

If anyone can think of items I have doubtless forgotten please let me know.

Bathroom Version II

I have been back to the house and measured properly. I hadn’t realised quite how difficult it is to do this accurately. It is too easy to assume that walls are at right angles to each other etc and invariably they aren’t.

Anyway here is the slightly revised upstairs plan. Thank you to APD Observer for your thoughts on the placement of the sink. We had pretty much come to same conclusion but it is good to hear it from someone else. The sink and toilet could be swapped but I think I’ll leave that decision until we start the work. As we are not really building over the stairs (only using a cupboard that is already there) and as the waste will go straight out the side wall here should be no need to raise the floor level whatever option we take.

All the windows, doors and chimney breasts have been added to the drawing along with an indication of where wardrobes can go.

Planning Update

I have just found out I don’t need planning permission to put an obscured glass window in the side of the house provided that any opening is more than 1.7m from the ground. I do need to get building control approval for the work but this is more to check that it is done properly (putting in a lintel etc) . There is some talk that if the window is to be more than 1m sq that may require additional permission. To avoid an issue I will ensure it isn’t!

I hvae been told about a new goverment website for planning rules. Here is the link. The interactive house is pretty good.

All I need to do now is see if I can speak to the neighbours and see how they feel about a new window and a new soil pipe. There isn’t much they can do about it but I always think it is nice to ask people’s permission when you can.

Off to do some more measuring later on today.

A New Bathroom

I have now used Visio (what a pain that piece of software is) to map out the upstairs of the house with a before and after plan. It looks like my attempts to get a full bathroom might work. I say might because I don't have good enough measurements of the house so I think I will try and get back round there this weekend to measure more accurately.

If this works it will give me much more scope downstairs and I will measure that at the same time to plan the new kitchen.


Here is the upstairs layout from my basic drawings from my last visit. The scale is 1:50 and the beds which I have put on the plans for reference purposes are 5ft beds.

I didn't specifically measure the doors so I have guessed at 800mm which is about average (I think). The windows are marked in the right place by the size is a guess as I didn't measure them.

The little cut out in the top room is where the hot water tank is at the moment but as we are going to put in a combi-boiler there will be no need for it any more.

Basically as it stands you go up the stairs and then turn left or right through a door to the bedrooms.



Here is the upstairs with my attempt to get a full bathroom in. I think this works. We have the added benefit of being able to put small vanity unit in the second bedroom.

The bath is 17000x700 which I believe is standard and there will be room to put a shower above it.

I need to go back and measure the house more accurately but I think that this looks pretty good. The plan doesn't show it but the right hand wall has small recesses for the old chimney breasts and these can be covered by wardrobes down this wall.

This works particularly well in the room where the bathroom has been placed as the door into the bedroom has been moved to the middle of the wall.

No news on exhange yet so I'll keep planning.

Plans and Ideas

Whilst having a downstairs bathroom is the not worst thing in the world I think that most people prefer, given the choice, not to have to go downstairs to answer a call of nature in the middle of the night. It always seems too far to go especially if the facilities in question are the other side of the kitchen and you have had a couple of quite ones the night before.

I think that it is worth the extra expenditure to put a small shower room upstairs which we did include in the original budget. This makes the larger of the bedrooms smaller but as the shower itself can fit over the stairs it doesn’t take up any new space and then we are really just trying to find space for a toilet and a sink. These two items don’t take up much space. The only challenge is where to run the waste. The quotation we have already received assumes that a new 4 inch soil pipe will be run inside the house (obviously boxed in) to join up with the drain at the back of the house. There is an inspection hatch just outside the flank wall which I hope we may be able to join. Thames Water charge a fee for giving permission (just over £200.00) and whilst it is difficult to work out I think the current drain run is partially in our land so we should be ok. This will make a difference both to the price for installing an upstairs bathroom and the aesthetics.

I am now wondering whether it is worth stealing a bit more space and putting in a bath with a shower over it. If we were to do this there would be little point in having a second bathroom downstairs. We could then consider removing the current downstairs bathroom and making the kitchen much bigger. The question is which option provides more value? Do two bedroom houses gain more value by having an upstairs and downstairs bathroom or by having a bigger kitchen? One idea might be to remove the downstairs bathroom and build a downstairs cloakroom. This sounds attractive but I am not convinced how much people like the idea of a toilet leading directly off a kitchen (or even if you are allowed to do so) but I am sure there must be a way of doing this well. The wall connecting the kitchen to the bathroom is not load bearing so taking it down wouldn’t be hard.

I think this idea deserves further consideration and some more time spent with a ruler and pencil. I’ll post the internal diagrams and proposal on this blog when I have done them.