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kirkhall

Remodel floor plan help

kirkhall
12 years ago

I am trying to develop some new plans for a rearrangement of our lower floor, and finishing our upstairs with concurrent remodel. If I am in the wrong forum, please let me know (although it seems like floorplan posts get shuttled here).

My house, as it exists is here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6W1ikJrxKh3CdlmjaQP-KP7M9qunXBcdGIg1jLrALM8?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/R_jDN1FL5RvmbwhSXPIHvf7M9qunXBcdGIg1jLrALM8?feat=directlink

Our family is a family of 4--active. Currently we have no entrance from our garage to the interior of our house without going outside. We live in the PNW, so it rains frequently and having direct access is a priority. And, we added on the 15x20 addition last summer on the south of our house (added 2 floors, and left the upstairs unfinished).

Because our house is a cape cod style, we will actually gain approx 20x21 upstairs. The upstairs is in desperate need of a better layout, esp with the unfinished addition.

My vision is to have an entrance from the garage to the house interior downstairs (probably through that north bedroom--make that a utility/laundry room with half bath).

Make the current downstairs south bedroom a (smallish) "master" with a dedicated bath by moving the wall and bathroom door (laundry would be moved).

Upstairs--move the bathroom to a more functional spot, but utilize the current stack (floor joists run N-S). Create 2 bedrooms in the addition and rearrange the current space for another "master"; but I am unable to make it a suite so far.

Here are some "thoughts" for the upstairs. I have done a lot of paper/pencil, but just started with lines on the floor program:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sMk4yHP0ScLbrfp-xp_9Uv7M9qunXBcdGIg1jLrALM8?feat=directlink

Any help you can provide would be especially nice.

Comments (13)

  • Betsey Thompson
    12 years ago

    would it be possible for you to label the rooms on your plan? The kitchen is obvious, but not so much on the other rooms.

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I am hoping to revive some interest in my original post. You will see that I have refined my upstairs "design." I am trying to refine the bathroom layout--can I get 2 sinks to fit and still have a useable bedroom there? (see link; also see links in text of previous posts for original/current house layout).

    Also, I put in the diagonal hallway to limit hallway square footage. But, I am unsure if this would be acceptable to future buyers (I don't mind angles, but am trying to determine if mine are helpful here).

    Many thanks to those with some thoughts.

    Here is a link that might be useful: design option for upstairs remodel/expansion

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Hi all,
    I have been a long-time reader of this forum, and only recently created my login. So, I am not sure if I am doing something wrong (that is certainly not my intent).
    However, I would dearly love to get some feedback from you all regarding the space I want to build into (that is the second story of an addition we did last year), with concurrent rearranging of our current upstairs (our cape cod style floor plan means we gain extra upstairs from under the old eaves).
    Is there something I should do first before reposting this? There doesn't seem to be interest in feedback on my post. Is there a different forum I should post to for a try?
    Please tell me like it is. :) (Maybe you all are secretly working on an amazing plan, or maybe you are all just as stuck as I am. 2 extra feet would make a big difference up there for stairway/hallway).
    Much thanks!

  • bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
    12 years ago

    Hi Kirkhall - You're not doing anything "wrong."

    I'm one of the people who often replies to people who are looking for comments on floorplans. The reason I haven't responded to your post is that I live in the part of central Texas (Bastrop county) that had all the wildfires last week so my life has been a bit hectic. No, my home was never in any immediate danger but we did voluntarily evacuate after losing our electricity when there were fires less than 3 miles away. And lots of people that I know did lose their homes. So I've been trying to help out where I can which is leaving me much less time than normal for GW.

    Not sure why others gardenwebbers haven't responded. Maybe it is just that school has recently started and everybody's life it a bit unsettled. Or maybe is is just that you hit a dry spell. Sometimes there just aren't many postings on this forum for a few weeks and then things pick back up again.

    Or, it COULD be that everybody IS stuck because you do seem to have a doozy of a problem trying to get direct access from your garage. LOL! I took a quick look at your drawings and have to admit that nothing occured to me right off the bat. But I promise to give your problem a bit more thought when things settle down around here.

    The only thing I would suggest to maybe generate a few more responses is to try redrawing your current floorplans using something that renders them in black and white instead of in so many colors and then posting it so that the images show up directly in the thread instead of forcing people to follow multiple links to picasaweb to see the different images. It is a lot easier to respond to posts which have simple B&W floorplans (with appropriate labels) embedded directly into the thread. It's easier to see how upstairs and downstairs relate to each other. And, it makes it a lot easier to suggest possible changes because one can simply copy and paste the original image and draw on top of it using "paint" programs to illustrate ideas and then repost the altered image. I'd skip the whole "floorplanner" program and instead and draw the present floorplan (in scale) on graph paper using a nice dark black pen. Do the upstairs and downstairs to the same scale. Then scan in those drawings and post them directly into the thread. See if doing that doesn't get you a few more responses.

  • dekeoboe
    12 years ago

    Where is the garage located?

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Bevangel, thank you for your reply. Certainly the world is much bigger than me. :) I am sorry to hear that many of your friends, relatives, acquaintances were negatively affected by the fires. And, I suppose one of the other common commenters/solvers of floor plans may have been affected by the hurricane/storms along the eastern shore.

    As for the garage, it is East--east of the 2 bedrooms on the lower floor (my drawings are cardinally oriented). Our house was a long narrow structure (E-W). I have been thinking of turning the smaller, North bedroom on the lower floor into a half-bath with laundry/utility room. And making the S bedroom on the lower floor a smallish master. I am fairly certain the wall between those 2 bedrooms is structural as the upstairs floor joists run N-S and the footings would seem to indicate that as well.

    Originally, the house was built without the garage. At some point later, they built the garage, attached, but without an internal connection. We bought the house about 9 yrs ago, but the house was first built in 1982. We also think the upstairs was finished at some later time than the lower part of the house, which might explain some of the awkardness of the current layout. We added on last year (that 15x20 protrusion on the south side) (I had 2 little kids, we were home all day, and the 800sqft (less the 2 bedrooms) was too little and I was getting stir crazy in our rainy weather. It is now a family room, and effectively enlarged the kitchen/dining even though we didn't officially touch those rooms/layout because the wall was removed, and in the kitchen, replaced with a bar-height pony wall.

    I will see what I can do to get to black and white, and posted so you can see it without having to cut/paste a bunch of links. Newbie that I am, I will have to figure out how to do that.

    Thanks for the suggestions thusfar!

  • bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
    12 years ago

    I'm not that familiar with PicasaWeb but I think it only allows you to embed very tiny images. I use photobucket to upload my pictures and it provides the necessary html coding for me to embed a full sized image directly into the body of my comments. Photobucket is free and easy to use. YOu won't see the image when you first paste the coding in - instead you'll see a bunch of coding that starts with a "less than" symbol. But when you preview your msg, you'll see the image and know you've done it right. Hope this helps. gotta run.

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thank you for that help. I am out of town this weekend, and will work to post up B&W scanned pictures when I return. Would it be best to add them to this string, or start a new string?

  • chisue
    12 years ago

    I'd just like to say that I haven't responded because I can't grasp the overall situation. I'm also 'The Teardown Queen' -- not the best person to help when someone wants to make a small house MUCH bigger, bit-by-bit. Ah...but you've already started!

    Do we understand that you've added one large room (300 sq ft) to an 800 sq ft house -- or to an 800 sq ft first floor? Is this a two-story addition (600 sq ft)? Can you show us the whole house please? (First floor, Second floor, Garage. What's old and what's new?)

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Hi Chisue,
    To answer your questions. The house is "1 1/2" stories, the main level was 830+ and upper floor 400+ or so. We added 300 to the main level at a 90 degree roof angle to the cape cod and built it up to 2 story height. So, the main floor gained 300 sq ft, but the upstairs will gain a 20 x 21 floor area (since we gain 6 feet of floor space that was under the roof angle (we had a 12/12 pitch roof).
    Tearing down in our area wouldn't be the thing to do. House values are very high, and building is expensive too. We considered moving, but at the time, no houses were selling in our area.
    I will get new floor plans up that hopefully are clearer for everyone soon.

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Testing...

    From Drop Box

  • kirkhall
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I have updated sketches at a new post here.

    Here is a link that might be useful: new post

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