It's hard to say without labels or dimensions or any idea what this is part of. I'm personally not familiar with a Chicago 2 flat.

This post was edited by pixie_lou on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 8:41

Good call! Let's try this. Obviously kind of a rough draft. Just wanted some opinions of overall flow and workability. I know there is more than one way to do this but after tinkering around with this fort many weeks now and walking through the space now that it has been opened up this is about the best we could come up with.

Not to be picky, but it helps...
Can you take a black pen and draw over your lines? The pencil is a little hard to see (esp for those of us with smaller screens.)

Also, what do you have presently? What is down stairs? How many people will live here? (and possibly ages of children)

So currently this space has been opened up to the studs. It was a rental apt and we lived on the first floor. The first floor has a large (14x20) eat in kitchen powder room office(8x10) living rm and dining rm. also there is an unfinished basement same size (approx 950sqft) which will have another bed and full bath and rec room when done. For now it is my wife and I and one small child prob more to come. This is not our forever house but we will be there for the foreseeable future.

A "2 Flat" is a 2-story duplex? One apartment per floor?

Check out some houses in the neighborhood that have been converted and see how they did it.

Often they went from a 1-family to a 2-family and are going back ... check old city records and see if it was always a 2-family or not.

Yes that's exactly it. One unit per floor plus a basement. This is the original configuration as all the trim, electric, plaster and lathe wood floors are the original. As for looking for other houses that have done the same there are few available for sale or to look at on line. And even plans are scarce. The few that we were able to see for sale were either not done to fit the price of our neiborhood or not done to our liking. So not much to compare to at all.

Yes that's exactly it. One unit per floor plus a basement. This is the original configuration as all the trim, electric, plaster and lathe wood floors are the original. As for looking for other houses that have done the same there are few available for sale or to look at on line. And even plans are scarce. The few that we were able to see for sale were either not done to fit the price of our neiborhood or not done to our liking. So not much to compare to at all.

I speak from experience when I say, the 8x10 bedroom is going to be narrow. If you could make it just 1 foot wider (at the expense of the other bedroom's length), it would be better. 10x would be even better/optimal, imo/ime.

If you turn the hall bathroom 90* so you can move the wall between the 2 extra bedrooms to get a 10x wide bedroom, I think it would be better. You can rob the space from the master to be able to turn the hall bath.

You could also move your laundry and take some of that space to better allocate space to the bathroom so you get 2 decent sized extra bedrooms.

Currently, there is too much unused space in the master, for my liking, with such a limitation in that other bedroom.

(though, something is off, now that I have typed all that and look again). You have a 10' marking on the master bedroom side that cannot be 10 feet if it is drawn to scale. Please verify.

Thanks for the thoughts kirkhall. Agreed 8' is narrow. Our master was the same on the first floor before. Its actually 8 1/2'. And that being a load bearing wall we would have to put a beam in just to build a wall right beside it. Does that seem worth it? I was thinking that it would be a baby room(crib) or small child(twin bed, bunk beds) it would be ok. Hard to picture what you mean turn hall, borrow space from master, move laundry. How that would all work? Really appreciate you taking the time to make suggestions and offer solutions. Your right that is not 10' in the master. It should be 13 plus the three extra where it bumps out.

I would make a corridor down the center with your bath on one side, kids bath on the other, at the space at the top of the stairs. Then, two equal back bedrooms, or one big room. It would clean up all those angles, bumps, corners, and give you better rooms.
IOW it's too cut up as drawn.
Casey

Do you have a 3rd floor above this one? Or, are you saying that wall supports the roof? It would seem counter-intuitive to have that be a load-bearing wall on the upper floor, but your home is older, so it is entirely possible. I would just be sure, before you do a less than optimal design, that you really know for a fact the structural limitations of this floor.

It would work for a child's room (esp a boy), but if those are 2 windows (the little drawn outcroppings) then it really won't hold much more than a twin sized bed comfortably without blocking the window, etc.