Trying to achieve open space living in our 1950's home...?
Hi fellow houzzers (does anyone say that / am I allowed to say that?)
My partner and I have purchased an old 1950 cottage situated in Manning WA (yay westies). We've been living in it for 6 months, trying to get a feel of what we like / don't like and what we want to change.
One thing that we both hate is the limitation the house layout places on entertaining guests - lots of multiple small rooms, not a large entertainment area or kitchen etc. Seeing as we're social butterflies, we are thinking of making the house more open plan.
Our original intention was to smash down the wall connecting the kitchen and the lounge, but now we're thinking of smashing down 3 wall to try open the place up even more.
Does anyone have any tips / advice? I've uploaded the existing layout of the house. It's a bit of an awkward layout with a skinny narrow dining room (which we hardly use).
Comments (8)
Hannah Jane
5 years agoAlso - this is originally what we were thinking for the kitchen / lounge area but now I'm really not liking how squished everything is, so we might be throwing it out and starting again!
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5 years agoThanks oklouise!! I can add some more internal measurements for the smaller rooms so there are more dimensions? Here are some original photos of the house below, I'll have to confirm with my partner what the walls are made out of:
looking from kitchen into lounge area
kitchen *shudders*
lounge area
dining room
spare bedroom (front)
bathroom *sighs and shakes head*
master bedroom
study / spare room
I'll dimension up the floor plan shortly. But feel free to send any suggestions my way - even if you feel like you don't have enough information.oklouise
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoHannah Jane
5 years agoHey Houzzers
I've added the internal dimensions onto the plan (so wall to wall etc). If anyone also uses AutoCAD I can send them a dwg file (if they find this easier to work with).
At the moment we're not looking to expand the house footprint (so no additional rooms etc), so I havent provided the offsets to the property boundary. It is a huge block though (about 850 square meters) so we're hoping to maybe combine the existing dining room / sleep out into an indoor/outdoor area and extend decking outside the sleep out. I've also included a picture of the sleep out and the dining room below just so you can see how the area currently works.
(dining room)
(sleep out)
Any suggestions or ideas would be amazing!oklouise
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agothe dining room is a good size for a new kitchen and by taking down one kitchen wall there would be a much more generous open plan living dining space and creating a step down breakfast bar into a new family room with a sliding door to the new outdoor area and, consider rearranging access to the bathroom for more bathroom space
Hannah Jane thanked oklouiseHannah Jane
5 years agoMaun Collins
3 years ago
oklouise