Living space vs Rooms
 

I am at this moment rebuilding an old farm & one of the debates i am having at the moment is rooms vs space.

I want to be able to offer more living space in this building as opposed to rooms.

My plan is to offer 5 bedrooms all with en-suite facilities & then use the rest of the space as Lounge, sitting room, kitchen with dining area, dining room & possibly another couple of multi purpose room, one of which will be a dedicated cinema.

Now my father is in his wisdom thinks i should be future proofing & offering more bedrooms & cut down on the living space, i for one disagree as to be honest it might be a long time before i sell my dream home.

Basically what i want from SN is there views on what way i should go.

I personally think that 5 decent sized bedrooms is more than enough.

Post away

:)

I would also think that 5 decent bedrooms will be adequte, lets face it, how many people have more than 3 kids these days, and that would still leave a 'spare' room....

They are all double rooms & the way the master is planned ...... well its going to be big.

Hi sti,

I agree with you. We live on a farm and our house has 5 bedrooms, but the bit I like best is the lounge, goes into the dining room, goes into another lounge. Perfect. Loads of space :) :)
oh, and a massive kitchen, separate from the rest tho'
I'd love to see your project as it progresses :) Take lots of pics

Thanks loadsa.

The house has had some major work done to it, it should be watertight come the end of the month ..... hopefully.

I havent took any pics as yet but i will do after the new year.

Its a courtyard style but with add ons here & there. :)

Look in to the market near you. Pop in to an estate agency and ask for some info on 5 bed houses around your area. Have a look at what there offering as living space and make your judgement. Personally, I think 5 bedrooms would be ample, but not too sure about them all havig an en-suite though! A family bathroom yes. And a nice sized games room down stairs with a snooker/pool table, big wide screen tv/projector for watching dvd's etc and playing the games consol :D

Five bedrooms seems like plenty to me. I grew up in a house where the entrance hallway would swallow my whole house now (!) and that only had five bedrooms.....

There isnt a house in the area near me that is anywhere near the spec & size of this one.

Should be aroung 8,000 sq ft of living space when completed.

It is quite scarey to imagine but its a massive project that has included the purchase of two derelict properties located on the private road so as to make this the only property on the 500 yard driveway.

Ours has a few add ons too :D In the process of applying to add onto the back of the double garage now :lol1:
sti, once you start you never stop :D
Don't forget the pics

I would add, that i built the house i now live in, we have 3 doubles, (just me and mum) and the rest is open plan, the lounge is vautled, so it's the same height as upstairs..... heating a space like that is very difficult, we have underfloor heating upstairs and down, but we still find that it's never very easy to judge what setting are needed......

Also, if you are thinking about open-plan, consider noise.... if there are going to be children in the house, bear in mind that others might want to have some peace at the same time as the kids 'being kids'........ open plan is great, but i would suggest not for young families.....

Ron.

I thought about the vaulted ceilings but the scotsman in me seen wasted space ... hence the massive square footage.

What i plan to do with the "kids" wing is to give them a seperate living area ie like a kids sitting room turn play room.

On the plans the kitchen/dining room/family room is only open plan area in the house.

Hopefully there will only be one add on, but its possibly the most expensive add on. ;)

That will be a few years down the line as at the moment costs are crazy.

What i will say is that building this property is like living the dream. Its brilliant. :D

Open plan for the kitchen and dining room is a good idea, not too sure about any other areas with the kitchen. You don't want all the smells from cooking getting around the house!

A decent extractor in the kitchen sorts that issue out, our kitchen, diner, lounge, stairs and landing are all effectively one space.... and the smells never leaves the kitchen!!

Agree that en-suites in all bedrooms seems a bit overkill. Do you ever expect five couples there?

Otherwise, some info; friend of mine did a hotel management course, and he said today's concept of luxury was natural light, space, and silence.

The plan with the en suites is ..

Master
Kids 1
Kids 2
Kids 3
Guest

I agree that the kids could probably share but anyone that has kids can agree that they fight over anything & a bathroom is just something extra for them to fight over.

Is he having his own room or doesnt he stay-over?

;)

Who's going to clean all that ****!

The Scotsman I assume.....?

I can understand complaints over not enough bathrooms/toilets, but I don't reckon any estate agent or future buyer would critisise for over accomodating

Maybe, but my house has 5 toilets, and I can tell you that my wife ain't that happy about having to clean all of them - and at least maids are cheap in this country! We went to look at one house which had all en-suites, I think we counted 7 toilets, and my wife's first reaction was "No way, too much to clean." So that's a future buyer's outlook for you. It was just an idea that maybe he could put a few sq m into the bedrooms or play area instead, hence my comment about luxury equalling space. I was just talking yesterday to a German friend about how the continentals measure houses in sq m, the Brits in bedrooms - which leads to everyone putting up partition walls to say they have four bedrooms instead of three, but in fact they are ugly little corridors. Spacious rooms are so much better and more pleasant to live in. Plus you can convert them into something else - a pokey bedroom with an en-suite will never be a games room.

Up to you Stephen, but I certainly wouldn't do it, and yes it would actually put me/my family off buying it.

7 toilets IS ridiculous for a family home, I agree.

However, even if you did have 7, or even 5, unless you are living a double life as a hotelier, then chances are the facilities won't need cleaned that often. Certainly not often enough to deter buyers.....
Unless of course you are so popular that you have 5 couples wanting to stay over every night of the week and you spend half your life in marigolds!! ;)

Go for the living space.

Design it in such a way that bedroom 1 can be divided into 2 bedrooms and then bedroom 2 then becomes master bedroom. this will solve any 'future proofing' that your dad has in mind. Personally, 5 beds is plenty unless 3+ kids are on the way :D

On the flipside, shouldn't they be taught to share things. :p :D They learn patience, thinking of others etc.

en-suite in guest and master bedroom and then a main toilet for the rest. Less work, less plumbing, less cleaning etc. If they're REALLY that desperate them let them use the master/guest toilet when main toilet in use.

living space baby. Unoccupied rooms make places dreary.

I usedd to live in a converted modernised farmhouse. Best house I ever lived in (and I still own it :D)

if you have any daughters they should have a separate bathroom as girls generally take longer than boys so instead of having 5 have 3 one for the guest room the master one and one for your daughters room if you have one :)

Who is the house for. Personally i'm not a great fan of open space unless everyone likes doing the same thing.

4 teenagers

One reading
One on X-box with mates
One watching Eastenders
One with boyfreind

That demands seperate rooms.

Thanks for the reply's :)

As for the bathrooms, there isnt a compromise. Thats the end product as far as i am concerned. There will be a family bathroom as well & a cloakroom for guest purposes.

For a house this size i dont think the bathrooms are an issue.

Your views are appriecated.

I can always remember watiing in a queue fighting over who was next in the bathroom after Dad .... it was always a bad decision. He was rotten. :lol1:

Kids nowadays want there own space ....... they want what we wanted but what we couldnt have. I for one want to give my kids what i didnt have. :D

That's women for you:confused:They don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of telling whoever made the mess to clean it themselves:rolleyes:

The way I see it sti, the massive benefit of an en suite each, if you've got the opportunity, for any future children is that it removes the inevitable arguments that come from 2 kids having to share anything:) You know, the ones about who actually dirtied/broke/ruined it;)

There's also inherent the opportunity to teach them valuable life skills, like how to clean up after yourself, or not make the mess in te first place:D

Personally, I'd go master bedroom, guest bedroom, a room each for three indoor hobbies, and give having kids a miss;)