Designing A Floorplan That Works

Cindy Barganier Interiors / architecture and design  / Designing A Floorplan That Works

Designing A Floorplan That Works

 

fixer upper

The little house that could

Last post I told you about a cute little fixer upper that my Daddy and I are working on. Today I am going to share with you the floorplan as it existed when he bought the house and the evolution of the plan as it exists today. I will attempt to explain my thoughts  throughout this process as I worked my way not only toward a plan that functioned well but that was aesthetically pleasing AND was easiest on the budget.

So this is the floorplan we started with.Scan_20170325

There is a nice, big living room that you walk in to with a formal dining room on the left.

Off the dining room is a small very ill-configured kitchen with a rotten floor and rotten cabinets.
My biggest concern was with the bedrooms and bath. We are expecting to rent this to three college girls.
Biggest issues?

 

1. One bedroom is very small with no closet and it opens directly off the living room.
2. Second bedroom is a good size but the door from the carport opens into this bedroom. Say what? And the closet is tiny.
3. Third bedroom is a thoroughfare from the kitchen to the hallway which leads to the only existing bathroom.
4.There is no laundry room and no place for the water heater.
 As you can readily see, all of these issues had to be addressed first before we could even think about aesthetics.
My first idea was this:

Scan_20170325 (3)

PLAN A

I will post this several times so that you don’t have to keep referring back to see the floorplan. I tried to leavemost of the walls in place and work with what we had. I did remove the wall between the kitchen and dining

so that the kitchen could extend farther down thus creating a space for a dishwasher and the refrigerator.

I tucked the toilet into a little existing linen closet, did a small walk-in shower which left enough room to

tuck in a water heater. I closed off the old closet in the bedroom, opened the back side of it and put a full

size stack washer dryer in there.

Scan_20170325 (3)

PLAN A

I then stole some space from the carport creating a good sized bath and two nice closets to servebedrooms 1 & 2.
To the right on the tub is a built-in chest on chest to make up for the lack of storage in Bedroom 1.A large linen closet left of the tub provides space for cleaning products, bath supplies etc.
This was OK but I still wasn’t happy.
Then in the middle of the night….. it happened.
AN EPIPHANY !!!
I love it when that happens. I suddenly realized that I should re-think everything and that by doing soI would

eliminate everything that bugged me AND it would all fit within the existing footprint of the house which

means money saved.

Let’s back  up and look at the original floorplan again:

Scan_20170325

ORIGINAL

PLAN B
 PLAN B
Let’s analyze all of the problems that were solved:
1.All 3 bedrooms are the same size and all have a large double closet. (easier to rent -no fights among tenants!)
2.No bedroom has an exterior door.
3. No one has to walk through a bedroom to reach another room.
4. By creating a hallway from bedroom three to the laundry I made sure that laundry washing couldstill take place even if the bathroom was occupied.
5. We now have a nice second bathroom with double vanities and a tub to serve bedrooms 2 and 3.
6. I shortened the original hall way and took in the original bath linen closet to create the closet forbedroom 2 thus eliminating the door to the hallway and making it a private space.
7. The original bath now just has a large walk in shower but serves only one bedroom and doubles asthe guest powder room.
8. There is now a beautiful U-shaped kitchen just off the great-room. The open concept allows for greatcasual entertaining and opens the space up for more people to perform multiple tasks while occupying

the same area.

I really think this is a great solution and one that saves us money and time. I also love that because thelaundry is right by the back door the girls are close enough to campus that they could literally run home, throw

the clothes in the dryer from the washer and be back  at class on time. By moving the back entry steps to the side,

it makes a more graceful entry into the home and means that you aren’t immediately looking down a hallway

into a bedroom.

What do you think? There is still a tiny bit of time left to make changes if you see something thatwould make

it even better!

Next up:
color and finishes!   I’m excited.
Cindy
Cindy Barganier
2 Comments
  • Nancy
    Reply

    This is soooo much fun, can’t wait to next time!

    April 5, 2017 at 2:00 am

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