About That New House...

So that new house we're buying...

We've finally reached the point where I can start talking about it! We've settled on it, and started moving our belongings in. And we're very very glad about it, since we've been working so much on our current house trying to get it finished that I'm thoroughly sick of it, and well and truly ready to move on!

Just for fun, I whipped up this floorplan on floorplanner.com.

Forgetting the fact that the house itself is in desperate straits (i.e. there's hardly a wall where the paint isn't flaking off and the floor coverings are a dusty, threadbare disgrace), there are a few problems with its layout that simply won't work for modern living.

1) It has one bathroom (in the top left corner) and it can't be accessed from the main living area without walking through either a bedroom or the office. Not ideal for having guests over

2) The kitchen is stuck at the back of the house all by itself, with no flow-through from the main living area. Very lonely when cooking dinner unless everyone hangs out in the kitchen!

3) The laundry is outside. Need I say more?

4) Every single internal door is hung off the opposite side to what would be considered logical. So instead of the door opening against the nearest wall, it opens into the main space of the room. Silly.

5) On the topic of which... the master bedroom has two doors. One right around the corner from the other. No idea why.

6) The second bedroom gets ZERO natural light. It has no windows, and its only doors lead into other rooms, not the outside. That means that it is very dark. All the time. We'll need to do something about that.

But that's about it! And for such an old house, that's not doing too badly for structural layout issues, which is one of the main reasons we were so keen to buy it.

So here's what we propose to do with it!

1) One day, we'll hire a house-lifter and relocate the house a bit further forward on the block so that it gets more natural light and leaves some space in the backyard for future development. But since we've spent ALL of our money actually buying the place, that prospect is very far off at this point.

2) We'll turn the sleepout on the right into a kitchen and fabulous walk-in pantry (can't wait!), and open up the wall between it and the lounge so that it's a lovely big entertaining space. Tom's shining his torch at me here through the doorway that will become that big opened-up kitchen wall.

3) We'll get rid of the outdoor laundry completely, and turn the end of the little hallway that leads to it into a little powder room, so that our guests can use a toilet without having to walk through any bedrooms. The room near the kitchen that is currently just a store room will then become the laundry, probably with a built-in shower in case we have guests staying in the guest room, and perhaps even with a door leading outside along the right wall for hanging washing outdoors.

4) We'll turn the existing kitchen into a guest room / media room / library. I have visions of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and pull-down projector screens. It will be great. One day.

5) We will extend a wall across the already-large-enough master bedroom in order to make use of that strange second door for a future internal staircase, for when we eventually build a ground level in underneath the house in the very distant future (i.e. after the house is relocated).

6) We'll divide up the left sleepout for a walk-in-robe and ensuite for the master bedroom, and extend (and of course completely renovate) the existing bathroom so that both the other bedrooms can access it like their own little ensuite.

7) Oh and of course we'll re-hang the doors so that they open in a logical fashion.

And that's about it for major structural changes! Thankfully we can work quite well with the current floorplan without having to move walls around, which will cut down on major work considerably. So, although the house really does look to be in awful condition, most of that is just down to paint. Lots and lots of paint! And that we know we can deal with!

So who else is excited?