Design

ruthie23

I am look at drawings my engineer prepared for us . The layout of the house is great except the stair case is in the siting room as opposed to the hall , like most new builds . The sitting room has no ceiling - no room above. This is obviously the feature piece and my partner thinks it's great as it's different and the house is 3000 sqf thus can afford to have a room like this . I'm a bit concerned about noise , drafts , heating Etc . Anybody see anything or have anything similar ?

DOCARCH

Any way of posting up a copy of the plan (without any names/titleblocks)?

ruthie23

The lounge has a high ceiling .

sydthebeat

Great idea.

Don't be worrying about heating etc as building standards these days ensure maintaining a constant heat throughout.

Have faith in the design

Metric Tensor

There's elements if that design I really like and others that wouldn't be for me. Fair play for being brave enough to not follow the standard copy and paste of the day OP.

That Living Room is massive! You'd fit a small semi-d in it!

Having said that I agree with Syd. Shouldn't be a problem to heat with the current building regs. The height will mean the room will always have an "airy" feel. If you're looking for a very snug room of a winter's night use the TV room!

DOCARCH

I'd be a bit concerned about the circulation in that Lounge. From room names/numbers I guess there are 3 bedrooms at first floor?

The way the stairs sits/is accessed a good proportion of the Lounge will have to be left free of furniture for circulation/to access the stairs. With that 45 deg/angled fireplace, it will not be easy to layout the room comfortably (with sofas, etc.) with the bottom of the stairs opposite.

If there are 3 bedrooms at first floor, you have to consider is it desirable to have people (i.e. usually kids) coming/going up and down (to bed, etc.) through, what is, the main living space?

To me, the Lounge looks more like a nice big Hall, or an extension of the Hall?

ruthie23

Thanks for all the comments . Yes there are three rooms overhead . i was going to suggest widening the kitchen and dining area to reduce the size of the lounge . He mentioned that most houses of this size have beautiful stair cases that can't be appreciated because they are in the hall and this was his concept . The noise factor would concern me too.

ruthie23

Do you mind sharing what you don't like . I would love to hear your comments .

Poor Uncle Tom

ruthie23 wrote: »

Do you mind sharing what you don't like . I would love to hear your comments .

Just to understand the design a little better, is the front/main entrance at the entrance hall? is this door facing northerly? your ensuite seems to be the DA toilet, but this doesn't comply with the Building Regulations (steps in the corridor leading to the ensuite).

Just from looking at the pic provided and imagining the rest of the layout I would hazard the following:

The inclusion of a draught exclusion lobby would help, embrace the open plan layout even further by opening up the lounge to the lobby and turning the stairs around incorporating a gallery.

You appear to be using a 300mm wide cavity wall, this may need to be upgraded, if so would the extra width come off the inside or outside? Both fireplaces appear to be fairly traditional, incorporating a stove/log gassification burner is worth considering. Regardless of whether you intend to install mechanical ventilation or not, Part J dictates that separate ventilation is required in the lounge, TV Room and most likely in the kitchen, so account will need to be taken of this.

Just my 2c.

sydthebeat

Just looking at it again, it appears that theres 2 steps down into the lounge, and 2 steps up into the kitchen and a further 2 steps up into the sun room.
That would mean externally theres 6 step difference in level between the outside of the lounge and sun room (thats anything from 600 - 900mm) which is a lot and needs to be considered.
That arrangement of steps is non nonsensical really, what would make more sense is 2 steps down into kitchen and a further 2 steps down into sun room.

agreed with the comment above that the en-suite wouldnt comply with DA regs, you might have to consider making the utility wc larger.

personally i wouldnt have an issue with the stair arrangement. there is a separate private tv room for evening use if you dont want to be in the heart of the house, which i view the lounge as being. personally i would actually have opened up the lounge more into the dining / kitchen area so that the lounge was the open plan living space, therefore all traffic in the house would flow into this space.

Gumbo

The WC off the Utility room could be the accessible toilet assuming it will be adequately sized.

ruthie23

I think we are going to change the study to the disabled toilet and main bathroom and the wash room off the living room to a nook/ larder.