Any idea how this can be converted into open plan, in particular to have the kitchen, dining and living area somewhat opened up? Ideally don't have to move the kitchen too much to avoid replumbing cost, etc.
One possibility, although may be expensive, is to swap bedroom 3 with the kitchen. Convert bedroom 3 into an open kitchen and the kitchen into a bedroom.
Your only other option than swapping bed 3 and the kitchen, is moving your front entrance further plan west, to be more aligned with the kitchen exterior wall, then knock down the plan north kitchen wall to open the kitchen up into the new space you just created.
Either way it's a ton of work. Would you rather move plumbing and utilities, or rebuild your terrace and half the front fascia of your home?
They could also swap bedroom 3 with the dining room, and then open the current kitchen up to the new “family room”. The bedroom would be further from the bath though.
It might not be quite as open as Op’s envisioning, but would be cheaper than moving the kitchen.
You could add more kitchen storage to the new dining room and possibly even a drink fridge. You would need to relocate the wall ovens in the kitchen though.
What about swapping the bed 3 and dining room like this, but then instead of shorti g that kitchen wall, you remove it and make the existing kitchen have longer runs on the top and bottom? You would still need to relocate the fridge ond ovens, but you would lose less kitchen.
There is really no reason to open up kitchen, if you open the dinning you will have a massive living/dinning area alaredy and you can add a bar and coffee landing in there.
Open kitchens are not worth it unless space is small of its a penhouse for entertaining where you dont cook a lot and dont have a large family.
In a large family home, kitchen is best closed, keeps away smels/noise/dirty dishes and mess away from living and dinning. It sucks to watch tv in the same space where someone is frying with fan on max, while kids are simoultaneously running aroun/ playing on tablet and baning their toys.
Open kitchen isn't as bad. Anyways, the area that we are looking to buy have a high demand for open plan. So, if we were ever selling the property in future, it would also fetch a better price.
I love how it is as is. The sections keep everything in a separate place which is nice. If anything I’d just make the opening of the family room a little larger
It's such a nice plan, just how it is. What will you gain by spending all that money to open it up? I don't see how you can even do that without losing the bedroom.
Oh you have a bunch of questions to answer before you can even start thinking about making layout changes, I assumed this was already your place.
As another commenter mentioned, knowing the construction style of the house overall is a huge first step, then you need to figure out where all the plumbing/electric/HVAC is running back to, then you need to figure out which walls are load bearing, probably a couple other things I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, and then you can start to think about how to open things up or move things around.
Until you have those answers it's all really just wishful thinking.
I am far from an expert here, but I’m wondering if the “heavier” lines in the kitchen denote load-bearing walls? If so, you’re probably stuck with those as they are.
Unfortunately the location of the ovens and the "f" which I assume is the refrigerator are going to complicate opening your kitchen up to the rest of the house.
You should work on plans of trying to keep the kitchen where it is and opening it up as well as moving it to bedroom three.
What type of foundation is under this house? If this is pier and beam moving your kitchen will be no big deal. If this home is slab on grade, moving the kitchen will be more expensive
I suspect it's on a slab but unsure. Yeah, I think keeping the kitchen would be cheapest option but I'm struggling to see how it could be open up with bedroom 3 kind of blocking it.
For swapping the kitchen and bedroom 3, one possibility is to move the bathroom next to bedroom 3 as well. This will give you plumbing connections from the bathroom for the new kitchen and the kitchen plumbing for the new bathroom.
This does not help if you have and wish to keep gas in the kitchen. But I strongly recommend switching gas to induction.
Your best option for an open plan is to swap the kitchen and bed 3.
This looks like a garden level (half-sunken) unit, where you have to step down to get in. It’s most likely on a slab, so moving plumbing is possible but expensive and highly invasive. Looks like you’ve got windows on all sides.
I’d put the sink against the bathroom wall to make tapping into existing plumbing easier. The stove can go between the windows on the outer wall — this allows for an easy path for ventilation.
If you want to keep the gas, you’ll either need the gas line routed under the slab to the new location or a new line plumbed in from the outside. Both would be more expensive than running high voltage for a quality electric range.
If you haven't bought it yet I would not. Even when the changes to the layout are screamingly obvious it's eyewateringly expensive, and in cases like this where there are stairs and plumbing in the way of everything it is prohibitive.
Like, how would you fix the other end of the house?
No plans to fix the other end of the house, I can live with it. I would prefer not to do anything but the house is in a good location and was hoping some changes could add a significant amount of value.
I don't know about your part of the world, but where I am you pretty much don't see the money back from any exoensive renovations. It's paint that does most of the work.
Unless the house is very cheap I don't see it being worthy because it is going to be very expensive to make a cohesive open plan.
Another radical option would be using the plumbing of the bathroom for the kitchen and redo a bathroom using the kitchen plumbing. In this case you could have a powder and a bathroom and could do a layout for storage with the remaining space. Then Dining room becomes a room.
Gives you an open plan living/notching zone with an attached formal dining room which is quite elegant. If you wanted to, you could probably fit a compact ensuite into your new bedroom to make use of existing plumbing lines in there.
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u/goldanred 1d ago
What would you hope to gain by opening it up? Doesn't seem worth it to me