What's the general consensus on altering property layouts?

[Alfietinker]

Hi All,

Following on from my previous post regarding the quarry tiles in our Edwardian house, I am desperate to introduce some natural light to our dark, dingy kitchen. I love the kitchen otherwise, but being so dark we need the light on constantly is a real sore point for me.

Now, the kitchen backs onto the hitherto little-used back reception/dining room, which by contrast is south facing, warm and flooded with light from huge windows over the garden (which will be converted to french windows). I have always thought it would be good to connect the two rooms with an opening, and maybe glass doors. I think this will introduce much-needed light into the kitchen and free up space as we wouldn't need the kitchen table. Effectively the two rooms would become a semi-open plan kitchen, dining, sofa space, leading to the garden. The widest opening we could do would be 4 foot, so it's more linking the rooms together, rather than turning them into one huge space.

There is another reception, so we would still have a proper living room.

But, I wonder what people's opinions are of such dramatic alterations? Not that we plan to move for many, many years, but my friend insists it would ruin the houses character. Whereas I think it could be done sympathetically and make the layout work much better for us. I love period houses, but I also think people, lifestyles, and therefore housing needs to evolve somewhat to accommodate modern life.

I'm curious. Would we be committing crimes against period property?

Although any work is going to have to wait until funds allow (especially as it's a structural wall), we are moving the radiator in the dining room soon and may as well put it in a place that makes the most of the new layout.

Any thoughts at all? I would take pictures, but said rooms are a tad messy!

 

[Feltwell]

I think it depends on if the alterations are done sensitively - but it is ultimately a home, not a museum.

Our kitchen only has one corner which is an external wall, hence one window there. We have the old scullery off our kitchen, and a previous owner took out the doorway and installed a square opening instead - then put French doors from the scullery into the garden. It doesn't spoil the character of the house, although it needs attention due and we have thoughts to change it - embarrassingly old post below (erm, just in the middle of changing those rotten french doors this weekend for some good secondhand ones, a mere 7 years after that post - doesn't do to rush these things you know ). When I hit 55 and can take some cash out of my pension I still intend to take the outside wall out and put sliding, folding doors in there.

It's by far the most extreme change I've got planned to do but ultimately it is a mess and not original right now anyway.

http://periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12092&hilit=bifold

 

[Abi Cott]

It would be complicated if you were listed, but if you aren't I would seriously consider it. A slightly more open plan design suits modern living and could make the house more saleable.

It's also not that expensive a job. You only need a lintle not an rsj so your talking hundreds rather than thousands. The most expensive bit would be the cost of the doors.

 

[malcolm]

I've connected my dark kitchen to the adjacent snug by unblocking a door which was unsympathetic hacked through a well preserved timber frame by Victorians. It improved natural light a great deal, but because the door is towards the end of the wall I'm missing the visual connection between kitchen and snug that would be useful should I ever cook or have any friends. It would have been nicer to have a double door opening.

Thanks for the link to your scullery Feltwell - I have an idea to replace my shed with something similar.

 

[livias]

We have installed two of those sets of folding sliding doors. One set was timber framed (as demanded by the conservation officer) in a curtilage listed building, one set was aluminium framed as she was happy with that on an extension to the actual listed building. Quite what her logic was I do not know but I digress

Given the choice I would have aluminium rather than wood as it has slimmer verticals and is more dimensionally stable. The wooden one needed adjusting a couple of times in the first 18 months

It is lovely having a big wall of glass and being able to sit 'outdoors' in cold and/or windy weather
but
The door mechanism is quite heavy as it has an espagnolette type of lock. I am healthy and strong so I have no problem with shoving the handle to the lock position. My 88 year old mother in law cannot shut and lock her door so cannot easily use her patio and in retrospect we should not have put this sort of door in her house

I expect I was being seduced by the Grand Designs effect when I chose them. Had I not been seduced I think I should instead have bought several sets of french windows which are distinctly cheaper, have just as much glass and can be opened up just as much too. The only downside is a pillar between each set of windows - and is that really a disadvantage I ask myself ...

 

[Alfietinker]

Thanks all, I'm glad it's not deemed as a complete no-no, along the lines of cement repointing!

I honestly think it will make such a difference to the house and the back room could be used daily, rather than a storage area/occasional big table necessity. Although, unless we fix the wi-fi to reach out there the kids will probably still huddle at the front of the house! :lol:

Feltwell - I agree. No need to rush at all. This is our third house in 17 years and I don't think we finished either of the other two! (In fact, going off on a tangent, I have this week finally planted some daffodils. Every spring since I bought our first house I've said I must plant daffodils in the Autumn, and 17 years later I've finally done it!! )

Abi Cott: Really? I had assumed it would be thousands! A couple of builders came to look a while back, but never came back with a price. I did manage to get a quote to convert the dining room windows to french doors and that was £4k, which included increasing the opening and fair bit of brick work, so I assumed it would be similar. (Sadly, this means my french doors will be a long, long way off!)

But for the kitchen, If the bulk of the price is on the doors, then I'll see if I can get a price for the opening only. We would make-good ourselves and doors are not essential, so we just need the builder to ensure the rest of the wall doesn't fall down. Something to investigate methinks!

Malcolm - I'm glad you said that, as hubby is dubious how much difference this would make light-wise. I'm thinking we need to pay attention to the room layout so they flow together. We might be able to get a bigger opening in, as long as it doesn't cause massive extra expense.

 

[Abi Cott]

1.5m (5') is the widest I think you can go with a lintle. After that your back in RSJ territory and the price goes up a lot.

 

[Abi Cott]

If you're up to the making good yourselves you could probably even do the lintle yourselves. It's not that big a job I don't think. Just requires some acroprops from what I've seen.

 

[malcolm]

That's a good point - how wide is the opening?

One of the first jobs I did was to knock a door into some inaccessible roof space. It was scary at the time, but brick tends to self corbel so the immediate worry should only be the bricks running at about 45 degrees inwards from the top of the opening. Acro props are cheap enough. (Stupid size lintel in the photo - only needs to be 150mm wider than the opening and concrete ones work.)

 

[Flyfisher]

1.5m (5') is the widest I think you can go with a lintle. After that your back in RSJ territory and the price goes up a lot.

Our kitchen extension has a 4m window and the opening was bridged with a 'Catnic' lintel rather than an RSJ. It was specified by a structural engineer and approved by building control.

 

[Flyfisher]

Going back to the original question about altering property layouts, I'm not sure there is a general consensus because we've had all sorts of views expressed about this over the years including the somewhat purist 'if the property doesn't meet your needs then don't buy it' approach. In practice, of course, much will depend on the property and the alterations envisaged but if alterations were not deemed to be generally acceptable (within limits) then there would be no need for the LBC process as no applications would ever be approved!

I'd say that moderation is the key principle. If a property is going to be altered beyond all recognition then I'd guess we'd mostly disagree with it ('we' being a self-selected bunch of traditionalists of course), but if the alterations have only a relatively minor impact on the existing property then why not? I would consider an extension to a property as a slightly different category to 'alteration' because, by and large, extensions should not affect the layout of the original property. In this respect, they could be considered to have less impact than re-modelling the existing property layout. Again, it all depends on the property and the proposed alterations.

Irrespective of all that, I think we have to expect old properties to be altered, simply because times change and - for better or worse - modern living generally demands rather different property layouts than in times past. Perhaps the most dramatic change has been in the provision of kitchen and 'service' facilities. Not all that long ago, even fairly modest 'middle class' homes would employ servants and the kitchen and laundry facilities would most certainly not be a central part of the family living space. Oh how times have changed! And how many properties still have outdoor WCs and cellars with coal chutes these days? If we don't allow our older properties to be at least minimally altered to cater for such social changes then old properties will become less desirable and, in extremis, unsaleable, which is the route to being unoccupied followed by dereliction and ultimate destruction. Use it or lose it!

 

[MikeG]

1.5m (5') is the widest I think you can go with a lintle. After that your back in RSJ territory and the price goes up a lot.

Our kitchen extension has a 4m window and the opening was bridged with a 'Catnic' lintel rather than an RSJ. It was specified by a structural engineer and approved by building control.

That is the correct route for a large span: get it designed by an engineer. The fact is, some lintels require a minimum load above them, so it isn't possible to just give a straightforward "this is the span, so this is the lintel" answer to every opening.

 

[Abi Cott]

1.5m (5') is the widest I think you can go with a lintle. After that your back in RSJ territory and the price goes up a lot.

Our kitchen extension has a 4m window and the opening was bridged with a 'Catnic' lintel rather than an RSJ. It was specified by a structural engineer and approved by building control.

I was thinking of the basic concrete ones you can pick up at the DIY shop. For a single skin internal wall it would be sufficient and the op suggested a 4' opening which would be do-able without paying for a structural engineer. That reduces costs significantly.

 

[Alfietinker]

Going back to the original question about altering property layouts, I'm not sure there is a general consensus because we've had all sorts of views expressed about this over the years including the somewhat purist 'if the property doesn't meet your needs then don't buy it' approach. In practice, of course, much will depend on the property and the alterations envisaged but if alterations were not deemed to be generally acceptable (within limits) then there would be no need for the LBC process as no applications would ever be approved!

I'd say that moderation is the key principle. If a property is going to be altered beyond all recognition then I'd guess we'd mostly disagree with it ('we' being a self-selected bunch of traditionalists of course), but if the alterations have only a relatively minor impact on the existing property then why not? I would consider an extension to a property as a slightly different category to 'alteration' because, by and large, extensions should not affect the layout of the original property. In this respect, they could be considered to have less impact than re-modelling the existing property layout. Again, it all depends on the property and the proposed alterations.

Irrespective of all that, I think we have to expect old properties to be altered, simply because times change and - for better or worse - modern living generally demands rather different property layouts than in times past. Perhaps the most dramatic change has been in the provision of kitchen and 'service' facilities. Not all that long ago, even fairly modest 'middle class' homes would employ servants and the kitchen and laundry facilities would most certainly not be a central part of the family living space. Oh how times have changed! And how many properties still have outdoor WCs and cellars with coal chutes these days? If we don't allow our older properties to be at least minimally altered to cater for such social changes then old properties will become less desirable and, in extremis, unsaleable, which is the route to being unoccupied followed by dereliction and ultimate destruction. Use it or lose it!

That's really well worded, and personally exactly as I feel. But my friend (who lives in a 80s box) is so vehemently against us "ruining" it, that I wondered if I was in the minority.

 

[Alfietinker]

1.5m (5') is the widest I think you can go with a lintle. After that your back in RSJ territory and the price goes up a lot.

Our kitchen extension has a 4m window and the opening was bridged with a 'Catnic' lintel rather than an RSJ. It was specified by a structural engineer and approved by building control.

I was thinking of the basic concrete ones you can pick up at the DIY shop. For a single skin internal wall it would be sufficient and the op suggested a 4' opening which would be do-able without paying for a structural engineer. That reduces costs significantly.

We would need to get a structural engineer to take a look first - the wall is 9 inches thick and appears to be the same wall up to the third storey, which at that point forms the outside wall of the top storey. (The house is three storeys front and middle, with only two storeys on the back - if that makes sense).

Opening wise, we have 7ish feet to play with, but there are doors either side so any opening needs to allow for those. We assume 4 foot would be a good compromise.

Pics below of both sides. (Please excuse messy utility off the kitchen!! )

 

[Abi Cott]

Our kitchen extension has a 4m window and the opening was bridged with a 'Catnic' lintel rather than an RSJ. It was specified by a structural engineer and approved by building control.

I was thinking of the basic concrete ones you can pick up at the DIY shop. For a single skin internal wall it would be sufficient and the op suggested a 4' opening which would be do-able without paying for a structural engineer. That reduces costs significantly.

We would need to get a structural engineer to take a look first - the wall is 9 inches thick and appears to be the same wall up to the third storey, which at that point forms the outside wall of the top storey. (The house is three storeys front and middle, with only two storeys on the back - if that makes sense).

Opening wise, we have 7ish feet to play with, but there are doors either side so any opening needs to allow for those. We assume 4 foot would be a good compromise.

Pics below of both sides. (Please excuse messy utility off the kitchen!! )

Double skin then. Yes I'd want an engineer to have a peek at that too. It would probably remove it from the "something I might tackle myself" box too. However it still could be feasibly done with a off the shelf lintle. I'm sticking with my earlier statement of it being potentially cheaper than you think.

 

[malcolm]

I would speak to a builder first rather than wasting money on a structural engineer. Making a hole in the wall with plenty of brick remaining either side isn't a big deal and something builders do all the time.

 

[CliffordPope]

I think probably most older houses have been changed over the years.
Ours was built as a farmhouse in about 1875, and has been changed around over the years. The front and back have been swapped over, possibly in 1913, a porch added to the new front, facing a road that until 1974 ran through a working farmyard, and the staircase swung through 180 degrees. The big kitchen orginally with a range and bread oven has moved along into what was originally the dairy, and one end of the old kitchen knocked through to join the sitting room, probably in 1948, with the insertion of an insubstantial and incongruous wooden beam. I changed that in about 1990 for a larger old beam that matches the exposed joists in each of the two previous rooms.
There was originally no bathroom, but a bedroom became a bathroom in 1948. The original open attic with staircase became a large bedroom and bathroom in 1985, and the 1948 bathroom reverted to a bedroom and the pre-war corrugated iron extension was rebuilt in stone with matching windows and became a second bathroom, pantry and lobby.

It's all very complicated to follow, the changes only evidenced by scraps of original wallpaper and wall paint, and room descriptions pencilled on the back of skirting boards.
Some of it was bodged or finished off with fittings that didn't match, which I've gradually improved over the years. It's impossible to say with certainty which bits are actually original, and "original" doesn't really mean much anyway. There are lots of originals, but houses evolve.

 

[Feltwell]

We have installed two of those sets of folding sliding doors. One set was timber framed (as demanded by the conservation officer) in a curtilage listed building, one set was aluminium framed as she was happy with that on an extension to the actual listed building. Quite what her logic was I do not know but I digress

Given the choice I would have aluminium rather than wood as it has slimmer verticals and is more dimensionally stable. The wooden one needed adjusting a couple of times in the first 18 months

It is lovely having a big wall of glass and being able to sit 'outdoors' in cold and/or windy weather
but
The door mechanism is quite heavy as it has an espagnolette type of lock. I am healthy and strong so I have no problem with shoving the handle to the lock position. My 88 year old mother in law cannot shut and lock her door so cannot easily use her patio and in retrospect we should not have put this sort of door in her house

I expect I was being seduced by the Grand Designs effect when I chose them. Had I not been seduced I think I should instead have bought several sets of french windows which are distinctly cheaper, have just as much glass and can be opened up just as much too. The only downside is a pillar between each set of windows - and is that really a disadvantage I ask myself ...

Thank you Livias. Quite why a CO would demand timber for what is obviously a modern alteration is beyond me! Yes, I've come round to the idea of aluminium rather than timber for exactly the reaons you say - dimensional stability and slenderness of profile, plus longevity of finish. Neighbours put timbers ones in a few years ago and the look quite ropey now. Much as I love timber windows I just don't think something so large and engineered as those doors suits being made from a natural material that moves. My thought was aluminium in a matt or satin black or dark grey - so the frame is as visually unobtrusive as possible.

The "pillar effect" of multiple French windows would be a problem for us, as the view we want is across the windows and down into the garden, about 60 degrees to the right of looking straight out - if that makes sense - so a pillar would block the view.

 

[Feltwell]

Here's hopefully some reassurance Alfietinker in the form of a picture of an altered layout that may not be dissimilar to yours. Excuse the mess, taken when I was in the midst of changing the French doors that you can just see through the window this weekend - the ones in the picture being the new ones.



The only external wall in this kitchen is where the window is, but you can see that the opening into the old scullery lets in a decent amount of extra light. Originally, where the square opening is now, the doorway was just the right hand half of the current opening, so the left hand half of the set of drawers sits in front of it (the units and worktop go round and through the opening a short way). We didn't make the alterations but I know where the doorway was as the plaster had to come off that wall a while ago, due to a plumbing leak - the original builder's arch could be seen in the brickwork, above a modern lintel. This is the back wall of the house, external above the opening, so 9" brickwork and it's a 4'3" wide opening - and it's supported by a concrete lintel, not a steel.

The old scullery beyond the opening is the kid's playroom currently and is full of all the tat that comes with having 3 kids! The ultimate plan is to take out the external wall of that room completely for sliding folding doors, and possibly add a couple of rooflights as well into a full height sloped ceiling (which is what it had originally - a lower horizontal ceiling was added later) - so the light would really flood in. If we do that work then I'm tempted to make that opening taller and with an arched top, as it would look better I think and make the 2 rooms look more connected - but we shall see.

So, that's hopefully either reassured you that you're doing the right thing or put you right off, but is useful either way!