I've just bought a 3 storey Victorian townhouse which has a lower ground, upper ground and first floor. At the moment it is a 4 bedroom house with 2 bedrooms on the first floor and two rather dark bedrooms on the lower ground. The reception is on the upper ground on the same level as the front door. Does anyone have any good ideas how best to layout these properties to get the most from the space?
How will you use the space - what rooms will you spend most of your time in/do you do a lot of entertaining etc? Does the lower ground open lead into the garden? What's your budget? Can you do a lot of changes or is it just which rooms need which bits of furniture in?
Well we certainly don't need 4 bedrooms and entertaining space would be more useful, but I don't want to lose value in the property by reducing the number of bedrooms. Unfortunately the lower goround does not lead out into the garden which is accessed via the kitchen extension which is between the l. gound and u. ground levels. I'm more interested as to whether I should be knocking down internal walls or not. Budget is tight so no major projects yet.
I've seen a few things done - one is that you use the dark bedrooms as a playroom and study, but they stay dark. One is that you excavate out so that they have french windows opening onto the back garden. Another is expensive but perhaps useful - you excavate the front out and turn it into an under-house garage.
I like the idea of putting french doors in to the garden. At the moment a dodgy extension from the kitchen blocks the back room window so this might have to be done at a later date.
If I get my way I may knock through to make one large lower round floor room and buy a pool table!
Do you know if the wall dividing the two bedrooms is likely to be load bearing (the reception on the floor above is knock through)?
I would be wary of knocking down internal walls (all of which are likely to be load-bearing) just to re-arrange the layout, unless it really doesn't work as it is. This will be expensive, and you will be replacing solid brick walls with plasterboard stud walls, which will be flimsy and will not have any noise insulation qualities.
I like your idea of opening the cellar out into the garden, however.
Some more ideas - my parents have a four-floor townhouse with a lower-ground and upper-ground floor, so it's probably quite a bit bigger sideways than yours but pretty much the same layout. They've left the lower-ground as it is and have the rooms down there as a wine cellar, a workshop, a laundry, a storage room, and a room that doesn't get used. However, it had a slightly random small extension on the back, and they turned that into a balcony / raised patio with steps going down to the garden and put French windows into the kitchen, which is on the upper ground floor. That's the best thing they've done to the house, in my opinion - the neighbours liked it so much that they promptly did the same to their house.
