Plan
Posted by Chris
I spent a good deal of time sketching floor plans and figuring out how to layout things in my new house. The room layout upstairs was ridiculous, and really only had one full sized bedroom, a large closet, and a decent sized bathroom. The account below explains my desire for a spiral staircase, and the need to fit in one bathroom. At this point I decided that everything from the original kitchen back would have to be “phase II”, and I’d have to focus my energy on renovating the upstairs and the downstairs living areas.
The floorplan is the easy part, and can be adjusted easily when you’re actually building it. What I didn’t know how to plan was electrical, plumbing and mechanical work, which all has to share space behind the walls. Electrical outlets abound, but it takes planning to get them in the right place.
I wanted an exposed brick wall, and planned to leave the entire north wall, upstairs and downstairs exposed. I figured this would save me money on framing the walls, drywall, painting, trim, etc, but it ended up being more trouble than it’s worth.
Aside from the work itself, you’ll need to do some financial planning. I thought I could do it all for $20,000, which seemed like a lot at the time… if your prospect is this low, you’re in for some big surprises.
Originally posted in 2004:
Now that I had a house, I began thinking of how I was going to fix it up. My only major design requirement was two liveable bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. The challenge in this is that I knew I did not have enough money or time or patience to build an addition on the house. How do you fit a bathroom, two bedrooms and a staircase into a 13′x28′ space? The main concern is the footprint of the stair.
A traditional stairway takes up a very large rectangular or L-shaped footprint, and must run along the length of the house. It can run along the width if it is very steep, which you can see in many similar rowhouses. While this leaves space upstairs for equal sized rooms, it does not leave space for a bath, and dramatically divides the first floor into two small rooms, making things feel much more cramped.
You must also consider the stairway down to the basement, which usually fits right under the upper staircase, but it doesn’t have to.
It seems to me that a spiral staircase is the best option. It makes it difficult to get furniture upstairs, but the footprint is square, and leaves plenty of room for a small bath and two big (13′x8′) rooms upstairs. Presently, I plan to install a spiral staircase between the first and second floors, and have a hatch going to the basement. The ceiling in my basement is about 6′ high, and I plan to use it for storage, and of course HVAC and utilities stuff. It would be nice to get some liveable space out of it, but realistically, a 6′ ceiling does not allow it.
My current plan also calls for a new door on the second floor to allow furniture to be brought in. With a hatch to the basement, the washer and dryer are moved to the first floor (these are the only things that would require frequent trips to the basement). The layout upstairs includes 30′ doors, but the bathroom door may be cut down to 24′.
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