So this is when the juicy stuff starts. (Btw if you haven't already figured this out, you can click on any of the photos on these pages to see them at their actual size.)
Here is the rough floor plan as drawn by the real estate agent. Having paid £1,000 for a full measured survey by the architect's firm the difference is quite significant - thank goodness we hadn't ordered any kitchen units etc based on this drawing.
It's useful here though to explain what we intend to do. Firstly, on the ground floor half the garage is being reclaimed as living space. All the walls dividing the bedroom 3 and utility room (the grey shape near the stairs) from the hallway are coming down. Basically it's open plan. Then we're wacking off the end wall and building an extension 4m into the garden (NB you don't need planning permission if your "conservatory" is under 50 square metres and in our borough this is being extended to 70 square metres sometime soon). This downstairs space will house the kitchen and dining room with the washer/dryer going under the stairs. We'll keep half the garage as storage and the cloakroom as a cloakroom (aka a downstairs loo, for people who refer to cloakrooms as places where you might hang a coat). The extension will have solid walls but bi-fold matt black doors (as per Pierre Koenig) and a matching glass roof.
The middle floor is losing it's kitchen and a wall's going up to separate the space into two: one will be a "family" (games) room ie: massive TV and a PS3/Wii/X Box (still TBC) and the other space is the spare room/home office.
On the top floor we're losing the en suite shower, and making the bathroom a rectangle shape. Adding a Velux as mentioned earlier. And putting in a built in wardrobe in the main bedroom (which backs onto the bathroom) after ripping out the one you can see in the photo below.
Phew.
