Here is the ranch as it is now. The front of the house faces east and the addition would be in the back, facing west. we live in new england, plus there is a huge tree in the backyard, so facing west is not going to be a heat problem. lots of light would be nice.

It looks hard to read...the kitchen dimensions are: 11'6"x12'8". Mudroom: 8'7"x10'8". Living room front to back: 12'4". I don't even think these numbers are on the paper. it seems to be measuring distances to windows, etc.

And here is the plan for the expansion. (Should I draw it on graph paper and upload that instead??) The mudroom and kitchen become one room, the living room widens, and the 3rd bedroom shifts toward the back of the house. I would rather have the bedroom smaller and have a south window on the kitchen addition.
Also, a master bath has been added, plus a laundry closet. and the steps to the basement now descend from near the front door of the house, in the living room, to make room for a small closet on the opposite end. Not sure about the flow from living to kitchen. Thoughts, anyone?? Thanks! eve

I love the idea of needing space for a grand piano and harpsichord! It sounds like quite a project. I'm not the best at visualizing spaces especially from your drawings due to the angle and lack of measurements on the actual drawing. So, yeah, you might get more responses if you redraw.

How big are the instruments? Are they intended for the frontroom or kitchen?

Does your MIL need the 3rd bedroom? If not, I would knock down those walls and use that area for the instruments. If/when the house needs to be sold, the walls can be rebuilt if 3 bedrooms are better for resale.

If they are retaining walls, pillars may be enough to provide support but you would, of course, need good onsite advice to determine that and to give you proper advice. I think some beautiful pillars would really highlight the beautiful instruments.

HI funkycamper,

Thanks for your response. I think the idea would be to put the piano in the front room, but it is not a necessity. wherever it would fit and look good would be fine. We originally were going to drop the 3rd bedroom to make one large open room with the whole living space, and therefore extend less into the back yard, but then we started thinking about resale. ...Hmmm...could rethink that. Maybe tomorrow when I have time I will redraw the plans.

The piano with bench needs about 8 feet (long) and probably 5'6" wide, at least. I don't have it here to measure. The harpsichord is probably 4x6. Again, that's just a guess from my memory of what it looks like. Oh, here's a picture of it. Not too big.

How cool. Is your mil a professional musician?? Just curious. Not many people own harpsichords!!

Wow- that is exciting and glad your MIL or you have the resources to do this.
I am not a musician nor an architect but love your concept.
My SIL's uncle used to build harpsichords and wrote music for harpsichords and other instruments.

Yes, she is actually an organist, but my husband built her a harpsichord from a kit about 12 years ago. It came out really good. I helped paint the ornamental birds and flowers inside. A lot of fun.

Okay, here are the plans of the current house on graph paper. I hope this is easier to read. I know it's amateur--sorry!

This post was edited by Eve77 on Sun, Nov 23, 14 at 23:19

What is your budget? Are you planning to DIY?

This is NOT a DIY project. We have a contractor. I just want some input on the plans he has given, so I can present an alternative. Something just didn't feel right about what he showed me. Not enough southern exposure was my first impression.

BTW, yikes! I wrote "SOUTH" on my graph paper, and it should read WEST!!! Maybe I can edit that...

Also: budget is very flexible. There is money from recent house sale, so budget is actually not an issue, but we don't want to be wasteful or overly extravagant.

That harpsichord is gorgeous!

I really don't see how both instruments will fit in the front room and still have room for seating and walking around. I really think either totally opening up that bedroom or at least making it into a much smaller room that could be an office or craft room makes the best sense.

Depending on the size of the retaining wall it is and probably some other structural issues that I'm not clear about, it may not cost too much to remove it. Usually they put in a beam for support but you might be able to do pillars instead. You will really need to get expert advice on that.

Later on, it shouldn't be much of an expense to rebuild the wall for resale. Of course, that depends on the make-up of people shopping for homes in your area when the time comes. Other seniors without need for a 3 bedroom might like the open space not having a bedroom there offers.

Whichever route you decide to go, I would love to see photos once those instruments are placed in the house. I'm sure it's going to be charming.

Makes me wish I had room in my main living area for my upright piano, now in the finished basement. It's certainly not as amazing as what your mother has but it is circa 1908 with a beautiful oak finish. Oh, well, I'm sure I don't play as well as she does either so this way I can tickle the ivories without driving everybody else in house crazy, lol.

Is there any possibility that you could add a sunroom-type addition to the end of the living room for her instruments? Going with what you've sketched out, that would be on the north-east side of the living room, in front of the mudroom. So it would be a new "music room" at the end of the living room with doorways to it on either side of the fireplace. Even if most of the windows were on the east side it would catch the morning sun and be a delightful place to practice.

IMHO, keeping the 3rd bedroom is a better move for resale. A 2 bedroom house is harder to move especially if it's in an area with predominantly 3-4 bedroom homes.

Ripping off the roof to increase ceiling height and rearranging the interior takes this into a teardown situation. There isn't anything left of the old house to speak of, except for bits that will just impede the construction. You will literally be repacing everything to do that. Everything. Eletrical, plumbing, HVAC, framing, insulation, siding, roofing. Building an all new house. Seems a bit extreme just to fit in two instruments. And vey expensive. Probably much more than you realize, since it will actually cost more than a new build.

funkycamper, i think the contractor is able to work some magic with walls and beams, so most or at least part of the kit/living wall could be removed. and again, he's lifting the ceiling, so he has a lot of choices of where to configure the walls, if I can give him a basic idea of what we need. I think we need to keep the 3rd bedroom, since most of the houses here have at least 3 bedrooms. I can't see rebuilding a wall again down the road for resale. Rather do it all now.

Also, keep in mind we DO want to increase the square footage, so sippimom, although your idea is really unique about the northeast sunroom, and I like it a lot, it only gives us a little over 100sf more, where we're really looking for 350 or so. Other potential trickiness of opening up past the fireplace:

1. the town is picky about anything other than back additions
2. we might fit both instruments in there, but they would be isolated from everyone else--good for practice, bad for chamber concert. need it open to some seating, at least for the piano
3. it would get rid of the side front entrance, forcing entry thru the front door or the garage, which is small and tight, so not good for bringing in groceries.

Thanks for your responses. it is helping me clarify exactly what the needs are. I guess my real question is, what would a good layout be for a back addition, that would perhaps allow one instrument to stay in the living room and the other to be in the addition WITH an expanded kitchen/seating area. Is this possible? Should I perhaps also post on a different forum?

If you love your instruments, you will not put them in a sunroom! AAAAaakk!
The grand and the Harpsi should be able to nest together curved side to curved side (keyboards at the opposite ends.) Two matching grands will do this naturally, but the Harspsi is sort of grand-shaped.
Maybe at some point she will want to upgrade to a two-choir and pedals HC so that it she can practice organ music on it.

Casey

This post was edited by sombreuil_mongrel on Mon, Nov 24, 14 at 8:58

Ah, hollysprings, I didn't see your post before I responded. Yes, it does seem extreme, and everything will be new. But, a few comments:

1. location, location, location--we really want her across the street, so that she can stay in her own house as long as possible, be close to us and the kids, and we can help her out much more than if she were anywhere else. also, there is no new construction nearby, we are in a crowded suburb
2. the sale price on the house in question is quite low, a really incredible deal for a very solid house (inspection shows that)
3. we have someone who will do this for a price that, even if we had to sell it right away, we would still come out ahead.
4. even with paying for gutting this house and reconstructing, the total price is much lower than what my MIL would have paid for a condo 2 miles away: IOW, this is below budget for her.

Considering those things, and the fact that although she will be living there alone, she also likes "nice" and "spacious", I think gutting and expanding is the way to go. Now, if it were my parents, I wouldn't be on this forum, they would have to cram in there and be happy, but since she can afford it, why not enjoy the rest of her years with a really nice house. :)

I wonder if it makes sense to add an extra bedroom on the back side of what you have labeled above as the guest room. This could become the new master, if wanted. (I have a S facing bay window in our master and it's wonderful.) The hall bath could be reconfigured into the master bath if desired.

My thought is that if you did this, you could then turn the 3rd bedroom into the main living space. The new addition wouldn't require any plumbing, and you wouldn't have to raise the roof. This would make it a much more reasonably priced project.

Here's a really rough sketch of what I'm thinking.

Casey, I have never seen anything like that in my life! What in the world! Does it pluck the strings in the bottom box? Like a bass harpsichord??? Wow! BTW, I like the viols in the back case. (I am a violinist). Wow, that picture is crazy...Okay, I just talked to MIL .She's heard of a pedal harpsichord, said she saw one in a museum in Boston..

I like the nesting idea, if there's room for it...and you're right about the sun.

Be really reallly careful of any contractor that can do this project so cheaply. Is he licensed? Insured? Will he file the proper permits and have it inspected? This is a giant can of worms even without an questionable contractor involved.

laughable, interesting idea...could you draw that over the other floor plan--the one you used is the one that has the addition & 2nd bath already sketched in. I'm wondering if it was on the original plan, would it block even more light from the 3rd bed/kitchen windows that face west? the bedroom would be beautiful, but what about the kitchen where she will spend most of her time? I like it though...something to think about...thanks!

livewireoak, thanks for the warning. This guy has an engineering background, he does file permits, he just did a job for us in our kitchen which involved removing a wall and building a soffit and it's good. He came recommended from a friend who has used him to redo her whole house and her BIL's house, and her house is bee-yoo-tiful. He is a very good carpenter. He just brought an HVAC guy to the house in question so he could give us a more accurate quote. He has done this raised-ceiling remodel before and said it comes out great. He has flipped about 8 houses. I think it'll be okay.

Also, when I say cheap, I mean in the neighborhood of 100K.

Oops, sorry to add on to the wrong drawing!

Honestly, you'll be able to add on to your graph paper drawing easier than I can try to sketch an add-on in my paint program, which is rather primitive and inaccurate in comparison.

What I've done when playing around with plans is to get the original design drawn out on graph paper, and then darken the squares if necessary. I photocopy that drawing and sketch on top of the copies. This lets you view multiple versions, trying a variety of options.

I ended up with so many of these when trying to figure out our kitchen that I hung them up on a wall where I could view and evaluate them all at the same time, removing the "losers" to help narrow down the options.

I didn't read the other posts. I read 'maximum light!'.
To get nice light, you need light on two sides.
So it would be nice to see that bedroom next to kitchen a little smaller so that you could fit a south-facing window in there.

.... oh, I see that you thought of the same thing! I think that would be a great idea.