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hannah_angus

Splitting a house in two - small house layout advice?

Hannah Angus
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

Hi everyone,

We're splitting our "renovators delight" monster house into two flats. It will sometimes operate as a large beach house, sometimes two flats (so we have the option of airbnb, or friends can come stay – also, we don't need that much space). We have two little kids, so welcome having multiple bedrooms or 'sleeping nooks' – we prefer a well-designed and functional space to a large space.

I'm a bit stuck on the downstairs layout. The house has a concrete slab AND suspended concrete above, so we cannot move the stairs. We're also operating on a fairly small budget/doing a lot of DIY, so would prefer to minimise moving plumbing if possible. It's also fairly dark as the veranda covered despite facing north (the sun for us in southern hemisphere). Putting large stacking sliding glass doors in the west (on the right of the plan) will hopefully provide more light plus connection to the backyard.

There are large steel beams running across the ceiling (see original photos in comments below), which do make it feel quite low. Some are currently encased, but we are thinking of exposing them.

Below are two ideas plus the current layout... welcome any feedback.

Current layout: (and it is deceptively large – the bedroom is almost the size of 2 normal size bedrooms). (photos in comments below).



Option/idea 1 (we've already closed off the entry-way) (living areas don't feel resolved, but look out onto garden) (currently our favourite as utilises existing laundry plumbing)




Option/idea 2 (does involve trying to run plumbing through wall all the way to garage due to slab... tricky). Does feel a bit more resolved downstairs, plus gain extra bed/study).

That's it! Welcome any advice or thoughts or comments...




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