Plans for total home renovation

A plan for a functional home

Making a plan is a work in progress. The architect is guiding us very well in our journey. From the first meeting until the drawing of the current situation we didn’t have the impression things were moving. Dirk (our architect) however hadn’t sit still. He did a lot more than we expected. He showed us a concept that surprised us. The width of our property is only 6m (20ft) by 60m (200ft). Our first idea was to break down as much walls as possible to have one wide open space (combining kitchen and living space. Dirk gave up some of the width and we didn’t understand why (at first).

Mud room, washing room, back entrance

A long small multifunctional hallway in the back of the house comes in handy. It will be just 1,6m (5.25 ft) wide. That’s 1m of hallway and a normal cabinet (0,6m) on the wall. Eventually we will build a garage at the back of our garden. The back entrance will thus be used most of the time (coming home from work). When we will have children they will come in with their muddy shoes. They will throw their backpacks and jackets of and go to play. A place to separate the kitchen/living space from the mud room seems a great idea!
The gas heating burner should be close to the consumers (kitchen and bathroom) so it will fit in there.
The laundry machine and dryer will also be installed in the mud room. Above the back entrance there will be a dressing and bathroom so a chute can be installed. This way dirty laundry gets straight down to the laundry machine. This way we give up 11,2m² (37 sq ft) and get a mud room, washing room and entrance combination.

Kitchen

Using a sliding door from the mud room, we get into the open kitchen and living room. In Belgium people are used to having two dining tables. One is for daily use and one is only used for special occasions (Christmas, birthday..). We think it is stupid to waste the money and space to buy two tables. We are going for one big table. This way we can still entertain friends and family.
First we wanted a kitchen island to cook on. The architect pointed out that a range hood would impede the view a lot. That’s why we are putting a kitchen sink in the island and we will be cooking on the other side.

Living space

The living space next to the kitchen has room for a normal sectional. I’m a big fan of a fireplace so we will be putting a modern corner-model in. There’s nothing more cosy than a wood fire during the cold days of the year.
On the end of the living room there’s a doorway leading to another room. That room can be used as a bureau/playroom. It can even be used as a speech therapy practice by my girlfriend.

Upstairs

The two bedrooms on the first floor will remain as is. The windows will be changed but that’s about it. The new backside of the house will be 7m by 3m on the first floor. We will build a dressing room and well-equiped bathroom. A make-up table in the dressing will avoid a bathroom sink full of lotions and mascara.

Attic

The attic space will be the master bedroom. We already gave the roof a nice thick layer of insulation. The heating pipes are put into place and the electricity is up and running. The sheetrock is installed and ready for mud. We are just waiting for the demolition and main construction works to be done before we apply the mud. It’s a lot of work and we want to avoid cracks because of the building process.

Dirk has started calculation the cost for this total renovation. In the mean time, I have played around with 3D models to make the plan a little bit more visible.

Down to earth: cost prediction

The cost for renovation has been predicted based on the plan. I almost got a heartache when I saw the numbers on the stylesheet: 193 448.59 euro (around $210k). A lot of it has to do with the strict insulation requirements when doing a total home renovation. We need to put 15cm (6″) of insulation all around the house. On top of that there will be some sort of plaster.
Eventually we will try to reduce the cost by doing as much as we can by ourselves. We hope to gain 50.000 euro by doing so. You can read more about how we want to reduce costs in this article.

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