a wacky rethink of downstairs

We are struggling to get the placement of the downstairs bathroom right.

It started out opening off the central hall, but that was too prominent and we didn't want it opening directly from a place that would be doubling as a dining room. Dave also suggested it should be near a side of the house so it's easy to access from the garden.

So then it moved to take up some of the space in the mudroom. Except that there isn't enough space there so every iteration we've tried so far just makes it feel awfully cramped.

An idea just occurred to me, sparked by discussing the Pattern Language insights with Dave, which might help - except it requires rather greater rearrangement of the downstairs.

What if we put the mudroom back the way it was to begin with, that we all loved.

What if we made the stair landing, midway up, wider ... space for an armchair in the corner, some books, if you ever had a party with musicians you could even stick them up there like an mini stage! OK, I'm getting carried away, but if the landing had a larger floor area it'd give us much more flexibility.

Then, what if we moved the pantry, so that instead of it being on the side of the kitchen facing the secret garden, it was behind the front porch in the room 'under the stairs'... which is now much more spacious than a hallway sized cupboard because the landing is wider. We'd still have our "living hall" downstairs, it's just not quite so ginormous...but still plenty enough space for Xmas trees and dinner parties.

(We'd have to move the chimney I guess? And if so, the upstairs bedroom would need tweaking because of the new chimney location, but other than that hopefully it wouldn't mess up the structural stuff too much).

Then, that gives us space at the back of the house that was formerly the pantry to play with and squeeze the bathroom. I don't know what this looks like exactly, but maybe something like this:



Although not exactly this, because Dave doesn't like it. He likes the new position of the pantry, but he doesn't like something to do with the verandah and sunroom. I can't work out what exactly though. Something about not being able to walk to the breakfast area to the sunroom, except that you can - although maybe it's because he wants it to be under a verandah? I'm not sure. If that's the case then all we have to do is extend the sunroom & breakfast room verandah areas out a bit more and voila the undercover walkway is back again. But I suggested that and he just frowned. So I don't know *sigh*

It's an idea anyway.