Expert: Bruce E. Johnson - 7/1/2009

Question
QUESTION: My fiance and I recently purchased a split entry home, however we are finding the layout to be very poor for our needs. Both the upstairs and downstairs are 750sqft each, for a combined living area of 1500sqft. The upstairs consists of a tiny kitchen directly to your left when you reach the top of the stairs, with a medium sized living room on the left, a small hall straight ahead with a bathroom directly ahead and a bedroom on each side. The kitchen is extremely small (the previous owners had a door and window on the side of the kitchen and another window on the front of the kitchen, and the doorway to enter the kitchen on the other side wall, leaving only the interior rear wall free, which you can't really put anything against as it would block the doorways. The kitchen is only about 11.6x10ft with the bedroom behind it consisting of 11.4x8.9ft (minus the closet#. The living room upstairs is 12.9x11.7ft, and the bedroom behind the living room is 11.6x11.8ft#minus the closet#. The downstairs is completely finished with a large family room housing the majority of the space #22.8x18.3ft#, another bedroom #11.7x8.9#, and a utility room that we're hoping to turn into a bathroom #8.9x11.1ft#. The master bedroom is relatively small with the space the closet takes up, and the kitchen doesn't even have a place for a table #the previous owners had their table in the living room - which is not a convenient plan for us#. We are hoping to renovate the layout of the house to make a larger combined kitchen/dining room, while still having a living room. We are hoping to keep three bedrooms in the house for resale value, but are open to the idea of adding one in downstairs if that's the only way to do it.  Our main goal is to find a way to create a large kitchen dining room with open concept, while maintaining or increasing the retail value. #Our realtor was telling us that if we got rid of the second bedroom upstairs, we'd have a hard time selling). I thought though, the way the house is currently, nobody with a family requiring 3 bedrooms would be moving in, without even a place to put a kitchen/dining room table, as it is not practical. We are hoping to find a way to renovate, without lowering our retail value. Your expertise would be greatly appreciated.
Thank-you

ANSWER: Hi Katrina, I would make the kitchen, living and master bedroom to suit my needs and not worry about how many bedrooms you end up with unless you need three bedrooms.  As long as there is the potential to add a bedroom in the basement, leave that for the new owner.  A large open kitchen/ living room and a tricked out master bedroom and bath are bigger selling points than a bunch of small bedrooms. I hope this information helps, feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank-you for your advice, I was leaning towards this anyhow, though my fiance is still undecided and concerned about resale value. I tried to explain that a large open concept kitchen diningroom is a big selling point, as well as a large master bedroom. From the layout I described, how would you go about removing/replacing walls to make a suitable layout?

Answer
Hi again Katrina, It depends on how your roof is built.  Most modern homes built from the 60's on have manufactured trusses that span from outside wall to outside wall.  These trusses do not need support in the middle so if your roof is this type you can basically remove any interior wall you want. If your roof is hand framed and your ceiling joists rest on bearing walls then you will need to get a qualified carpenter or engineer to determine the best way to remove walls without the roof falling down.  To remove a wall you need to open up the walls by tearing off the drywall on one side to see what kind of plumbing and electric is involved.  If you are going to remove a wall with electric in it you need to reroute the circuit to a new location or kill that outlet and do away with it completely.  Please, if you don't know what you're doing in the electric and plumbing department, have a licensed tradesman do the work.  You are better off in the kitchen  and bathrooms if you plan your sink and stove locations close to where they are now because the utilities are already there and this will save you some money, however if your new layout requires moving the plumbing or electric then plan on this extra cost.  Get some graph paper and draw your home to scale, simple scale like one square per foot will give you a real idea as to sizes of rooms etc.  A lot of home improvement stores even have kitchen layout kits you can get with graph paper sheets to plan the layout of your kitchen.  Get a tape measure and measure all the room sizes and plot them out on the graph paper as closely as possible.  Do the actual layout first and then look at walls you would like moved.  It's always easier to put it on paper first than it is to try and build it on the fly.  One other note, if you can make it to an IKEA store they have some great ideas for bathroom and kitchen remodeling. I hope this information helps, feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com