Floor Plans

Lynne, who dips into this blog from time to time, asked if I could do a simple floor plan.

Certainly the house layout is confusing and even living here it took us time to work out how all the rooms fitted together.

This is what the house looks like at present, put together over years from an old farmhouse and outside barns.

People who know us park in front of the garage, walk past the bedroom, come along the terrace and into the kitchen.

First time callers tend to wander in the direction of the "gîte"  and get very confused.

We think the gîte was created by previous owners two or three back.  It's a big space but there is no access to it from the rest of the house (see the solid red line) except by going outside and coming in through the french windows.  Friends have stayed in it a couple of times but otherwise we've only used it as storage space and it has got very neglected.

We'd been struggling with not having a proper front entrance and now that we have the cottage where friends can stay we no longer need a guest space attached to the house.  So the gîte will become our entrance hall.  From there, two new doorways will be knocked through into the rest of the house: one will go straight into the lounge.  The other will be through what's now a large bathroom (there will still be space for a good sized shower room) into the corridor beyond and through to the kitchen. 

At the same time we're tidying up the kitchen area, putting a new water heater alongside the washing machine, knocking down a wall to give more space and putting in a new window.

The other major changes are to the bedroom next to the garage which is having a new ensuite wet room and dressing room  / wardrobe plus a new roof (over the garage as well) and proper insulation.

These are our new plans, in outline.

A third stage will entail creating an attractive corridor with windows out of the space behind the lounge and leading that into a gallery across the back wall of garage - but that's for the longer term.

This is the back wall of the lounge where the colombage has been exposed and there is already an opening (at present with shelves across) where eventually the door will go into the gîte / new entrance hall.