Sub-projects
Kitchenactive
The pocket: 201 wide × 219 deep, minus the 219 × 50 stub of the old external wall. Sink on the passage wall, hob and extractor on the back run, prep along the 283 wall.
Settled
- Stays in the current pocket — working assumption, open to revisiting.
- Fridge moves in from the party wall enclosure.
- 283 wall stays solid — no hatch through to the dining room.
Open
- Layout once the fridge lands in the pocket — it is not a big pocket and the old wall stub takes a corner.
- Does the sink stay on the passage wall? Moving it is the main cost driver.
- Boiler: stay, move, or replace. If it stays it constrains the layout.
- Is the old wall stub loadbearing? It is the end of the original house, so assume yes until an engineer says otherwise. Reducing it means a beam, padstones and building control — not a weekend job.
- Ceilings are 2480, with 2200 under a T-shaped bulkhead that follows the old wall lines — not over the kitchen pocket. So the pocket has full height and tall units are fine there.
Gates: living area layout, then climate emitters.
Living areaactive
The garden end, roughly 414 × 385, plus the 75 × 285 the laundry enclosure gives back. French doors to the deck, tall blind window, one radiator.
Settled
- Laundry and fridge enclosure is demolished — 2.1 m² back and the party wall squared off along its full 7.10 m.
- That run becomes a storage wall: pantry, appliance garage / coffee nook, cleaning store.
- Washer faces into this room, integrated into the storage run.
Open
- Where does drying happen? The airer is standing in the middle of the lounge today — so this is a problem to solve, not one to preserve. Proposed: a drop-down rail in the dead 1.3 m above the washer.
- Washer stays put and rotates 90° — facing into the room, loadable from the kitchen side, with a full-height door in front. Services do not move. Still worth an acoustic detail given it sits against the party wall.
- Does the false wall beside the fridge come out too? The square block next to it is permanent.
- Furniture plan: the TV and drinks cabinet run currently occupies the party wall the storage is moving onto.
Depends on: kitchen position. Gates: climate emitters.
Spare room / dining roommeasured
8.7 m², 3.49 × 2.84 m max, with four angled walls at the outer corner. Shares its 284 wall with the kitchen prep run. Becomes a dining room with a murphy bed that converts back for guests.
Settled
- Entrance moves to the left-hand wall, so food travels easily from kitchen to dining room.
- Surveyed and fitted — every wall closes within 2.4 cm.
- New door goes in the 144 wall; murphy bed opposite, on the 178 wall where the existing door is today, which gets blocked up. Bed down leaves 139 clear.
- Guest bathroom is just outside the hallway on the right — stays as is.
- No opening through the 283 wall.
Open
- Window position and size — nothing on the survey locates it, and it reads as being in the angled outer walls.
- Ceiling in the main space is 2480, which clears a vertical-fold bed easily. The spare room itself has not been measured though — worth checking it is not another 2200 zone.
- Exact position of the new doorway in the 349 wall, and whether the old 92 opening is blocked up.
- Which end of the shared wall the new door goes nearest — drawn at the kitchen end on the assumption the hall runs alongside.
Gates: the new door position, which the kitchen route depends on.
Climatescope now, spec last
Heating today is one radiator on the left wall plus a wall-mounted boiler in the kitchen. Cooling not yet decided.
Settled
- In scope as its own sub-project rather than an afterthought.
Open
- Is cooling actually in? If yes, where does an outdoor unit go — side passage or garden — and does it need consent.
- Emitter positions once the storage wall and kitchen are fixed. Every good wall is being spoken for.
- Underfloor vs radiators. Fine at 2480, but under the 2200 bulkhead a 75 mm build-up leaves 2125 — and Paul is 2 m tall. That is the constraint, not the garden step.
- Does the boiler decision belong here or to the kitchen? Treating it as a kitchen constraint for now.
- Heat gain through the French doors — worth knowing which way the garden faces.
Depends on: kitchen and living layouts being fixed first.
Both rooms together
surveyed
hall, unchanged
kitchen
murphy bed
laundry out / storage in
walking route, not a wall
The two surveys line up. The spare room’s 284 wall and the main room’s 283 wall are the same wall, so the rooms sit together without fudging. With the 7 cm kink added the spare room survey closes to within 1.2 cm on every wall. The kitchen-to-dining route works out at roughly 6 m — out of the main doorway and immediately right into the new door, which is what the door move buys you. The hall between them is drawn as a ghost for context — it is not being changed, so it has not been surveyed.
Critical path
Kitchen layout→
Living / storage wall→
Climate spec
Nothing is blocked. The door is settled — hard against the kitchen end of the 144 wall, hinged there, swinging into the dining room toward the kitchen. The hall is not being changed, so it does not need surveying; it stays on the combined plan as a ghost for context only.
The long pole is structural. If the old wall stub gets touched at all, an engineer’s calcs, a beam and building control sign-off sit in front of it — weeks, and they need starting well before November. Everything else here can run in parallel.
The long pole is structural. If the old wall stub gets touched at all, an engineer’s calcs, a beam and building control sign-off sit in front of it — weeks, and they need starting well before November. Everything else here can run in parallel.
Decisions log
| Decision | Sub-project | Firmness |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen stays in its current pocket | Kitchen | Working assumption |
| Fridge relocates into the kitchen pocket | Kitchen | Agreed |
| Laundry & fridge enclosure demolished | Living | Agreed |
| That run becomes pantry / appliance garage / coffee nook / cleaning store | Living | Agreed |
| Whole party wall built in, 18 mm birch ply, split at the pier | Living | Agreed |
| Washer rotates 90° in place, loadable from the kitchen side | Living | Agreed |
| Washer faces into the room, integrated into the storage run | Living | Agreed |
| 283 wall stays solid — no hatch | Kitchen / Dining | Agreed |
| Guest bedroom entrance moves to the left-hand wall | Dining | Agreed |
| New door in the 144 wall; murphy bed opposite on the 178 wall | Dining | Agreed |
| Existing 92 doorway blocked up to make the bed wall | Dining | Agreed |
| New door hard against the kitchen end, swinging in toward the kitchen | Dining | Agreed |
| Hall unchanged — not being surveyed | — | Agreed |
| Bed access not a constraint — hall is generous enough | Dining | Agreed |
| Guest bathroom off the hallway stays as is | — | Agreed |
| Baseline plan signed off — every dimension cross-checks | All | Done |
Measurement backlog
Watch list
| Risk | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Nowhere to dry laundry | The airer lives in the middle of the lounge today. The build is the chance to fix that — a rail above the washer costs no wall length, but needs extract or a dehumidifier and a door, or you are drying into the living room. |
| Washer on the party wall | Spin cycles transmit, and rotating it does not change that. Worth an acoustic detail rather than discovering it after the neighbour does. |
| Competition for wall length | Storage wall, TV run, radiators, and the murphy bed all want good walls. There are not many left. |
| Head height under the bulkhead | The stem of the T crosses open floor at 2200 — 200 mm over Paul’s head. Underfloor heating or a pendant hung under it eats straight into that. |
| Murphy bed vs wall length | 165 of housing into a 178 wall. If that wall measures short, the bed does not fit and the dining room concept needs rethinking. |
| November start | Kitchen units and any glazing have lead times that will not care about the date. |
| Structural, if the stub gets touched | It is a former external wall. Engineer’s calcs, a beam and building control sign-off all sit in front of it — weeks, not days, and they need starting well before November. |
| Two eras of construction | Original house one side of that wall line, extension the other. Expect different floor build-ups, insulation and possibly damp detailing — and quite possibly different ceiling heights either side, which the bulkhead already hints at. |
| Fridge into a small pocket | The pocket is 201 × 219 with the old wall stub in a corner. Adding a full-height fridge is a real constraint, not a detail. |