Our Forever House - Ground Floor

by Roz

It's time for another house update!  This week it's the ground floor, but I'm being a little cheeky and showing you the architect plans of how the ground floor is currently laid out, not how we intend to have the space, as the final plans show what we have planned for the kitchen and I've got a whole other post on that coming soon.  I need to ask you all for your opinions on some layout options and colours for the worktop and glass splashback, so I can't wait to share that one with you.  It's coming soon I promise.

The architect plans below show the front of the property at the bottom (the door on the bottom left is our front door) and the rear of the property at the top, the same as when I shared the plans on the basement tour.  The big room at the front of the property is going to be a living room and the room at the back of the house will be our kitchen.  The smaller wc on the plans below will become a pantry accessed from the kitchen and the current shower room will be the downstairs cloakroom.  You can see two sets of stairs on the plan as the main hallway has the main staircase for the house and through a doorway are the stairs down to the basement.

I'm pretty excited about the ground floor, I spoke in my first forever house post about our plans for the hallway, which is rather a mess at the moment as you can see in the picture below!  I think there is currently a little bit of everything stacked up in the hall.... carpet tiles, plywood, sink pedestals, cabling, doors, shelving.... and you don't want to know how many trips we have taken to the tip to recycle wood, rubble, tiles etc!

The hallway is flooded by light, as you can see in the photo above.  On each side of the door there are almost floor to ceiling windows that also have working shutters.  There is also a fireplace on the left hand wall as you come in the front door.  We don't intend to reinstate a working fire in this but I think it will look fab filled with logs for the wood burner upstairs.

The large windows either side of the front door

The living room was the Board Room for the PR firm that owned the company, so it was in really good condition when we got the keys.  We plan on causing a bit of havoc in this room though as we want to reinstate the fireplace (between the two alcoves) and knock through a wall to create double, glazed doors to the kitchen.  There is a beautiful ceiling rose in this room but it does not currently have a light fitting in it, I can't wait to get a big chandelier for this room.

The future living room

The wall between the two cupboard doors, with the radiator on it, is the wall that we are knocking through to the kitchen.  The above picture was taken on the night we got the keys, can you see the pizza boxes by the chair and the bottle of bubbles and rekorderlig cider on the floor?? :)

The kitchen currently has no plumbing but it should be easy enough to run this from the current toilets next door.  The left hand wall, down next to the window, will have a small knock through and house a door to the pantry.  Oh how I have always wanted a pantry :)  I have already planned out the heights I want the shelves at and how I am going to organise the food I put in there!

 The future kitchen

There is also a mezzanine space above what will be the the downstairs cloakroom and pantry.  B and I can only just stand up in this room (the ceiling is only about 6 feet high) but it's great to have this room as it is where the boiler lives and can provide storage for bits and bobs.  As the property was used as an office, this room is currently stuffed full of internet and phone cabling, and we discovered recently that the previous owners had actually paid for their own 'fibre to the cabinet' internet connection which apparently costs a fortune.  Sadly is also costs a small fortune each month if we want to use it, so it will be normal broadband for us! 

The mezzanine houses the boiler and will be the internet hub

I'm going to leave you with one last picture.  It's the view from the ground floor looking up to the cupola at the top of the house - another reason the hallway will be flooded with light!  The cupola is dome shaped, currently leaks(!), and at the moment fitted with opaque plastic instead of glass.  I can't wait to see the difference when we have it repaired and fitted with clear glass :)

I hope you like the ground floor, come back next Tuesday for the next tour :)

Roz xx