I love our back stairs! Of course, I don't know your floor plan but for us, our back stairs are so useful for slinking between bedrooms and kitchen when others are in the area near the formal stairs. I'm thankful for this private "secret passage" every day.
Lots of great tips! The first floor plan you showed, changing the living room at the front of the house to an office....I think that's a mistake. That's going the route of a lot of new housing developments where there is no visual connection to the road, sidewalks and community from inside the house. (The window you see in the front of the house goes to a bedroom/office, not a living or family room.) This makes for more disconnected living, where people don't feel as connected to their neighbors and community.
Todays buyers love the open flowing open concept combining the kitchen, eating area, an island, & family room & even access to a deck, if possible, all at the same time. Think "open concept" if you are remodeling.
I had an older house with the servants staircase in the back. I would have NEVER removed it as it gave such an elegant unique vibe and made us feel special, kids loved it we could get upstairs quicker etc.
We use our formal dining room about 20 times a year. Funny, when you speak to or read articles from professional designers, that's the one room they say needs to come back.
I had a very oversized rectangular living room. I brought each end wall in about 6 feet. On one end, I was able to add on a huge master bedroom closet & a hallway stackable washer/dryer unit. The washer dryer was ez bc this is a ranch house & the plumbing was right underneath in the basement to hook in to. On the other side of the living room, I made a small office. Now, the living room no longer has wasted space & is just an average sized room. I added French doors & side lights that lead to the deck. Now, when entertaining on the deck, the French doors are open for additional seating/entertaining.
We did that with the 1st floor bathroom. We took like a foot off the living room to expand the closet in the bathroom. Otherwise we only had 1 tiny coat closet for the vacuums, mops, etc. Then in our master bedroom, we took 2 feet off our closet to make a big 2 person shower in the bathroom. Was totally worth it in both cases.
Another great video! We are lucky to have a great floor plan that is very open, light and bright. 😊We have a office tucked away on the first floor that my husband is very thankful to have 😊
I realize it's not typical, but we use our formal dining room all the time for Sabbath meals and entertaining, and our formal living room doubles as a play room/dance studio. Office is in the basement. Unconventional but works great for us.
I suggest making your pantry, well, palatial. Push that wall into the enlarged kitchen then have storage in your pantry and laundry area double the size.
While I’m not a fan of knocking down all the walls as you suggested at 7:41, I do think you are spot-on with the scenario at 8:40 about how updating a room may not help you get your house sold, and will be using it to bolster my argument for removing a wall between the kitchen and dining room in an upcoming kitchen remodel. Up until now, my reasons for combining the two spaces were strictly design-based. Now, off to watch the rest of the video.
99% of people can't see the full potential of their home & property, so they really do need to talk to the pros (like you suggest) to get the best upgrade/remodel results.
I find I am increasingly using my "formal" dining room as an office. The light is great and the dining table is a big space to spread out on. I have thought of adding a wall of attractive shelving/cabinetry with a small counter to help it function both as an office and (occasionally) as a dining area or buffet space...
Thank you Kati! We have just completed a remodel of some of our spaces with this idea in mind. I'd love to consider all you have said here for a desired kitchen reno.
You’re preaching to the people that do flippers that are not planning to stay there more than two years. If that’s your mentality that you’re trying to make it nice for someone else? It’s wrong because everyone has different taste and different ideas. You’re not gonna please everyone just build it to your liking, if someone doesn’t like it when you sell the house, they can redo it on their own time with their own money, so just enjoy the house that you have worked so hard for and make it just the way you like it!!!!
People ask me this question every day. So my answer should be “put in anything you like and don’t worry if you get a return on it?” Many of my viewers need every dollar when they sell
We have a corner fireplace which makes the whole living room lopsided. I ended up taking down art from above the sofa wall and hanging it above the fire place because no matter how I arranged the furniture either the fireplace was too far to the side or the sofa was not under the picture. Our entry way goes right into the one and only great room and living room and kitchen have a laundry room between, the dinning room is in the back. Our dinning room is way too small when we have guests over. We are a family of 6 and I have 9 siblings plus some are married and have kids. My parents have no walls in the common areas and can fit a lot more people in a smaller house.
I'm never going to sell my home & I'm never going to buy another one. For some reason I can't stop watching your videos! 😄 BTW, you look & sound just like a young Jamie Lee Curtis!
Floor plan is huge for me. Our builder had a lot of plans with bedroom by the entry way and common areas in the back of the house. While looking in the backyard from the living room is ideal, bedrooms by the entry way would not work for me. A lot of stop by guests would just stand by the door instead of sitting down in the living room.
better get an engineer in there to tell you whether all those walls you're removing are load-bearing, or not, and the cost for installing extra heavy duty (whatever the term is) trusses into an existing system, where there are HVAC, electrical and plumbing, my gosh it gets expensive in a hurry.
Unfortunately our master bathroom is extremely small and it can only be expanded by losing a very small bedroom that’s right next to it. Our daughter uses it as a playroom right now. One day, she won’t have all those toys so it will be wasted space. I know we’re not supposed to lose bedrooms, but it makes no sense to have our master bathroom be so small.
yikes who in the world has $350k to remodel...probably 99% of your audience does not have that kind of money, it would be great for you to include everyone, as in, the $35k kitchen remodel.
I’m learning so much from your videos. Thank you! We have a very spacious loft area upstairs that works well for our family as a work out space, keyboard area, homeschool desk area, but I’m wondering how to stage it to appeal to a larger audience.
