Reply With QuoteI used to have a house in Aberdeen where the front door went straight into the lounge and the lounge straight into the kitchen in the back. Stairs were in the lounge.
I have seen a house but oddly enough it has no hallway. You basically step in and either go up the stairs or turn right into the reception room. I guess it makes sense if you want to create two separate homes but I don't and it was simply built this way.
The house is OK otherwise (well it has a garage to do a conversion in) but I can't get my head around the no hallway bit. A porch may do it, but I suspect it may not be allowed as it will comprise the front parking.
Thoughts, comments?
thanks
Last edited by samswatch; 19th January 2018 at 17:01.
I used to have a house in Aberdeen where the front door went straight into the lounge and the lounge straight into the kitchen in the back. Stairs were in the lounge.
Yes I have and I had a joiner build a stud partition wall and doorway which was then obviously plastered, dressed and painted. New hallway - job done. Loads of houses around our way have had hallways built in what were originally open-plan rooms.
I live in one. It's a terrace house and we go straight into the front room.
I live in a cottage built around 1860, originally stairs ahead, kitchen to right and living room to left.
Following this and your other recent thread about alterations, if you have a friend or relative who is in one of the building trades or who has done a reasonable amount of property development or home improvement it might be a good idea to bring them along to any other viewings.Originally Posted by samswatch
Alternatively photos (obviously being mindful of vendors' privacy) or drawings would help the collective minds of the forum to make relevant suggestions.
How is it? Pros and cons?
Think about where you will store coats and boots. No hallway in my house but do have a porch that serves that purpose
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Since you ask, my immediate thoughts are why would you want to convert a garage into anything other than somewhere to store your MX-5?
"A man of little significance"
Yes, had one. Straight in to lounge with stairs up or left into lounge then onto kitchen. Hated it. Cold blast of air every time door was opened in winter and coats on wall of lounge by stairs.
I never got used to it and never liked it. But, needs must and it was all i could afford. Given a choice, never again. No choice....you roll with it.
We like it. Shoes off as soon as you come in, please.
My last place was straight into a porch and that went straight into the kitchen diner. Never bothered me for 7 years!
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We live in an old (read very old) house converted from three cottages and you step straight into the dining room. Never seen it as a problem.
Before we bought it a different front door was used which took you into a stud-partition hallway. We removed that and it has made a huge difference to the overall usability of the house.
Never quite understood what it is with hallways. When I lived in the US I can't remember a single house with one.
I once had a dog without a bone..
Thanks all. I guess I am so used to living in a house with a hallway that it feels odd not having a hallway and where to put shoes and coats etc. I guess it’s just proving hard to imagine. I could just make the front reception room the hallway, lol
I am really not sure how to add the floor plan or a picture from the front doorway.
Here is the property on right move
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-67251638.html
Last edited by samswatch; 19th January 2018 at 20:58.
Poor people’s houses are like this.
There's something funny, a line in the mortar, just above the door. Is the house the same as the neighbouring ones or has it been converted or the internal layout modified somehow?
I think the owners before built on top of the garage and that small room would have been extende. Would that line be there from there
Last edited by samswatch; 19th January 2018 at 22:05.
That's pretty much everyone round our way then. I had no idea
A guess - and no more than that - but I wonder if that line above the front door is because originally there was no rendering around the front door and it would have matched the brickwork to the right of the large window?
The garage looks like a later addition, which as you say then likely had the room built on top - hence the feint line between the garage and the room above. The dimensions of the window in the extension seem out of proportion to the window to its right.
To disguise these additions it looks like they then rendered the entire left-hand side of the front of the house.
As said, just a guess, and I would think the survey would confirm.
Seen them on TV.That's pretty much everyone round our way then. I had no idea
I never noticed the windows being different! Sounds very plausible.
Thanks
Yeah, I don't remember this one having a hallway...had a nice conservatory, but no hallway.
Going for a second viewing of a house on monday, its without, wont be a big job to put up a stud wall and light weight door.
Last edited by jimp; 20th January 2018 at 12:12.
For that price range you could buy this one about 20 miles from me. It does have a hall (downside is the distance to commute)
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-62748823.html
Not if you are gutting it and bringing it into the 21st century at the same time.
Or were you leaving the decor like that
Our last place had no real hallway, and after a while it drove me mad (first world problems eh!)
We moved a few years ago, our place was built in 1906 and the edwardians loved their hallways
Simon
Don’t rub it in, if I didn’t have kids I would move lol
Not sure how you would even get a hallway into that, given that the stair to 1st floor is there. You'd need to remove a hell of a lot of the front room to achieve that.
The front room needs a lot of work - shocking taste!
How about turning the garage into the hallway and knocking the reception / dining room into one room?
You may be able to lose the wall between garage and dining room as well with a steel
seal up old front door or put a window in
S
Thanks for all the good ideas but I think I will pass on the house and wait for something else. I can see the potential but I just don’t have the skill set or money to execute it well.
Funnily enough my Mrs took my youngest to a friend of hers who lived in a terrace house.
When they came home my son told me in rather a shocked voice that they had to sit in the hall! In fact it was their lounge straight in from the front door.
Cheers,
Neil.
Just to update the thread I went to see another house today and realised how much I like having a hallway and a wider and shallower set of stairs. That place was not right so will just see what else pops up on the market. Thank you all very much for your input, it is greatly appreciated.
We have no hallway.
Front door opens into a dining room / stairs to 1st floor. Opening it removes any heat accumulated in the ground floor accommodation.
Some while ago we lost the front door key and have not replaced it since we don't use the front door. No-one (with any sense) comes a-knocking anyway, and we have a perfectly serviceable back door.
Future improvements might include sticking an enclosed porch on the front.
My eldest daughter lives in a Victorian 2 bed terrace in Reading - you walk straight into the living room from the street.
Ive suggested that she has a small porch built as a number of nearby houses have done but she says that it doesn't bother her at all.
I wouldn't like it at all for the following reasons
Cultural / religious - all shoes must be removed upon entry
Practical - letting the cold in, where to hang coats
Psychological - separation between personal space and the outside world
My youngest lives in a first floor 2 bed flat with a secure main entrance on the ground floor. She has a hallway.
I have always liked this setup so when looking for a 2 bed flat recently sought out a similar layout. Before we decided on one we rejected some really nice ones that didn't have a hallway.
My eldest daughter lives in a Victorian 2 bed terrace in Reading - you walk straight into the living room from the street.
I would be scared of walking out the door after a heavy night and getting run over
We live in a terraced house (or cottage as the estate agents would have it) which is like that.
Pros: none really, and when I looked at the house I was very uncertain about it, but it hasn’t been too bad
Cons:
- noise, but fortunately we live in a street with little traffic. However, the postie and flyer deliveries do regularly cause us to jump. Decent door and damped letterbox would solve.
- heat loss, but it’s less of a problem than I had feared.
- the biggest pain in the arse is an issue that you will not have, given that there is a garage - getting wet bikes in. Solvable, but a hall of some sort would be so much better.
In our previous house (an 18th C cottage on a busy road through a village) the door opened onto one step, then you were on the road - no footpath. The traffic would come within a metre of the front of the house.
After that experience (we were only renting it thankfully) having a front garden was an absolute requirement for a new property, if only for safety's sake.
I think I got seduced by the garage space!
Some years ago I plotted our energy usage to show the effect of various improvements. As can be seen below, the addition of front and rear porches made quite a significant effect.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
We've had a hallway in most of properties and once just a porch.
I wouldn't purchase a house without a Hallway if I can help it.
The amount of crap that the kids bring in would ruin whatever room we entered into, so much better to keep it contained to the hallway. In fact we might even rip the carpet out and tile it for ease of cleaning
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