Too many old houses are like being in a mouse maze, long hallways lined with little rooms, and walls that divide up spaces that could be shared and open to allow better airflow and access to sunlight! Maybe at one time, this made sense somehow, but now this kind of home feels more like a cave than a comfortable place to live! Let’s consider some renovations that you could do to make your old house feel bigger on the inside without having to add on to the outside!
Stacking Doors – Get rid of those old rectangular boards with knobs leading in and out of your home and replace them with a lovely new stacking door that is all made of glass to allow tons of extra light through it! The stacking part refers to the glass panels that can slide across each other in various configurations to allow maximum air and traffic flow, and the sun to shine in! These stackers can number as many as eight, so you could cover an entire wall with them! Imagine sitting in your living room and instead of looking up at regular old windows you would have to stand to see out of, you could sit on your sofa gazing out at the entire garden through your open stacker doors, feeling the fresh, blossom scented breeze blow in as you enjoy your beer and crisps! It will be the best of indoor and outdoor life, and if the breeze grows too chill just shut them, the light will still come through!
Tear Down Those Walls – The place that most people think of when we say this is the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and yes, you definitely should! Much has already been said about that particular renovation, so let’s move upstairs, or to the back of the house where the bedrooms are. We are going to consider for today’s purposes that you are either single or a couple whose kids have flown the roost. Now, how many rooms do you have down that hallway? Most homes have two or three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a couple of closets.
Now this might sound shocking, but why not make the whole place one big space? Tear out all those walls and doors to create a wide-open crash pad that you can actually move around in! Do you really need a guest room? No, they can crash on the living room sofa! Do you really need all those closets? No, they are full of junk anyway, throw it all out in the garage, no one puts their cars in there anymore anyway! Do you really need that bathroom? Well, maybe leave that for privacy sake, but if that isn’t an issue it can be made open as well, and become a spa corner with room for a walk-in shower and jacuzzi bath! Have you always wanted a pool table? Now you have space for one! The main thing is you won’t feel like your house is a mouse maze anymore, you can stretch out, do yoga, play ping pong, and whatever you desire you will have the space for now!
Enjoy your new big on the inside home!