Wasted Spaces

[Snax]

I know that I am not alone on this, but no doubt many of us have looked around at our houses and realized the potential to capture wasted space from the original design. This not only helps to alleviate clutter, but honing in on the idea of energy efficiency, allows folks to remain in smaller homes vs. upgrading to larger less efficient ones. So this thread is a place to talk about whatever projects you may be engaged in or planning.

That said, I'm going to talk about our current space efficiency upgrade in progress.

While we have always had what I would term a reasonable amount of kitchen cabinet space, it has always felt inadequate in terms of allowing us to stock up on anything when store bargains come along. Likewise, our 1/2 bath adjoining the kitchen via a common wall is about 38 square feet and was equipped with one of those 48" long vanities along the shared wall. Putting 2 and 2 together (we came up with 5), we recognized that such a large vanity represents a rather large waste of space in our 1350 sq. ft house, and space that we could use in the kitchen area.

So anyway, to summarize the project, we have removed the vanity and will be replacing it with a pedestal style sink that will be shifted over to one side, and in the space freed by doing this, punch in a closet style pantry from the kitchen on the other side. This little addition alone will more than DOUBLE the space we use for dry and canned food storage - along with provide us a convenient place for a recycling bin, all without hurting the functionality of the 1/2 bath. (Which incidentally forces our daughter to keep her clutter out of it in favor of using the other full bath shared with her 2 brothers.)

I just started the demolition phase of this project yesterday, but there really weren't any surprises like NOT finding vent stacks in the way, etc.

Breaking our budget down for the two rooms, we are confident that we can do the bath for under $200 using all new materials including a new tile floor, even less if I can find good recycled materials, and for about $150 or so to do the kitchen side. Not bad for increasing our useable food storage by such a huge margin.

What's your current or future project plan?

[bowtieguy]

we plan on adding a bedroom by splitting our large living room. add two walls and there it is...3 bedroom house becomes 4.

def not buying a new home and expecting ours to sell in this economy!

[Snax]

Dang, I totally dropped the ball on updates here didn't I?

Heh heh, well despite our mortgage issues, our budget for this project really wasn't too far off the mark except for breaking down and buying a new pedestal sink, faucet, and light fixture since nothing at the recycling yard was worth the trouble. Those added about $250 to the project. That said, it turned out very well.

We ended up actually revising the plan a bit shortly after my original post, more than doubling the planned pantry space without impacting bathroom functionality in any way by simply moving the bathroom door to a different wall. It's not 100% complete, lacking a mirror and tiling in the pantry, but it was definately worth the effort.

If nothing else, it has been a confidence builder in my plumbing, electrical, and tiling skills. My finish work still leaves a little to be desired, but it's one of those things where I know where all of the flaws are, but hardly anyone else would notice.

[GasSavers_Pete]

Snax,
Yeah I know what you mean.
Every time I do a project the only thing I see are the flaws after it is completed.

One bug bear with me is the amount of wasted space in newly built houses.
Typically there is a gap between the bath and the shower and it is a completely useless amount as well...not even large enough to get in there and clean out but large enough to be noticed and a dust collector.

Cheers , Pete.

[theholycow]

I'm curious: What does a bath and shower look like in Australia? In the US, I think it's most common that they're a single unit.

This would be a common integrated bathtub/shower in the US:

[VetteOwner]

sounds like a good idea, we did something similar in our basement and built a shelf over our downstairs fridge(and over the chest freezer) so we have about a 6-8 foot long by 2feet deep shelf for dry/canned stuff

sure beats trying to squeeze it in the upstairs cabnets! now we can get to stuff without knocking it off the shelf

[GasSavers_Pete]

HolyCow,
We have those as well but the separate bath and shower module arrangement is more common.
The shower is the normal phone box sized fibreglass base unit (around 34 inches square) with three walls made from plastic panels (called Laminex here) and the fourth is usually a glass door.

The modular one piece unit is gaining popularity as out population ages but so far the conventional arrangement still holds the majority of sales.

Pete.