Fallen Oak Cottage Layout Thoughts

As we continue working on preparing our new Fallen Oak Cottage to be moved by the end of the year, we’ve started thinking through some of the issues with the house’s layout.

The house, on the whole, is very typical of older homes: a very boxy layout with very distinct rooms. This, on the whole, doesn’t bother me. I think at some point “open concept” will fall out of favor, and I think home design will see a return to more defined spaces.

First, let’s share what we absolutely love about the current layout:

What Works

Two Bathrooms

As someone who functions in an old house with only one bathroom, the prospect of having two fully functioning bathrooms is spectacular. Whether we keep this house to rent or eventually sell, having two bathrooms makes this an infinitely more marketable. There are a few issues within each bathroom that we’ll have to address. But on the whole, the bathroom situation is definitely worth celebrating.

The Kitchen Size

The size of the kitchen, coupled with the adjacent dining/breakfast nook leaves so many options in this space. Should we roughly keep the current cabinet configuration, I love the idea fo adding in a big island with more seating to make meal prep more of a family affair.

But the current layout also leaves us with a few things to think through.

Problem Areas

Laundry Room

Currently, half the back porch is partially enclosed for a makeshift laundry room. We definitely don’t love this set-up and want to open back up the porch for full use. However, this leaves us thinking through where we would relocate this space. We’ve thought about carving out some of the dining space to make sort of a pantry/laundry room. Our other option has involved carving out some of unused space in the incredibly strange horizontal secondary bathroom and utilize it as laundry space.

The Disconnected Kitchen and Living Room

One of the things I love about being on vacation with my family is being together. And if we do keep this home to rent out, I fear that the separateness of the kitchen from the living room will leave whoever is in charge of food prep a bit isolated.

We’ve talked about relocating the bathroom between the living room and kitchen to open it up, essentially carving out some dining space in the process. We’d probably relocate the bathroom to the current dining area, along with the washer and dryer from the laundry room.

But this “solution” also presents some problems. First, it sort of it doesn’t keep with the original style and integrity of the home. And that’s really important to us. That involves ripping out a ton of original bead board (that we would, of course, salvage and reuse elsewhere). Second, “open concept” presents problems as well, from excess noise to having the mess of a kitchen on display.

Third, and probably most importantly: This option would leave us very little wall space to place appliances like the refrigerator, stove and dishwasher. The back wall has a very large window that we would want to keep open for the sake of the future lake views, and we certainly don’t want appliances encroaching on the living area by using the entire side wall. Certainly lots to consider with this set-up.

Though this was honestly my original plan with the home, I’ve come around to the idea of working within the defined spaces we have. And the kitchen/dining area has such a ton of potential as-is. So within the past month, I have really moved away from this idea and embracing the distinct spaces.

We’ve certainly got some time to think this through, but the wheels are turning as we get closer to the move and the anticipated renovation!