At KP Spaces, our focus is all about bringing JOY into people’s homes through interior design in the Seattle area. And when we first met our Mt. Baker project clients, the existing state of their home brought them anything BUT joy, largely in part to their funky floor plan! Today’s blog post is all about how we took this home’s tricky layout, and made it into a much more functional, joyful space for our clients.
For background, the home was built by a previous owner who – we think – did a lot of the work themselves. The way the house was laid out felt very DIY, from diagonal walls to doors that hit into toilets every time you opened them, and so much more. There were so many quirky facets to the existing design, that living in the house felt like an inconvenience. To sum things up, the floor plan simply didn’t work for our clients.
First order of business in our design process: Make the home more functional for our clients by changing the current floorplan.
Floorplan Change #1: Kitchen/Pantry/Powder Bath Layout
The biggest challenge in our clients’ existing kitchen, adjoining pantry, and powder bath, was the fact that they couldn’t open the refrigerator all the way! Their refrigerator was squeezed tightly into a corner of the room and butted up against their powder bathroom door, making it impossible to open fully, or access the bathroom while someone was trying to cook. Not to mention, the powder bath had an awkward corner sink, and the pantry’s layout wasted valuable space.
Our solution? Rework the spacing of the cabinets, to allow us to shift the refrigerator away from the corner of the room – giving it more breathing room and plenty of space to open the doors fully. We also decided to swap the power bath and the pantry on the floor plan. This allowed us to nix the corner sink, and make the pantry a more seamless and accessible part of the kitchen.
Floorplan Change #2: Expand the size of the hall bath
Simply put, the hall bath on the second level just didn’t make sense. First off, the toilet was wedged tightly between the sink and the cramped shower, making it nearly impossible to move around the space, not to mention it didn’t meet code! Secondly, the door from the hallway swung directly INTO the toilet, banging it every time you opened the door.
Our solution here was to borrow a couple of inches from the adjacent laundry room and primary bathroom. By moving the walls ever so slightly, the hall bath gained so much more breathing room, and allowed us to install the new toilet, shower and sink to meet code (without losing functionality in the adjacent spaces)! We also shifted the placement of the door so it swings open effortlessly in front of the vanity – not onto the toilet 🙂 It’s crazy how these little tweaks completely transformed the comfort and function of the space.
Floorplan Change #3: Rework the primary suite
Our design plan in the primary bathroom was focused on squaring off an angled wall and updating the floorplan of the primary bathroom to allow for a spacious double vanity and roomy spa shower. We believe that the diagonal wall was a last minute addition when the original builder realized there was not enough room to fit everything into the bathroom as it was laid out. Yes, things were funky in there.
By rearranging the floorplan of the room, and swapping the shower space with vanity, we were able to straighten the diagonal wall AND make the space way more functional for our clients. The new floorplan allowed us to design a roomy, spa-like shower and a generously-sized double vanity.
When it comes to effective interior design, it’s not always about adding square feet to make a floorplan bigger. It’s about finding creative solutions to rearrange a space more efficiently, which makes it feel much bigger. And when a home is functional, liveable and easy to move around in, that’s what brings our clients joy every day.
Check out Mt. Baker Renovation Part II here.