interior design

Drive more space at home without having to sacrifice wall surfaces

You can personalise many techniques from your coffee to your automobile to suit your needs, so why should your house be any different? Open-plan living offers one approach to changing your space but there are several other solutions for reconfiguring your home which can be less drastic. Make your home feel more spacious, cover away clutter and give yourself extra room for the things you like the most - all without sacrificing walls.

Open up up a staircase

Image obstructions, like a chunky wooden staircase, can make your home feel dark and cramped, particularly if your hallway's small. Instead, think about swapping it for a glass-sided design. Not only will this allow extra light to reflect and be refracted, making the area feel brighter, its give the illusion more space. Made using laminated or toughened glass solar panels that can be ongoing or framed with wooden or metal (often with wooden steps), you can even add recessed light for light-time illumination. A professional staircase designer or father will help you choose a design in series with the rest of your home.

Install a specific porch

Aufora

Image source: Anglian Home Improvements

Although some properties have space for an utility or boot room, what to do with the functional but space-hogging aspects of our homes can be tricky. Built onto the front or side of a house, an surrounded porch is an inexpensive mini extension that can solve your clutter problems. Porches generally are a simple composition of dwarf walls, glass windows and an exterior door but you can include lighting and power electrical sockets to make them more functional. Small projects normally belong to permitted development but look into the Planning Portal or with your local authorities first. Good uses for a porch include dangling coats, umbrellas and shoes, storing wood for a stove inside or as a home for a condensing tumbler dryer (though insulate the porch well as some won't work below 5C). A local builder can advise you on what's possible.

Examine more: create more space without moving house

Convert a cellar

Image source: London Basement

Unless you aren't a wine collector, chances are your cellar or basement could be put to much better use than a general store-all junk room. While loft space conversions usually wrap up as bedrooms, converting the space below your floor creates the opportunity of an additional room for almost anything you like (and could cost around the same for a fundamental loft area conversion), from an extra time activity and composing area to a research or location for a home business. Cellar and basement conversions are also perfect as playrooms or utility rooms. As long as you're not switching the floor height to create more headroom, most likely unlikely to wish planning agreement and a conversion can be finished in simply a few weeks. Do more research at

Add an orangery or sunroom

Graphic source: Amiga

Built using less glass and more brickwork when compared to a conservatory, orangeries and sunrooms have higher scope for year-round use. Sunrooms usually look more like a traditional file format with a solid roof top and enormous areas of glazing at either part. An orangery usually has a partially glazed roofing with a roof lantern and the sides either built of brick with doors and windows within them or some completely glazed walls. The reduced amount of glass means that these additions are more comfortable to spend time in during very sunny days, too. They're both good for using as a second community hall, family room or for dining, yet unlike an open-plan extension, can have glass doors separating them from the key part of the house, giving you extra space only when you need it.