By sunny 
When buying a property, it is often said that ‘location, location, location’ are the three most important factors. However, when it comes to decoration, the most important thing is not style, personality or creativity.
The size of the house space is not the key factor in determining whether life is comfortable or not, what really matters is the layout. A good layout can achieve static and dynamic zoning, ensure light ventilation, sound insulation and warmth, make the opening and depth reasonable, and also bring a good line of movement. Therefore, the first step in design is to plan the layout. Style or personality may affect the living experience in one year, but the layout will affect the whole life.
Here is a case study to illustrate how to start this ‘first step of transformation’.
First, the first look at the house type: advantages and shortcomings co-exist
The floor plans provided by developers are usually quite rough, and the dimensions are labelled with the outer diameter including the wall thickness. Therefore, the first thing to do after getting the keys, is to carefully measure the net size of the house. Initially, the house type seems to be quite good.
Dynamic and static zoning
The dynamic zone (living room, dining room, kitchen) is separated from the static zone (bedrooms) without disturbing each other. The kitchen and bathroom doors do not face the front door, and the bedroom doors do not face the living room. Most importantly, sleeping is not affected by watching TV or cooking. However, the location of the bathroom is less than ideal and will inevitably pass by the bedroom door.
North-South Passage
North-south ventilation requires windows running north and south of the living room to create air convection. The large balcony of the living room and the north window of the kitchen in the dynamic area can create convection, and the north and south bedroom doors in the quiet area are open to each other, and their respective windows can also create convection. However, the entry door separates the air convection between the north balcony and the south balcony of the living room. In addition, the master bedroom’s bathroom is a dark bathroom with no window.
Square house type
Square house types are easy to design and have a high overall utilisation rate. A house type with many corners will reduce the actual usable area. Moreover, a square house type makes people feel flat and stable, which is more comfortable psychologically. However, the aisle at the entrance door is too wide, and although there is an additional north balcony, the aisle squeezes out the kitchen and dining room. In addition, the bedroom in the north-east corner is too deep.
Reasonable layout
The space inside the fire door is incorporated into the house with an extra north-facing balcony and a folded entrance hall. The entrance has a large north-facing window, which is open and bright. The living room faces south and the double bedroom faces south with a large south-facing balcony. No narrow walkway, high space utilisation. The kitchen is separate from the toilet, so there is no crossover odour. However, there is no balcony in the bedroom, so it is not convenient to dry clothes. In addition, the kitchen is small and can only be an L-shape kitchen, while the U-shape kitchen (shorter moving line and higher utilisation) is undoubtedly a better choice.
Reasonable movement line
The line of movement is the route of movement of people in the building, should be in line with human habits, the shorter the better.
- Housework line: the living room balcony is reserved for water and sewage, so you can finish washing and drying clothes without moving (it’s not too elegant to see all the clothes outside the living room). It is also reasonable to change shoes, put the fridge, wash hands and change clothes after coming home from grocery shopping, so you don’t have to go back.
- Residential movement lines: the movement lines for waking up, washing up, cooking and eating are more reasonable, with no crossings. The movements of people moving around the house do not interfere with each other. However, going out of the house requires going back to the bedroom again to change clothes, creating a cross repetition of routes. However, this is difficult to avoid, because few families can design a cloakroom at the door that the whole family can use, and there is no need.
- Waiting line: the door guests can not directly see the house, in favour of privacy. There is enough space to change shoes and walk smoothly to the living room. However, the bathroom is in the deepest part of the house and must pass through the bedroom door.
The depth of the room is basically reasonable
The size of the room, opening (the width of the main lighting surface) and depth (the depth perpendicular to the main lighting surface) are basically reasonable. It is said that the ratio of opening and depth is 4:6. Bedrooms should not be too large, too large bedroom in addition to wasting area, but also difficult to create a sense of warmth.
However, the opening of the master bedroom is too big (net width of 3.7 metres), losing the sense of depth and appearing to be not very spacious. But the advantage is that you can put an extra row of cabinets across the bed. The depth of the bedroom in the north-east corner is too big (net length 5.2 metres), and the house with small openings and large depths has poor lighting and ventilation, as well as wasting area.
Second, think about the pattern: must change
The biggest advantage of this house type is that the two bedrooms face south, which is commonly known as the ‘glasses house type’. The biggest drawback is that the kitchen is too small, Shaanxi rolling pin can not be used, and the refrigerator can only be placed outside the kitchen, it is inconvenient to get. In addition, the depth of the bedroom in the north-east corner is too big, which is a waste of space.
Fortunately, the outer wall of the kitchen is not a load-bearing wall or a structural wall. Load-bearing walls are walls that support the weight of the upper floors and cannot be moved. The walls inside a frame house are generally not load-bearing walls, and if they are hollow brick walls, they are definitely not load-bearing walls. The diagonal row of bricks used in the combination of beams and walls must be a non-load-bearing wall. Structural walls, i.e. shear walls, are used to prevent structural shear (shear) damage and are usually reinforced concrete.
Expanding the kitchen
The neighbour’s renovation verified that the external wall of the kitchen is a non-load bearing wall because it is made of hollow bricks and the wall is not load bearing because of the diagonal row of bricks at the joint of the wall and the beam. So the process of smashing and rebuilding the wall began.
The kitchen was remodelled to have a clear width of 2.4 metres and a depth of 2.79 metres. The kitchen area increased by 24% (5.25 m2 → 6.48 m2) and the storage space increased by 84% (1.8 m3 → 3.3 m3). Moreover, it is possible to make a U-shaped kitchen with more reasonable movement lines, and the refrigerator can be placed inside the kitchen near the dining room.
In addition, after the kitchen wall is moved out, the width of the entrance hall is still 1.4 metres, which is enough for access and does not affect ventilation. And the width of the dining room has also increased, adding a set of sideboards is not crowded.
The challenge is to consider how to design the kitchen door. Inside door is definitely not possible, because the door behind the position of the refrigerator, you can only consider the sliding door. In order to place the sliding door, you need to reduce the width of the kitchen door frame, otherwise there is no place to put the door when it is pushed open. Of course, it would be better if all the south wall of the kitchen could be removed, and it could be converted into a whole glass door. But the south-east corner of the kitchen is a pipe, the wall can not be moved.
Partition out the storage room
The plan is to add two sets of back-to-back overhead cabinets to the bedroom in the north-east corner, with a wardrobe on one side and a storage cupboard on the other. The lockers are 80cm away from the south wall, allowing for the partitioning of a storage room.
Although a storage room is not the answer to all storage problems (it’s the proximity of storage that makes the best use of everything), a storage room is a blessing for those who are nostalgic for the old days. Also, reducing the size of the bedroom is good for insulation.
In addition, if you change the bedroom door that opens along the wall to open away from the wall, you can also have two doors in one, with the bedroom door opening as a pantry door.
Entry doors moved outwards
As the area inside the fire door is incorporated into the floor area, it will result in two doors to the entry. For the sake of north-south permeability, the original entry door is moved outwards to the inner area immediately inside the fire door. Note that the fire door cannot be removed!
Adding Glass Door
After the original entry door is moved outward, the north balcony leads directly to the south balcony of the living room, achieving true north-south permeability, which can create a penetrating wind, which is very comfortable in summer. However, the north-west wind in winter is also fierce, and the 90-degree floor-to-ceiling large glass windows of the north balcony have less insulation effect, which is not conducive to keeping warm.
In order to keep warm, add glass doors to the north balcony, using double flush doors, airtight, but also does not affect the light. It can be opened in summer without affecting the ventilation. In addition, the floor heating does not need to be laid to the north balcony, but also can save expenditure.
Third, before remodelling furniture
House decoration must first set the furniture after the hard furnishings. So that the whole can be delineated and hidden cabinets. The choice of furniture is mainly affected by two factors, one is the style, the other is the budget.
Style
The style of interior design is mainly reflected in the treatment of floors, walls and ceilings, as well as the style and colour of furniture, lamps and accessories.
The popular styles vary from period to period, but the current popular styles are almost all derived from the following styles: Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Art Deco and Modern.
- Baroque style: originated from religious buildings and courts, gold and silver, exaggerated curves, opulent, is a kind of luxury style.
- Rococo style: a feminine Baroque style, extremely elaborate, complex curves, gorgeous and slender, a romantic style.
- Neoclassical style: is chasing the ancient Greek and Roman architectural style, stable symmetry, quiet simplicity, elegant lines, American style has a neoclassical embodiment.
- Art Deco style: advocating the beauty of machinery, geometric symmetry, simple straight lines, new materials, is a modern style on the decorative arts.
- Modern style: function-oriented, neutral and hard, no colour system, simple shape, Scandinavian style, MUJI style are the embodiment of modernist style.
- American style: actually a mishmash of styles, spacious and expensive, free and comfortable, casual and unrestrained, including traditional country style, neoclassical style, and modern American style and other categories.
If it is not a villa, it is not recommended to easily try Baroque style or Rococo style, these two with gold, silver, marble, velvet will be coordinated with the wide space. The safer styles are modernist or modern American.
Budget
The budget is recommended to relax a little, after all, spent so much money on a reinforced concrete frame, and the decoration directly determines the quality of living.
If the furniture is customised system cabinets, then the decoration budget is better determined, usually 3 times the system cabinets is the decoration budget.
Due to the limited budget (although it has been doubled on the basis of the budget proposed by my mother), solid wood furniture will not be considered, after all, good wood is relatively rare. So the style will have to be a Scandinavian style with mainly panelised furniture.
Selection of custom manufacturers, found that the choice is still relatively large, my principle is: to find large manufacturers, well-known brands in the special offer. It just so happens that there is a home in the special promotion, choose two packages can meet my needs. Moreover, the hinges of this home with Blum (Blum), Hettich (Hettich). Hinges are like human joints, open and close several times a day, must choose the best.
Various cabinet effect
In order to solve the problem of living room clutter, the TV wall to make a whole cabinet. Customised shoe cabinets, bookcases and bedside tables.
The first step in remodelling starts with pattern planning. I hope this article can provide some reference and inspiration for you.