Restoring the hallway wrongly

[Londonterrace]

**Update at end of thread**

Hello,

My second thread here and this time I've got a question about hallways. I've got a fairly typical Victorian terrace and the downstairs has been thoroughly knocked through so that the front room, back room and hallway are all one, and the stairs are in the living room. The hallway would originally have turned a corner around the stairs and connected to the kitchen.

We have gone round and round in circles about whether to put the hallway back in. I would like for all the heat not to fly up the stairs and to have some separation between the front door and the living area. But reinstating the hallway makes the back room really quite tiny by modern standards, and it would be difficult to have guests around the table. So recently we've had the idea to put in a hallway, but to have the wall run directly from the front door to the stairs, boxing in the stairs and meaning the kitchen continues to be accessed from the living room. This seems like a good compromise. Obviously it makes the hallway seriously poky and claustrophobic, but it wouldn't be a wide or glamorous hallway even if we put the whole thing back.

I suppose my questions are:
-How much of a sin is restoring the hallway 'wrong'? :twisted: Some of the Victorian terraces in the area do have the hallway like this, but ours would definitely have run round the stairs to the kitchen - our neighbours' house has it intact.
-Does anyone know why some houses in the area have the straight-through hallway and other have the turn? Did one system predate the other or was it just different styles?

 

[Craig89]

My hallway, is straight to the bottom of the stairs with 2 doors off it into the front and rear rooms. I think it all depended on the size of the property, the smallest had no halls and the staircase was between the front and rear rooms, then you have what I have then there's as you describe where the hall continues around the staircase.

In your circumstance I guess it would be easiest to just put a hallway in to the bottom of your stairs with a door into the room

 

[Gothichome]

I maybe out of place here but I see a major structural problem, what is holding up the common wall from the bedrooms? Open plan can be a real bugger if not done correctly. I too believe reinstalling the hallway wall with two doorways is the way to go. If nothing else it puts back a way to transfer the first floor loading onto the footings.
Ops I guess I used a bad word ‘bug’r’

 

[Abi Cott]

I maybe out of place here but I see a major structural problem, what is holding up the common wall from the bedrooms? Open plan can be a real [Bad Word] if not done correctly. I too believe reinstalling the hallway wall with two doorways is the way to go. If nothing else it puts back a way to transfer the first floor loading onto the footings.
Ops I guess I used a bad word ‘bug’r’

You're right to sound a note of caution, but based on the layout there's a very good chance that wall on the upper floor is non-structural. It's obviously worth checking, but your probably looking at a "two up, two down" with outside loo that has been adapted at some point to provide a kitchen plus extra bedroom in the extension. Last one of these I lived in the date of the extension was 1893.

I've lived in a house of similar date with stairs in the living room. It's bloody freezing, so I would definitely look to recreate a hallway in this situation. I'd aim to make it at least 1m wide (most stairs are 800mm ish) or possibly a bit wider.

Maybe move the dining area to by the front window and the living area to the wider portion of the room. TV etc built into the under stairs area.

Obviously if your listed this would have implications, but if you're not there is quite a bit of flexibility. As Gothichome suggested a check of which walls are structural and which aren't would be a good idea.

 

[Flyfisher]

Might another option be to close off the stairs with a suitable door?

It would prevent heat being lost upstairs and it would be considerably less work. It wouldn't give an entrance hall though.

 

[plasticpigeon]

My house built I believe in 1902, has a straight hallway with doors to the front and middle room, and the kitchen accessed from the middle room. It is 15ft wide. Some houses on my road look almost identical but are about 16.5 ft wide (2 extra bricks) and they have the kitchen accessed through the hall that does a dog leg round the stairs, making the middle room a bit smaller but still a reasonable size to put a table. I like you think that taking away the hall was a mistake and it would be good to reinstate it, but beyond that it's your choice. If you had a dog leg hall your middle room downstairs would end up the same size as the middle bedroom upstairs, which would probably be too small for a table.

 

[Craig89]

You're right to sound a note of caution, but based on the layout there's a very good chance that wall on the upper floor is non-structural. It's obviously worth checking, but your probably looking at a "two up, two down" with outside loo that has been adapted at some point to provide a kitchen plus extra bedroom in the extension. Last one of these I lived in the date of the extension was 1893.

If it's anything like mine then originally the centre dividing wall would be supporting the first floor floor and ceiling joists. If configured like this then there must be a steel in place where the lower section of the wall has been removed.

Anyway as this property is a recent purchase for the OP then it probably had a survey that, I hope, would have highlighted any potential structural issues.

To the original topic I don't think there's anything wrong with putting the 'wrong' hallway configuration in considering how much it has been knocked about, any hallway would make it more period. Put some nice flooring in and no one would bat an eyelid

 

[CliffordPope]

What about a partial hallway to about a door's width from the foot of the stairs, then a heavy curtain across dividing the sitting-room?
That way you can keep the curtain drawn back normally, retaining the long room, or can close off a snug front room to retain heat and maintain privacy if people tramping through to the kitchen.

Our daughter's 1907 house has exactly that layout. There were once two rooms, now knocked through, but the curtain allows the option.

 

[MatthewC]

I would also consider a door at the bottom of the stairs, especially if the stairs are already boxed-in up to the ceiling.

I had an aunt who lived in Bedford in a semi of roughly the same sort of pattern. They had a narrow hall with the boxed-in stairs straight ahead and two doors to the left, one to the dining room (and then through to the kitchen), and one to the lounge. It worked apart from the question of greeting guests in the narrow hall - and their internal width was less than your 15 ft, as I recall - more like 13 ft.

As far as "restoring the hallway 'wrong' " is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much - do what works for you. Even my difficult Conservation Officer accepted the need for houses to be actually lived in!

 

[Owain]

You could reinstate the wall between the front door and the stairs but have glass or glazed pocket doors. That would give you thermal and noise insulation to the downstairs, but you wouldn't have a dark hallway.

The Victorians often had glazed partitions to give borrowed light, so it wouldn't be completely inauthentic. And pocket doors wouldn't take up swing space.

 

[malcolm]

I have a similar setup to your current one. Little box lobby to stop the draught from opening the front door, and stairs (down another corridor for me) open to the ground floor. From a thermal point of view I've set up heating zones for downstairs and upstairs, and it does seem to be downstairs heating that does most of the work so upstairs heating only occasionally switches on. Doing something similar and putting all the heat in downstairs might be a fix.

I wouldn't do a dogleg corridor as it would take up too much space. I have considered boxing in from the front door to the stairs to avoid a virtual corridor that restricts where I place furniture, but my current thought is to move the door on the little box lobby blue to your alignment, paint it blue and write 'police box' on the top.

 

[a twig]

My old Victorian place had a "box lobby" then a "straight to stairs" hallway, worked really well, one door off to the left gave access to an "open planned" downstairs, had a small fireplace in and got proper toasty in winter!

 

[a twig]

What about a partial hallway to about a door's width from the foot of the stairs, then a heavy curtain across dividing the sitting-room?
That way you can keep the curtain drawn back normally, retaining the long room, or can close off a snug front room to retain heat and maintain privacy if people tramping through to the kitchen.

Our daughter's 1907 house has exactly that layout. There were once two rooms, now knocked through, but the curtain allows the option.

My neighbour had this but a full width hardwood concertina partition instead - worked well

 

[Londonterrace]

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies; all the ideas are really appreciated. I thought I would be told I should put the house back as it was.

I've taken a look at the floorplans for the houses in our area that have the straight corridor and ours does indeed seem to be ~30cm wider so I guess that tiny difference pushed our house into the twisty hallway category.

Gothichome - there is a box across the ceiling of the downstairs room which I hope houses a steel so I think we're OK structurally although this house has been pretty bodged so it wouldn't hugely surprise me if we eventually find the box to be empty...
The house has been seen by a surveyor, but nevertheless I have vague worries there might be a missing structural wall under the stairs. It's on my "to do" list...

Abi - thank you for giving the widths, that is helpful. Have had a measure and the stairs are 80cm but the box is currently 1m so I guess the hallway would have to taper.
As far as we can work out the layout of the house is as originally built, including the upstairs bathroom. The others in the terrace are the same.

The stairs don't have a second wall at the moment, so that would need to be built to close them off and my thinking is if I'm going to build a wall, I might as well get somewhere to shove shoes out of it.

A dark hallway is definitely a worry and I will look at glass doors. We do have a fanlight. The on/off snug is a nice idea but I don't think it would work - if we put the front room back to the original length then there wouldn't be space to walk around the stairs into the back room, and I don't think we want it smaller.

malcolm - please could you explain your heating zones? I don't know what that means but am intrigued. Making a tardis is obviously the best idea of all but only if I can solve my heating problems at the same time...

 

[Edward Ian]

Hi there,
There house next door, which we can see in your other post about the scullery, looks like it hasn't been knocked around too much. Why don't you knock on the door as ask what there layout is (or some feeble reason to get to that place)?

 

[Londonterrace]

Hi Edward,
The original was with the dogleg corridor - I have seen it in person in a different neighbour's house. (And photographically in lots and lots of other houses nearby thanks to the wonder of rightmove )

It was helpful to see their back room - it does take a 4-seater table lengthwise but it really is quite small, and they have taken out their chimney breast whereas we wouldn't. As plasticpigeon says, we have the same room upstairs and it is swamped by a double bed.

 

[Edward Ian]

Looking at this again, the original layout is not that small. Personally I prefer "rooms" to open plan; I don't want to open the front door and see my entire living space in all its glory (or more likely mess), and that's before the heat loss that you mention.
I guess it depends on how many will be living there - if its a young family, you might prefer open, but if just a couple, why heat the whole house unnecessarily?
Of course, the more walls that you have, the more furniture you can have
If you were to reinstate the hall as was (thus cutting off the kitchen and all its works from your living space) why not have folding diving doors between the sitting room and the dining room? Coupled with a fold down/extendable table, you could then have flexibility to either have a cosy dining room when there are just a few people, to opening up for proper entertaining when there are many.
It depends on your particular needs of course.
And I would also be mindful of the area and what is "trending".

 

[Londonterrace]

Just coming back in case anyone would like to know what we ended up doing: We initially decided on the straight hallway. However things quickly became complicated - there wasn't enough space for a wall between the stairs and the kitchen doorway. We found some builders who reckoned they could do it in mdf, but that seemed a bit too dubious even to me. We then looked into getting sheets of structural glass to wall off the edge of the stairs, but that was expensive. Finally we wended our way back to the dogleg staircase (plus glazed pocket door). We've now built that, much to the disgust of family and friends, who couldn't understand why we were making our reception rooms smaller. The dining room is a bit tight but it has been a brilliant move for making the house feel like a proper house rather than one big airy but uninviting atrium. And playing with the pocket door mechanism provides hours of entertainment. To get enough space to turn around the stairs we had to move the newel post, replace the bottom stair with a bullnosed one, and have a 'cut off' 45deg face in the front room.

Here are two before pictures and one after (and ignore that it looks much nicer in the before picture...I'm working my way back up to flooring, paint and a tree!):





PS Edward Ian - would love some folding doors but most of the light downstairs comes from the small (West-facing) window in the back room and any frame or arch would cut that down.

 

[Feltwell]

Looks good! So you're back to pretty much how it was when built, save for the pocket door? I'm no fan of the previous layout you had either.

I'm about to start moving an internal wall here, I feel no guilt. I would if it was downstairs and taking out original cornice etc - but it's not - first floor, plain wall between the bathroom and what would have originally just have been a storage room, now an en-suite bathroom. It will make our stupidly small & narrow family bathroom much more bearable, en-suite will be small but OK, but most importantly it won't do anything to change the character of the place.

 

[Londonterrace]

Yes, aside from the pocket door, the cut off corner, and the knocked through reception rooms. Enjoy your lovely big bathroom! It sounds like a good decision. I am slowly feeling less beholden to how the house "should" be.