Floor plan vision help wanted

[Joe Mazur]

As my wife and I prepare to purchase our first property, we are worried that we don't have the vision to change a floorpan as we attempt a flip or brrrr.  To prepare, we have been looking at random properties and discussing how we would proceed.  This is not a strength for either of us and it's holding us back.  For example, can someone show us how you would turn this into a 3/2 and open floorpan? 

[Geordy Rostad]

Hi @Joe Mazur

Not all plans are going to work well for converting to a 3/2. Even if the square footage is there to do it.

This plan you are looking at for instance. It's pretty much functionally obsolete. Shoving the kitchen back in the corner like that creates that massive wasted hallway space in the middle. 

If I was going to fix this plan within the bounds of the existing walls, I would do this:

1) move the kitchen to where the front bedroom is.

2) Cut the back wing of the house into 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and slot a stacker washer/dryer into one of the bathrooms. Pull the covered back porch into the bedroom square footage.

3) capture some or all of the covered front porch to include in the square footage if needed.

This is all way too expensive to pull off though. It's not worth bothering when you can just keep shopping a little harder and find something that has a useless family room off to the side where you can convert that to a bedroom. by adding a wall and a closet.