How to Create More Space in Your Home

Via Design

Farmhouses used to be designed so that you entered one room to get to another. If you had 11 kids, it made sense to make supreme use of “phantom corridors”; that is, the corridor space you would have needed to make each bedroom a private space is eliminated because you went through Bobby/Billy/Chucky/Johnny’s bedroom to get to Katy/Maisey/Betty/Susie’s bedroom before getting to… You get the picture.

Of course, kids today all want their privacy (a first world problem) and modern design has pretty much forgotten about this space/cost saver.

On the weekend, I had cause to bring this concept back. My client wanted to completely separate her nanny suite from the main house but this required major changes to the house including structural changes and installing new (and very expensive) stairs.

Instead, we used the living space in the nanny suite as a phantom corridor, which together with relocating two doors and removing one other (before soundproofing and dry walling it as well as the two other doors that have to be shifted), solved the problem.

She will save at least $5,000 and weeks of work.

Here’s the sketch we did together on site that shows how it’ll work. She gets a better result at a much lower price.

@ profbruce

ps. I’m an engineer not an architect or designer so forgive me for sketch quality.