We’re considering buying a brownstone in prime brownstone Brooklyn but it’s only 16.5 x 40 (3 stories, 2 family) and we’re trying to figure out if it’s worth it in terms of being a real improvement in space from our current living situation. Can these be laid out to feel spacious? Current house owner lives in lower duplex (kitchen on garden, bedrooms on parlor) with top floor rental, but we’d have to reconfigure since the house is really badly done, and we much prefer parlor level kitchen and bedrooms on top floor. But, we’re worried that the expense of the house including renovation may not be worth it for the final space we get.<\/p>\n
We now own a 3BR\/2BA prewar apt (w\/outdoor space\/storage\/W\/D and lots of sun) that is about 1200 sf and really efficiently laid out, with decent sized bedrooms. Our main complaint is that the common space feels smaller than we’d like, and ideally, we’d like another room. Problem is, the brownstone is not a clear improvement. For one thing, the bedrooms on top floor will likely be smaller (can’t really get 3 bedrooms, right? only 2.5, with the half bedroom a small study) and not clear if there will be as much storage space. The parlor level would probably only feel more spacious if we knocked down all the walls, but would this look weird?<\/p>\n
We probably can’t afford to do anything with garden floor for now so will either rent it or use it kind of as is (perhaps just rip out kitchen and paint, put down inexpensive floors), but in the future, we’d want a bedroom down there.<\/p>\n %<\/span><\/span> | %<\/span><\/a> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re considering buying a brownstone in prime brownstone Brooklyn but it’s only 16.5 x 40 (3 stories, 2 family) and we’re trying to figure out if it’s worth it in terms of being a real improvement in space from our current living situation. Can these be laid out to feel spacious? Current house owner lives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3780,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-19375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-configuration"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2008\/02\/165-x-40-browns\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"16.5 x 40′ brownstone layout?","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2008\/02\/165-x-40-browns\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2008\/02\/165-x-40-browns\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Configuration","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"housesearcher"}],"creator":["housesearcher"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Forum Archive","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2008-02-14T23:54:07Z","datePublished":"2008-02-14T23:54:07Z","dateModified":"2008-07-28T16:27:51Z"},"rendered":"