For the living room, the focus should be the balcony area. So flipping the couch to face the wall and not the dining table will help. Kind of like this pic. Even if you already have the sectional that is in the diagram, you should be able to flip it. In fact a sectional would probably work better than the couch in this pic. I also really don't like the style of this pic, but it showed what I meant, For the girls' room: No matter which bedroom you choose, you should maximize floor space so that they have the biggest play space possible in their room (as they get older you can add desks for school work and such). To get this space, I would give them bunk beds. This configuration gives them an open feel and more storage, essential for girls. You posted two different kitchen designs. This makes it hard to give you advice. I agree with other posts that your sink should be away from the wall. This allows you to have stuff to the left of you (drying dishes in my house), while you wash vegetables on the right of the sink. You need the same space on both sides of the stove, also. At least 24 inches on both sides is good. 36 is better, though. The first design has a nice little countertop space that adds a place for your daughters a space to sit a watch/ talk to you while you're in the kitchen. When they added this to the first design, you lost cabinets on the other wall. This is bad, as the space is already storage limited. Try making the rounded countertop bump out into the living space more. If you play with the shape, you could make it work without losing the cabinets on the other side. It doesn't have to be rectangular or a perfect circle. You can see how this one isn't confined to the floor plan of the kitchen. I think this is what you would need to do to make it the most functional.

Option 1: If one extra bedroom not possible then can go for living room cum bedroom using movable partition in living area (next to small bedroom)? Option 2: A) living area ( next to small bedroom) convert in to bedroom with movable partition. B) cover kitchen current entarance & make new enterance near or next to main home enterance C) in centre rectangle area convert to living & dining room like this manual drawing plan Please suggest which option is better or any new suggestions

Hi Sahil, 2 lakhs for such a huge room is a bit tight, specially when we are talking about making the furniture. The sofas alone will be an expensive investment and so will the bed and the wardrobe. Since the window openings are pretty large, either floor length curtains or roman blinds would be required in substantial quantities. Here are a few tips that may help you in cutting down the cost quite a bit - 1] Buy furniture online from sites like Pepperfry, Urban Ladder etc. They have good quality stuff at a reasonable price. You can order the bed, side tables, sofas, pouffes, couches, chairs, study table etc. This way you will always know what you are paying for and also always have the budget in mind. 2] Invest in coloured walls instead of wallpapers. You can always add wallpaper subsequently say when you want to give your room an uplift. 3] Have the carpenter make your TV unit and wardrobes since these would have to be customized. Invest in good quality laminate (it saves the cost of polishing too). Go for solid colours or satin finish wooden textures. If you are not fond of laminates, you can go for recon veneers. These are pretty cheap i.e. around Rs. 60/ sqft. but require polishing. However, veneers look better than laminates any day. 4] Add a personal touch with photographs, paintings, posters and other items of your interest. Dedicate a wall to these to create interest. 5] Try using old loose furniture like tables and chairs which you can retouch to save money. 6] Keep adding new stuff as you go to complete the look. Never hurry, complete only those items that are a priority. Then when your budget permits you can keep adding to it. For eg. have the bed, curtains and cupboards in place first. You can then opt for the TV and the pouffes/couch. Sofas, study tables, side tables and chairs come later. This way you wont lose track of anything. All the best! Regards, RnD Atelier

I live in a converted Victorian school. The impact noise from the flat floor above is terrible. It's actually a relatively new floor (upstairs) but the owner of it is a nightmare and the company who fitted it are complete crooks. The result is a constant creaking/cracking (up to 70db!!) every time someone just walks in the flat upstairs. He is refusing to do any repairs whatsoever - despite having been to court over the issue. He rammed boards between the joists and used cheapest chipboard for floor. Result = creaking, popping, cracking. The noise is very much coming from the existing structure of the floor upstairs, via flanking. Needless to say the freehold are absolutely useless also. I've attached a floorplan of my flat - in the non-bedroom part there are high ceilings and I think I can easily manage to install a false ceiling there (I have at least 10cm to play with there). However, where the bedrooms are the ceilings are very low and I only really have 5cm to play with. On top of that there are 2 RSJ's running across the bedroom areas - that are boxed in and will therefore cause a break in any materials. It's a nightmare! I am desperate to find something that will help in the bedroom area. However, I am unsure of what to go for having read around? ....atm the ceiling is made up of 2xlayers of plasterboard screwed into the joists directly. Can anyone recommend anything on top of this? That would be effective for such loud creaking/cracking. I am only interested in reducing impact noise from above (as I know the airborne will naturally be reduced if I can sort this). Does green glue actually work if I put 2 more layers of plasterboard?? Does acoustic plasterboard actually work? What about MLV on a ceiling? Or should I be looking at soundproofing wallpaper foam and then a layer of plaster? What's the slimmest best solution? Perhaps resilient bars are an option straight onto the ceiling as is - and then one more layer of something? Do you have any experience of this? Grateful for any thoughts - or for anyone's experience where a particular material hasn't worked. Many thanks, A