Hi igho sadly it was not available, it was a probate purchase and was still showing for sale as the probate has been going on since November and wasn't complete, so the deal hadsnt even begun yet! I wouldn't be too impressed if I was the buyer and 7 months later no news.. I have now seen a 2 bedroom detached cottage in a really plush road, it's flanked by lots of 5 and 6 bed houses so it's a very unusual find. It's £475k and to make anything of this it would definitely need a 2 story extension and a substantial remodel with new kitchen and bathrooms, a £120k+ job probably. Very difficult to tell how risky this would be given that the total spend would be well over £600k once all fees and finishes are calculated. If I bought it and spent money doing a ground floor extension with kitchen diner etc, I'm still left with just a 2 bed cottage and even the estate agent said I'd make a loss! At the moment I'm more inclined to look towards renovation rather than extension type projects.

Thank you Victoria. Haha! Yes that's exactly what she suggested! Several times over :) We just didn't have the budget at all to do all three floors of the house, so we prioritised the downstairs and our master suite on the top floor as they needed obvious structural work just to make the space work for us. If I wasn't being a complete cheapskate and trying to get ideas on here for free now (!!!) I'd get her to do the whole middle floor but with £100k spent already on the renovation its just not an option! We only had £50k aside when we moved in, so everything else we're having to do month by month as money comes in, which is quite painful!! Gina's done so much above and beyond what she needed to, to help us that asking for more help on a totally different part of the house that was never in the scope of work just seemed a bit unfair- especially as I know she'd help anyway :) Being completely honest, we had never planned to do anything structural at all with the middle floor as it's perfectly okay. The plan had always been to do nothing more than decorate, change the carpets and windows and put in two modern bathrooms (which would give us 3 bathrooms to five bedrooms) and we'd allocated £15k to do it. We had never done a renovation before- not so much as a lick of paint! Our old house was immaculate when we bought it and we didn't do a thing to the day we sold it having been there 7 years. This has been a huge learning curve for us and I've loved every minute - it's a world I didn't even know existed! Considering how much I now love it, it's hard to imagine that 12 months ago I'd never even picked up an interior magazine!! :) I guess the reason I'm now being a bit of a cheapskate asking for help and ideas on here, rather than employing a professional is because through this whole process and all the things I've read and seen on here a year into all of this, I realise whilst there isn't a big budget for the middle floor, I just wondered if there was a better way of doing things before we start next year! Your advice on ensuites seems very sensible and definitely something we need to consider! Hubby thinks cheapest and simplest idea is to leave everything as is now and as and when we need extra bedrooms (or decide to sell) to turn the games room back into a bedroom and steal a bit of the current very large room for an ensuite and put the office back to a walk through dressing room as part of that whole area and leave the family bathroom where it is. That way we'd have three ensuites plus a family bathroom to five bedrooms. I can see his point and would be cheap and easy to do, it just doesn't really address the fact I don't like the landing :)

Following on from J's comment about the extractor, if you have the budget and prefer open plan, you should install an external duct extractor... How about installing a sleek glass/top quality wood sliding doors in the partition so you can choose whether to open out the layout or not? The design you choose might be influenced by where your dining table will go. In the kitchen, or in the bedroom that adjoins the lounge (ie creating a full dining room) , or in the lounge? Or, maybe you don't use a dining table... If you are going to carry out expensive work, you need to be sure about how you're going to use the spaces. Once you've knocked through two rooms you've effectively lost a room, but I can understand that if the lounge and kitchen are very small then joining them up would give a very helpful sense of greater space.

I think you should do what suits you and your family, unless you are planning on moving soon. Houses do tend to be valued by number of bedrooms for some reason. My daughter knocked two bedrooms into one to give them a nice big master and they had another double for guests. Your children will love it!