Pete I am North London (Islington borough) and went ahead with mine, finished just over a year ago and it’s changed the flat entirely, so happy I did it. Layout similar to the plans in original post but larger kitchen. If you have an idea of layout you want I’d recommend trying to find a junior architect or go with some sort of basic pack option. Architect fees were way more than I expected and unnecessary for me. I found my original suggestion was the best option anyway and despite agreeing a planned budget it was way over spec’d resulting in tenders out of my reach. I ended up finding a very well priced builder myself using mybuilder.com who still worked to fixed fee contract, came in significantly cheaper than lowest architect tendered builder. Speak to your neighbours before Party Wall letters go out, you are about to disrupt their lives for 3 months or so, worth having them on side :) Try and pick/plan the small things as early as possible - you can’t imagine the ridiculous amount of stress you feel having to pick and order kitchen cupboard handles out of the millions of options there are when the builders are ready for them now! Good luck!

Hi there Will, This is a great project. I love the transformation of flats into open plan living/connecting to the garden. Your floor plan is huge and the final product would be fantastic. I have worked on over 600 residential developments and these are still my favourite. The extension costs will be in the region of £45-60k + VAT and generally clients would spend in the region of £100k + VAT on the redesigned space once they have purchased a kitchen and glazing products etc. At this stage it is almost impossible to determine a more accurate figure without a design being produced/specification finalised and further investigation works being carried out, hence the range. A few questions/pointers. Do you own the share of freehold or are you a leaseholder? When designing this, consider a small courtyard outside of the bedrooms to enable you to retain daylight filtration/ventilation. Have you analysed the market to see what the value of a 3 bedroom flat would be? Might be worth considering this as part of the design to maximise value, if you are interested in this. Note that the extension may need to be bigger, however if you end up spending an extra say £15-20k increasing the SQFT/gaining a bedroom, then this could be a sound investment. Happy to assist if you have any further questions. Nick

Hi Gus, we are mid side return build currently and had exactly your dilemma last year when we were talking about the work we wanted to do. Ultimately we figured it came down to whether we were willing to pay to avoid the project management & associated stress! So we had a number of ‘design & build’ companies come to visit, talk over and quote for the work, in addition to working out costs of managing the various components separately. After breaking down all the moving parts (architect, structural engineer, party wall surveyor, planning application, builder, plumber, electrician, plasterer, tiler, building control, drainage, tree survey - off the top of my head!) we opted to go with a D&B (project management) company to carry out & coordinate everything for us. Our reasoning included: they have experience, can anticipate things we probably wouldn’t even consider or know about, have access to all the trades, can put a team together which suited our timeline, can coordinate all the trades (and know when to!) at the relevant times, they do it full time (rather than us working at the same time), etc... So in short, it boils down to whether you want to pay for someone to take care of things for you! After we did a number of the elements for our wedding and wishing after the fact we’d just paid to not have to deal with it - we took that on board for this somewhat larger project and went with a D&B company. So far so good.... fingers crossed it remains this way!

Hi Saskia, Depending on your budget & site conditions you could build a very small light weight extention to serve as main entrance lobby. This will create a separate entrance without shrinking the existing reception. Regarding the glass to the other bedroom it all makes sense. Your utility cupboard could stay against the wall, flush with your new kitchen, which would move where the small bedroom is (I assume this is your plan for now). We've designed something very similar not long ago, please see link below. The project is currently under construction and will be finished at the end of June. https://www.houzz.co.uk/hznb/projects/victorian-house-rear-and-loft-extension-pj-vj~6159497 We would be happy to assist further with the design, please don't hesitate to contact us. Thanks Andrei Kay Moden