Ok, so I've never commented on Houzz before (despite being a huge reader) but the shape of your house really intrigued me as it's very charming but quite tricky. Looking at just the ground floor, I think that an extension that fills in the 'rectangle' floorpan of the whole house might work. The loo and shower should be moved so that they are not blocking off movement flowing through the ground floor. To get a bigger hallway you could move back the wall currently going into the kitchen, so that you incorporate the small window into the hall. Remove the wall by the stairs and turn the stairway itself into a feature which would make the hallway - and stairs themselves - feel much roomier (I can't see from your floorpan whether they are already open to the hallway). What's currently the kitchen could become a utility with downstairs loo (move the shower upstairs into new bathroom over new extension, taking a bit from bedroom 1?). I have recently had an extension kitchen built on our own house and turned the old (tiny) kitchen into a laundry/boot room - best decision ever with a growing family! In the utility room you could put in a stacked wash/tumbler (if you want a tumbler, or else just cupboards/laundry on top) and a downstairs loo, as well as more storage. In the new kitchen, you could have double/french/sliding/bifold doors as per your taste looking out SE into the garden, creating a long sightline - and feeling of space - from the garden right through the kitchen into the far room. This would create a spacious-feeling kitchen tied into the rest of the house. You could block up the door into the current dining room and take out the wall between the dining/living. Keeping the dining room as dining, this gives you a cosy room there for small intimate dinners but also the potential to have big dinner parties on a long extended table stretching out into the living room. When not entertaining, that slightly self-contained room (as it's not a through-route as is the rest of the house) could be used as a study/quieter reading room. You now have a house that is welcoming for entertaining - guests come through the front door, where there's space for coats/hatstands, straight through the open door into the living room and are greeted by the fireplace ahead of them, and look round to see the dining table. Downstairs loo for guests nicely separated from all the action. Please excuse my very rough sketch of what I mean, and its lack of scale!

I’ve just had the same issue and I opted to get all walls plastered then sanded down to give completely smooth walls. They were then painted and the finish was excellent. I paid for tradesmen to do all of this as I wouldn’t have achieved such a quality finish.

Hi, thanks for the replies. Yes, we've looked at air source and ground source, but there are multiple complications because of our location and the fact we're retrofitting an old house. We're looking at potentially putting an MVHR system in the loft to ventilate/heat the bedrooms and bathrooms, but it's not possible to run ducting throughout the whole house, so downstairs has to be approached separately. The finish on the ground floor will be a micro-cement skim. Steve, I will contact you via your website, thank you.

I now have a leak in my roof so need to sort this and looking to do what is best for the loft space. I think it is original tiles (as same as lots of neighbours) and original loft space. I have some loose insulation on the floor but nothing against roof/tiles. Ideally I'd like it boarded to use for storage and to ensure it is insulated as best it can be. It is a cold space with nothing on the roof joists so you can see the roof tiles from the inside and even see out through a few holes/gaps. When it rains the orange tiles do show signs of damp on the inside but only one leak showing itself at the moment. I assume this is how they go and that the rain water should not penetrate the tiles totally. I would like to know if I get it boarded and have insulation under the boarding if I need to do anything to the underside of tiles to make it as good as it could be? Also to add I get a lot of dust and debris coming into the loft space from outside (via the gaps in the tiles) so storing anything up there needs to be in container to keep it clean. I also want to ensure I don't cause any problems with damp and lack of circulation. If any one had any advice or can recommend what is best course of action for this situation to stand me in good stead for the next 20 years I'd be grateful . Thanks Jenny