Please help - to extend or not to extend?

last month

Dear All,

We are buying a small detached house in London and are agonizing over the extension design.

The loft will be definitely modernized/extended immediately and from our experience the loft is relatively easy and quick job.

Our architect is advising us to carry our rear and side extension as well, however, we have a toddler and a baby due in summer hence thinking of a ground floor extension that can be done “from outside “ if you know what I mean? We are trying to find an option with a manageable disruption from the renovation....

Has anyone experienced a similar project and can share their wisdom please?

Featured Answer

Duncan Green

last month

Hi Volhal.

What you are describing is some major works to that sized building. Trust me you would be best finding somewhere else to live with a child and a new borne. My mum had me with my todler brother and the builder turned up to do the kitchen extension the day she returned from hospital. He promised he would turn up several months later. Lesson 1, even the best Builders do not keep thier word, they are forced to juggle work that does not run perfectly like a Swizz railway. She was left with a cold tap on a pipe and a bucket on a make shift sink with a large hole through the back of the house for about 4 months. This was in the summer. She said it was the worst experience to go through. From my experience helping clients with thier projects. No matter how unpopular it may be, I would always tell them to not endure living through the mess and carnage a building project is. No matter how good it is managed, it is always going to be chaotic noisey irritating stressful and dusty, very very dusty, it gets everywhere, even when using a sealed work site, it still escapes, and you do not want to be living through it with a new borne. I would say find another way if possible, it will test you and your family in ways you could not imagine. My colleage has just endured a kitchen extension throughout last year whilst her family lived in the property, and she should know better she is an Architect. It was a complete nightmare for her, all the things that happen over the course of a building project, tested her health her marrige and her finances and her childrens education. She has lernt her lesson. Dont live through the building works if you can find another way. No builder is as clean and quiet and organised as they will have you believe. I am simply trying save you enduring a living knightmare, especially with a new borne.

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Comments (17)

PRO
APT Renovation Limited
last month
Hi Volhal,

We are APT Renovation, we specialise in home extensions and could offer you a free consultation to do our best to help you with this uncertainty and hopefully give you some clarity on what to do with you new home.

If this is something you would be interested in you can give us a call on 0207 223 6417 or if you would like to view some of our previous jobs you can visit our website https://www.aptrenovation.co.uk/our-projects/

I hope you will stay safe in these trying times and looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

APT Renovation Ltd
Nicholas Scott
last month
What is it you're looking to achieve with a side and rear extension?
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Hi Minnie, thank you so much for your ideas! I really appreciate you took the time to share them us. You've really given us plenty to think about. Toys and kids clutter seems to be a permanent fixture in the house at the moment, so your point on the mess exposed in open plan setting is something we'll certainly need to give more thought to. Converting the whole of the garage we haven't really thought of, to be honest. It would definitely give us more room to comfortably fit in the playroom. One possible drawback though could be lack of light. The only suitable location for the window would really be the current garage door, and that side doesn't really get good light during the day. However, there's nothing above the garage so perhaps a skylight could be a way? Also, I'm sort of in two minds about how separate I want the kids space to be. Sometimes closing the door and letting them do their own thing is really convenient and helps keep us sane ;) but ideally, I think, I'd like their wee corner to be a part of the family space so that we easily keep an eye. I'll need to mull that over a bit more to be honest, and try to look further into the future. I love the way you've designed kitchen/dining space at the back. It makes sense the two are linked. The cost consideration is a strong argument for sure, but the installations are poor as it is, pipes exposed in the cupboards, so will need to be rehauled one way or another. The reason we thought of putting kitchen units along the left wall was the light. We sort of had an idea of side skylights/roof lights at the side return part, and a bifold door on back wall opening into the garden. Something along the lines of the photo below. Does that make sense? I've no renovation experience nor architectural know how, so not even sure if that would work!? I would love to hear what you think if you have some more time to spare. Thanks again for your help
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Firstly you have to accept that if you put a front door at garage level you will still have steps up to your living areas, but they won’t be outside. Next you need to speak to your planning office to see if the will consider permission to allow you to build forward. Then you need to consider budget- removing a lot of earth in front of the house will be expensive- it might even double the cost of your extension. One solution might be to get Reid of your garage, turn it into accommodation and enter there. You should check with local estate agents that you don’t adversely affect the house value by losing the garage.
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Thank you for your comments. @Jonathan your plans are quite close in layout to our grand design which involved a 5m extension across the back of the house with a pitched roof on either side of a middle entrance to the utility / dog room. QS was saying £300k plus optionals (like the kitchen apparently!). Do you think we could achieve something like your plan for £100k? @Emily Covey that is a really interesting idea and has encouraged us to think more openly about the whole space. I should have said that the store/office are in the garage. My husband works from home all the time and I do sometimes (even without Covid-19) so we have to have some study space. Lots of food for thought. Thank you.
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volhal
Original Author
last month
Hi Nicholas, ideally we are looking to add a WC, some utility space and a playroom/study for the kids
PRO
David Rudge Associates
last month
Hello Volhal,

All building work is dirty , dusty, messy and disruptive. However single storey extensions can be built outside the original shell and only knocked through towards the end - which will be messy then!. A lot will depend on the size of the openings you want , and therefore the size of the beams to support upstairs, and on you accepting that those beams need as much bearing to support the beams as possible. A pier can be made a positive feature in the design of the interior. Have a word with your architect/ designer and structural engineer.

As long as you discuss the work with your toddler, and keep an eye on the little one at all times if possible, then they are usually fine with such work. It makes a great teaching opportunity which they will remember. Good luck.
Kiwikate
last month
To avoid the mess of extensions: built in storage either side of the dining room fireplace for toys/books, French doors between the dining and living room to allow more flexible use of the space (will be messy but not such a major job as an extension), under stairs for WC and back of the garage for washing space, and finally good washable flooring e.g. LVT through the downstairs open plan area to deal with indoor/outdoor play.
Frank
last month
On the chorus of "watch out", would also say that, since you state you'd wish to add a utility room and a WC downstairs, don't underestimate what this means. The way your kitchen, 1st/loft bathrooms are "stacked" implies to me that very likely, your soil pipe is on the "side passage" of the house, not on the "garage" side.

So to get a WC/utility room into the space on the other side of the house means ... work across the entire ground floor. Adding drainage, at the very least, means lifting suspended floors everywhere across, and worst, it's digging through the foundations. It can be done of course. Leaving this "to the end" is a recipe for undesirable surprises though.
rinked
last month
I couldn't agree more with the advises from above about how messy and noisy it will be.

Meanwhile I played with your layout a bit and tried to make a straightforward 5m extension without too much hassle with plumbing and loadbearing walls. I even kept the dining windows and doors, as it could either be a cozy reception or a playroom where you can keep an eye on from the kitchen.
volhal
Original Author
last month
@rinked thank you so much for the advice and the plan - love it! Are you an architect by any chance? 😁
rinked
last month
No, just an amateur jack of all trades ;) (interior building furniture making kitchen designing diy)
volhal
Original Author
last month
@Frank, thank you so much for your invaluable advice! trouble is the bathrooms are not stacked and we found it really strange. One would expect the loft bathroom to be right above the 1st floor bathroom but it’s not the case. Digging through the foundation sounds terrible and certainly isn’t something we are looking for.
volhal
Original Author
last month
@Duncan thank you for sharing you story. Your poor mum, what a nightmare she’s been going through! I’m surprised at the optimism of your colleague who’s an architect.... having said that sometimes optimism wins over the experience
volhal
Original Author
last month
@kiwikate thank you for your suggestions, we are looking at the options of under stairs WC, it might be slightly easier to do..
volhal
Original Author
last month
@rinked ah such a shame!!! You are so talented!!!
PRO
David Rudge Associates
last month
Dear Volhal, You certainly need optimism, but tempered with experience. The job being finished off at the moment is in a terraced street ,sloping in all directions front to back and side to side. The kitchen / dining extension is at the back so all the excavated material has had to come through the house ,and the front is several steps up, so we parked the skip and ran a conveyor through the house to the skip. At the worst moment the family rented a place for a week and then back. For most people the ideal would be to go and leave the site till the end but not many can afford months of renting on top of the building costs . The family range from 4, 7 to 9 and when Mum said yipee we will be free of the builders there was a chorus of 'why mum we like the builders' ( with lockdown probably the only people the children have seen recently !) Your architect can check out the ground floor construction and that will help decide how and where to run drains and pipes and cables and how best to provide what you want. Yes you can have all manner of problems , as outlined above, Understand them, be aware of them, they can be solved, at a cost Chose your team wisely and not just on price.
rinked
last month
@volhal well thank you! I am on a road to new adventures though, might involve concept planning, as I can do this for hours without ever getting bored or tired.
rinked
last month
A 3m wrap around extension

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Please help - to extend or not to extend?

Comments (17)

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