Well you could definitely save money by leaving the grass as it is and not astroturfing it. The grass looks great, & other than not wanting to cut it regularly, I’m not sure why you’d want to replace it, plus real grass is beneficial to wildlife / birds for getting worms, etc. Keep the grass & spend the money saved on getting someone in to cut it regularly - I’m sure a local teenager would happily do it for a tenner a time. The plants where you’ve mentioned you’d like seating areas look like box plants which are fairly pricey as they get bigger so if you remove them, consider selling them to get some money back. However they would also be good planted as structural plants elsewhere in the garden. Although you’re not green fingered, maybe your children might like a small area to dig in / plant some seeds, when they’re not busy bouncing! Good luck, I’m sure you’ll get other ideas on here too.

Thank you for tge alternative plan, thank you. Looking at the plans again I think the stairs to the side opens up the hallway/entrance a lot, would be nice and spacious. The master bedroom with the garden view would make it nice and quiet as well. Definitely a lot to think about. Good to see there a lots of options.

Hi there, There are a number of factors to take into account when thinking about a new floor layout with loft coversion. At Resi, we have worked on over 6000 extension and renovation projects across the UK, so we might have completed a similar project to yours and can show you some examples and give you some inspiration and guidance. You can book in a free advice call with one of our architectural consultants. We also have lots of articles about loft conversions and renovations on our website but here are a few to get started; - Complete guide to loft conversions - Things to know before doing a hip to gable loft conversion Do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or would like to talk through your options with the team, we are more than happy to help. Best, Bríd

Thank you Jonathan, this has given us some ideas. If 4m we would need to extend the other side due to access to the garden from the front of the house, plus maybe more likely to be approved. We could switch it to the other side but still knock the walls down on the right (keeping the walls between dining and current kitchen) to make a bigger space. We could move the toilet to the converted garage if we split it to be a ’lootility’.