Hello,
We are in need of sorting the back of our house, with its dilapidated conservatory, single skin brick outhouse (wc freezes in the winter) and garage/shed combo with loads of paving filling the garden up. The kitchen is pretty new, so we're intending to keep it - and dont have the budget for a new one anyway. The orange joist on the plan is not properly supported on the brick pier between back door and window, so opening up that wall and connecting it with a properly supported steel is required. The soil stack from the bathroom comes down in an awkward place so we had thought of rerouting it to meet the new connection that was put in when the previous owner moved the downstairs toilet to the outhouse, in order to make way for the new boiler (this was done in 2021, with the kitchen, so again, moving the boiler is probably above our budget). There should, therefore, be capacity to reinstate the soil connection from where the toilet used to be on the east side of the house, where we propose a new wc, and possibly a shower too. Having a flexible family room, which could double up as a guestroom - with a good quality sofa bed setup or something similar - would be a huge benefit too, and ease the strain of toys, games paints and crayons etc in the cosy front room.
Our budget is around £50000, with any contingency above this coming from savings/income so we'd be aiming to spend 40-45k! I realise that what we want is very ambitious on this budget so we need some help working out what is achievable and how to get there! There are aspects of the work that we can do ourselves - but time is obviously limited. I like the idea of timber framed construction, for is sustainability and the speed with which it can be installed. My wife and I are both professional gardeners and intend to take down the enormous garage that sits almost to the middle of the garden (its concrete panel so not upgradeable to be habitable) and make a rain garden / SuDS garden which can be used to mitigate the increased runoff of extending. We're also underway re-creating a front garden, to give the front if the house more soul - theres so much hardstanding on our property and no plants taller than lawn grass - which also means no birds, no insects, no life!!!
We expect this to be the house our child (maybe we'll have more, maybe not) grows up in so it needs to work for up to 20years or more...
Thanks in advance for any help you can give,
Benedict & Natalie