Tough cookie. The footprint size is nice, but with a 6p family you'll need enough room to move around. If a loft can be added to the new part of the house, that'd be nice for storage. Folding stairs in the wardrobe? In the extension: First I'd like to say I imagined the extension to be designed like a house on it's own, glued together to the old one with a flat roofed 'corridor' with lots of rooflights. Main entry with wardrobe on the side. Kitchen with shallow cabinets on the front of the peninsula (storage instead of barstools) and row of floor to ceiling cabinets with a built-in 178cm fridge and a 178cm freezer, ovens, etc. Family dining area with french doors towards the back garden. Also managed to get each kid their own bedroom. Their bathroom has a shower and a toilet stall and two sinks. Separate toilet, for morning queues (and guests). No tub in the layout though, I don't know if you'd like one and what age your kids are.. Backdoor to enter the home (with your boots on) near the hall+toilet, with a hamper and also for emergencies. Footprint is slightly deeper on the left, but smaller on the right, square so you can add a roof similar to the old cottage? In the old house: Master bedroom with ensuite and closet area. Lounge room with a hopefully marvelous fireplace. Old front door stays the same from the outside, but unused. Maybe open up the ceilings and insulate the roof, so you'll have a vaulted ceiling with beams (all depends on what is allowed and how it looks in there). Haven't drawn in many windows, just imagine they are right where they need to be.

Definitely get an architect in as soon as possible. Planning permission can take time even if next door has done similar or the same! Structural changes are complex and an architect will rule out an ideas that don't have legs straight away; saving you time. I would definitely go open plan and this is certainly possible for the space. I would even take some of the space from the large entrance hall as you already have an inner hall immediately behind. Also this would allow you to have a more definded and statement entrance at the front. To achieve this you may need to incorporate a pillar or steel beam which is relatively easy to do. It is hard to say if you would need this though as it depends where the load of the roof and evetually the dormer extension would sit. You could move the main bathroom upstairs, have a WC and two bedrooms on the left side of the back of the property - where the bathroom is and the odd hallways configuration which would allow for the living room to be opened up into the back of the property. It all really depends on your budget and time constraints. Congrats on the twins, you must be thrilled (and exhausted!). If you need any help regrding the interior design for this project or room layout and staging of rooms please don't hesitate to get in touch with me on 07570574493.

Given the limited amount of information we all give the best advice possible from our own experience- I’m sorry Jen doesn’t agree. Given we don’t know the house sizes, budget, planning constraints we don’t know with certainty if anything suggested is possible. But if it were my house I would prefer the boiler to be in the utility than in the main entrance (but I concede budget may dictate otherwise). As far as this being a complicated flue some boilers can have horizontal flues of up to 8m long and an extension to the one supplied with the boiler is rarely more than £50 - given the stated aspiration of a loft conversion I felt it was safe to assume this £50 was in budget although Jen is right that moving the boiler may be an expense too far given the work you intend to take on. Equally if you intend reconfiguring the house your existing heating pipework may need to be relocated and moving the boiler may be easily done at the same time. Since this post is mainly to get inspiration for a new layout and I have done my best to give one possibility that delivers the stated aims I don’t feel any defense of my efforts is necessary. In my humble opinion the boiler conversation could pose a different discussion on a different thread as if your end goal is to have three bathrooms you may prefer to get a system boiler with a hot water storage cylinder to better deliver your hot water. In which case you need to put the cylinder somewhere- you could get rid of the side porch to make the proposed utility bigger in order to also accommodate the cylinder.

Interesting idea there Jonathan! Thanks will talk that through with my partner! Although we have great views at the front too so its great if we can still look out and watch the sunsets over the hills! Dee - We also really liked it! We had 6 quotes and based on house prices falling, and the building costs going up over lockdown etc and not coming down, the cost to do both the loft and downstairs is more than it would probably be worth! We also live in the south-east. We are already looking at doing it in two stages, downstairs now, and then loft when we remortage. So great minds! pauldrowan - Yeah, this is along the lines of what a builder suggested and what we have been trying to do, another toilet is not essential so it's not the end of the world if we lose this! This is the idea that I had. Leaning much more into a broken plan idea, and blocking the original lounge off for a private lounge, maybe using under the stairs for a small WC... Then I can still get additional storage in the entrance hall and my bench! Then in the extension, we would create a 'butler pantry' type space. This would mean that the corner of the original house would sit on the upper right corner of this butler's pantry space so we don't need this huge RSJ's as they can sit on the corner of the original footprint (if that makes sense). In here can be a utility come pantry, then we would have a banquet seating type area come off the kitchen peninsula island which had a wonderful outlook out front.