Hi everyone! Thanks for all the comments and input, it was great to see so many of you get involved! The competition is now closed, and any winners should have received an email from us confirming their prize so get checking. Happy New Year and here's to the next one!

Hi ... As you see on my profile picture, the front door is very much at the office, the only way to reach the house is via the main driveway to the black door. It's because the driveway is so long, the house is behind another house, and currently we dont have our "own" boundaries at the side of the driveway at the main road to post a sign on that some have an issue finding us....we will get to rectifying that. Even if we did allow access via the path to the utility room (which we dont want to do), that path also doesnt reach the main road either, and looks like an entrance to the new telephone exchange next door with identical gate to theirs (we are the "old" exchange). The main door was the utility but now I changed things and put the new entrance in, it's very obvious that going further than the office front door is private. Trust me... bloke with a sledge hammer has happened here already, several men 2200Watt demolition hammers... this place doesnt wan't to budge! I agree on the macerator, but it's the only way, I have however taken heed and re-planned to to only need one, not crazy 3. None of the internal walls are structural so to speak... apart from holding up the ceiling, which I add that is not sufficient as an upstairs floor using beams that should have been bigger than there is. The house is adapting through stages of also being able to live in it. While we tear down one part of the house, 2 bedrooms needed to be in service, the one bathroom retained, and the kitchen/laundry are going nowhere. Currenty the newly "finished" rooms are the Office, kitchen, Laundry, Bedrooms 2 & 3, the hallway(stairwell) shaped up and about to cut the bathroom door, the in floor electrics are in the living room, 65" wall mounted tv. Basically, we are working from one end to the other whilst keeping it liveable. Upstairs is future /maybe at this point. To be brutally honest, I dont think the architect has given it a thought, and in the latest plan actually removed a steel truss to make rooms look like will work, odd cupboards at the extremes, diagonal steel truss through bathroom, no thought to head height or where the plumbing services are. I'm sending a plan back with everything stripped out of the loft bar the master bedroom because of this... What I want to know, is how we are going to construct the floor and ventilate the loft etc... I cant say I'm enjoying it anyway, and I thought it was going to be and exciting move for the money :(

If only was that easy. I am waiting for Building regs man to get back to me for meeting. Every option in the past been discussed via my builder whom I no personally . Unless Somethings been missed we have already put to him about external fire escape stairs, the fact that new back bedroom and loft will all have new windows that a person can get out of (sure I asked about fire escape ladder which was met with a "No not sufficient" ). Its a cottage so ceilings low hence height to evacuate from a 2nd or 3rd floor in event fire would not take long. I no its down to me to put all options to buildings regs he isnt giving anywhere here and obviously its not his job to come up with solutions.Perhaps when he next comes round now so much has been done and he can see for himself windows are escape route. For now its looking like he wont sign loft off as an official 3rd bedroom. If I have to accept that , so long as I got firedoors on all floors so be it. In long run I would obviously like it signed off. Alternatively not now as monies tight but ny architect suggested months back that I possibly get a private building regs inspector who may be a bit more giving on alternatives, it would mean though paying a 2nd time gor building regs.

We used to own an old farm-worker's cottage with a separate, single storey coal/laundry building behind. We connected the two buildings with a rear hallway link building and gutted the coal/laundry shed to convert it into a new kitchen. We removed the old ceiling, put veluxes in the roof to add light and also kept a few of the joists (we removed some of them but had to put strong bolts through the remaining ones to tie them to the rafters.) We also put collar-ties on some of the other rafters and put extra reinforcements in along the wall-plate. Bottom line, is, I think it's well worth opening up the room into the roof pitch – it will look fabulous – but you should probably have a word with a good structural engineer first! :-)