DH and I are umming and ahhing about whether to do a dormer loft conversion in our 3-bed mid terrace Victorian house. Would love views from those who have been through the process on whether this is worth doing / how to make best use of the space we have.
Layout of house is currently:
Downstairs - reasonable size living room (for London), separate smallish but OK dining room and reasonable kitchen with room for a small table.
Upstairs: good-size master bedroom, reasonable size second double bedroom, small single, reasonable sized bathroom (but room only for bath, not bath and shower).
We now have 2 small DC (under 5) and feel like it makes sense to expand our living space. This is not our forever house, but we anticipate living here for another 4 years or so before selling up.
Main aim of the loft conversion is to get a second bathroom with a shower (we currently have a crappy shower over the bath, which I hate) and a spare room for guests. We thought we would make the new loft room the master bedroom, have the DC in the small single and small double on the first floor, and have the current master bedroom as a a spare room / study / playroom, with a sofa bed, leaving our current living room as a "grown-up" space downstairs.
But now having doubts about whether we will really make full use of the spare room / study / playroom, or whether this will end up being a wasted space / junk room. And whether in reality the kids will mostly play downstairs during the day, which means that toys etc will end up encroaching on our downstairs living room.
In an ideal world we would love to do a ground floor extension as well, creating a large kitchen diner, but we don't have the money to do both. An extension would offer a good practical family space, but would mean getting rid of some lovely period features that give the current kitchen and dining room lots of character. And we wouldn't get our second bathroom.
We felt that a loft conversion (ie an extra bedroom and bathroom) would add more value to the house when we come to sell. But now not sure whether it's all worth it and whether we'd be better off doing nothing. We've been quoted 40K for the loft conversion from a reputable company.
Views?
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Property/DIY
Should we do a loft conversion?
westwardho · 22/01/2013 12:35
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