Knocking two houses together

[MarcS]

Hi everyone!

We have recently bought the house next door and are in the process of gutting it to turn it back in to one house (it was one then split in two) just wondering if anyone here has any advice or experience with this type of project?

Thanks in advance

[BubblesBuddy]

I know several people who have done it. Mixed results. One wanted a separate front door for clients and a consulting room so kept both front doors and didn’t open up the houses inside. In my view, this was a bad decision. It felt like two houses.

There are problems with which staircase to keep, which hallway and which front door! How do you amalgamate rooms? What flow do you want in the house?

A house in my village is one house from 4 cottages. You go through a series of rooms (each cottage) to get to the furthest room. I’m not sure that’s great either. There is, in effect, a passageway in each room.

It seems difficult to pull off a great house when making one house from 2 or more. If your house was one house I hope you can put it back to its original footprint and features. More successfully, neighbours added an extension and completely changed the layout. Great location made this viable but it was £££££ to do it.

[MarcS]

Thank for the response! You’re right, hopefully having been one house previously it will be easier to bring back together again. The flow should be quite simple as we will only have one staircase and use part of an upstairs bedroom as a corridor.

Any advice on the other aspects such as renovation insurance etc. would be most helpful!