To abandon the extension?

Do you really need a utility on the ground floor? We've put ours on the top loft floor where we have a washer, dryer, airer and heated airer. All the clothes chaos is out of sight and never comes to the ground floor.
This won't cost much at all. We carved it at one end of the bedroom where there was a velux window in the roof.

You can then repurpose your living space as you like and not lose the side access/storage.

I see staying here for the long haul yes.
We could do a smaller one, but wouldn't get out of it what I want/need. (Storage, a bit more space and a utility room that I can shut the door on all the washing! Ha) I definitely think it's worth it. Just a crazy amount of money to save on our earnings. 😅

It’s very tricky. We called the two estate agents who had listed our property and honestly asked them for advice and they were great. Could that be an option? They told us what value the house would be (what they would market it for and what they thought we would get) with the extension. It was more than we had estimated ourselves and gave us a bit of confidence to go ahead

@AlliWantIsARoomSomewheeeereits so tough to decide. Is it a long term home, or one you’re planning to sell in a few years? Would it constrain you badly financially for a few years?

is there a modified /smaller version of the plans you can do? I loved Houzz stories for inspiration, like this https://www.houzz.co.uk/magazine/5-times-a-smaller-extension-made-a-huge-difference-stsetivw-vs~117718161

Having a very similar dilemma, we have 45000 sat in an account for 18months after getting plans for extension and a new boiler. Having saved/borrowed £50,000 over 6yrs only for COVID/Brexit etc to send prices soaring, the £40,000 extension is now looking to be 90,000-100,000. (Would likely add 30,000 to house value, maybe 40 at a push) So now not sure it's worth it (or if we can afford to find the rest of the money without going without holidays or luxuries for another 5years) But hard to give up on after 5years and the excitement of getting the plans done. 😭😭 (Even though I really want a holiday!!) But a holiday is a week and I see this as my forever home.

I think back fondly to the times of my son and five or six friends playing video games and eating us out of house and home. They did take upnso mich room.

My house had a similar layout when we bought it, inc the conservatory. I would suggest taking down the conservatory, and building a single storey extension that comes out as far as the conservatory, so the back of the house is all the same depth. That would give you a decent open plan space with a kitchen and a dining table, and maybe a small cosy sofa area too. Velux windows/roof lights right across to get lots of light in. If you can, a utility/boot room would also be brilliant, esp with four children!

This thread has made me want to post my own floor plan for ideas. People have really great feedback.

How old is that quote? 50-60k feels on the low side with the way costs have risen recently. Do you have contingency?

@Extendorsaveyour house sounds lovely and in a great location. It’s hard to envision before you start, I was worried right until we finished that we had spent a huge amount on a house that I still
might not love. Actually I do love it now, but right up to having the shell being plastered I thought I’d made a huge mistake. I think increasing the family living space was key to me - so extending and opening it out had made a great social space for us to all be in together. But we also kept other rooms and pocket doors to future proof it.

How big is your rear garden? Is there the possibility to level it a bit? That will make it feel masses bigger. We’re doing that right now with a lot (20 tonnes) of MOT stone and some small retaining walls. We’ve done a lot of the labour ourselves (but had professionals building the retaining walls) but it’s made a big difference. How sloped is your front garden also? Ours was very sloped but we have again managed to level it and somewhat (it still slopes quite a bit) and have a driveway now. There’s a lot you can do with retaining walls (they’re made out of cheap blocks) and either removing or adding stone. I was really surprised - couldn’t envision it myself before.

Our house is a similar ground floor layout to yours but a mid terrace so no option for a side extension. We knocked though from the dining room to the kitchen but kept the kitchen where it was originally.
What I now wish we had done was turn the kitchen into a utility and move the kitchen to the dining room as a kitchen diner. Someone else on the street has built a small extension at the back (where your conservatory is) put the kitchen there and the original kitchen became a utility.
Just some ideas as I think you can gain more usable space without increasing the footprint and possibly breaking the ceiling price for your property.

Don't waste the money on holidays, but use it to the max to get the best value. I would square off the back of the house, knock the dining & kitchen into one and then change the access into it. The bit by the loo where all the doors are, take the space there, square that off and incorporate the existing loo into a utility room. You need to use existing services (foul & water) to save costs. Your biggest unseen costs will be structural and services. You can spend a lot on those, but you don't see the end result. Try and work with what is already there. Think it all through beforehand. Plan it out properly. You don't want to be changing things once the build has started, that really wastes money. Don't forget to insulate it properly either.

I see where you are coming from. I also note you said you’d like to give your children nicer holidays & help them through expensive phases. My first thought was that will be more difficult with 4.

But appreciate it’s not the topic of the thread.

If you're not doing the extension pay the loan back don't spend it on holidays!

I’ve had this thought all the way through this thread? Why do you want a 4th child OP?
What will a 4th give you that you don’t have with 3? Obviously having another means you’ll presumably be less likely to be able to give the same opportunities to the 3 you have.

£118k to me is a good salary but im not in the UK so difficult for me to judge. But your husband is self-employed which as far as I understand it always carries more risk.

Also, just to ask, was your ideal house that you mention detached? Are there other things you don’t like about your house that can’t be changed? If that’s the case, I would be very strategic with improving the flow and layout (seeing what's cheapest etc) and making it nice for you for a few years. But also appealing for buyers so you can sell it quickly if needs be. If it’s just the layout being top heavy that you don’t like, then given how much the stamp duty would be to move a step up, I’d be inclined to try to get a bigger extension

I think you’re getting a bit of a hard time in the comments. It was clear to me you had borrowed at a different LTV to have the money to use for possibly an extension. Not overborrowed on the house! And it’s sensible to ask whether it’s worth using that on a small side return utility, when this might not add much value to your house so essentially be a waste. Especially as you mention not being sold on the house and would like possibly different things as the children grow.

In my opinion that wouldn’t be worth it (for me). I’ve just finished an extension on a property on the hill - the hill added about another £12k in costs for deeper foundations/more concrete. This was for a full back extension and has definitely improved the house and how we use it. Going open plan has really improved it also with young children. But you can add sliding pocket doors so rooms can be open and then closed off when needed.

Looking at your floorplan, I would either:

1. get a quote for the full back extension with roof lights. As long as this doesn’t take you over the ceiling price. But this would add actual value I think.
2. ask a builder/structural engineer about costs for removing different walls/what steels would be needed etc. To remove one of our walls would have needed about £7k of steel, the other wall was about £1k of steel for example. Use this to strategically plan how to reconfigure.
3. if the side return is just for a utility and storage, could you consider a proper enclosed side return lean to? This would be much cheaper, you’d keep your kitchen door into it, and you could have your washer and dryer stacked in cupboard, make a boot room area, a storage area etc

Otherwise if you have a decent LTV I would actually use some of it for experiences. Not the whole £60k, but those experiences and memories with my children are important to me and would be more important than a utility (and I love our utility room)

OPs original post said:

We've been quoted about 50-60k for this. We borrowed the money as part of the initial mortgage, planning to do it quicky and have it in a high interest account.

This is where the confusion comes from.

Later on OP says:

I think I might have accidentally misled people with us borrowing money to do the extension.
When we sold our flat we had a fair bit of equity, we then rented for 6 months.
When we chose to buy, rather than putting all the equity back into the next property, we kept some back and therefore borrowed more than we needed, with the plan to extend. So I don't think this would leave us in negative equity?

Which is a different situation.

I think OP has made it clear that she hasn’t borrowed the money as such, rather just kept back £60k of her savings (from equity in a previous home) rather than ploughed all
her savings into the current house purchase. This means her mortgage is more than it would have been, but a lot of people don’t put every penny of their savings into a house purchase.
we did the same when we brought our current house, held back some savings so we could have a buffer and also do work to the house. It’s a common tactic, not sure why people are being aggy about it!