To want to build an extension with limited space!

[Givemeyouropinion]

we have been looking to buy a new house for two years now and haven’t found anything we are both happy with. The house we currently live in is in a good area it just isn’t big enough for what we need. We have just started to look into building a two storey extension on the side of our house which would include a garage at the front, utility for the kitchen at the back and would double the size of our box room and give us a long narrow Fourth bedroom. My Aibu is the width we have to work with is only just over 2m so once we take into consideration the width of the wall we are left with around 1.75 m for the width of the fourth bedroom with a length of around 3.5m. The cost of doing this is higher than we expected and I just don’t know if it is worth it due to how narrow that fourth bedroom will be. For what it’s worrh we don’t need the fourth bedroom yet but are planning to have another child in the future. Has anybody done anything like this before with a narrow room or lived with a narrow room and found it works? Tia

Have you considered going into the roof? Those dimensions do seem quite tight on the width.

We have but it would cost even more than the two storey extension from what I have read and we’re already tight with the budget we have set.

It doesn't sound worth it to me. Could you save up for longer before doing a roof extension?

I would look into a loft conversion. We got ours done for around 40k, but we painted/ carpeted ourselves. We use it as a master with ensuite, leaving 2 large doubles and a smaller 4th bedroom downstairs. We later did a single storey extension out the back to have a decent family kitchen diner room but that cost almost double the price, as we knocked out a large supporting wall.

1.75m wide is a hallway, not a bedroom (in fact my hallway is wider than that). If you must proceed with this extension (ie - you desperately want a garage), use the 1.75m x 3 metre space plus the utility space to make a butlers pantry off the kitchen and utility room behind that (obviously if it’s all located next to the kitchen). Other option is to use it for a downstairs bathroom and instead of a garage, make this your fourth bedroom (bathroom to have dual access from bedroom and hallway). Otherwise I would wait until you can afford to complete a bigger extension to get a proper fourth bedroom.

To help you decide, check out recent sold prices in your area - do they get more with a garage or an extra bedroom? Another concern is that if there is not a full bathroom downstairs then the fourth bedroom will be considered a study (as it’s impractical to go upstairs for shower, come down to get dressed etc it should all be co-located).