Would we be mad to buy a home and knock down a perfectly functional extension?

[WaryRaven]

i have found a house I absolutely adore. It is a period home and absolutely stunning…from the front. Unfortunately there is a well built but rather awkward “garden room” extension I just don’t like. It’s the shape I have a problem with. Aesthetically it’s fine. Floors and walls are nice enough. I would just want to get rid of the whole thing. But would I be mad for doing so? Dh thinks I’m nuts but I assure him many people would also consider the garden room an eye sore and maybe build an orangery type thing to the west of the kitchen in a few years down the line. I hate how the original external windows have just had the glass removed so there are just big square holes between the kitchen and garden room.

It really is quite gorgeous from the front. Would I not just be knocking thousands off the value?

I guess I am mad.

I just don’t like the idea of having a kitchen with no external windows.

Such a shame. I am a sucker for Georgian farmhouses

Can you do as others have suggested and remodel the kitchen so it becomes part of the extension? I agree that the kitchen looks a bit odd

It would be a shocking waste to knock all that down. Find another house.

I think it’s up to you! If you can afford it and it’s your forever home, why not?

If you can afford it then I don't see a problem with knocking the modern bit down. If it makes you feel better I knew a couple that knocked down the entire house (modern) and rebuilt on a different side of the plot! A huge proportion of a house cost is the land it sits on anyway.

I really like it! I think the extension looks nice.

YANBU The extension doesn't make sense. I can't imagine what they were thinking building a weird room around the kitchen thereby containing the kitchen and making it windowless. It's actually ridiculous and there is no way I would be able to live with that.

However, I don't think knocking the garden room down is the answer. The obvious thing to do is remodel from the inside. It's the internal kitchen wall between the kitchen and the dining space which seems to be biggest problem. That's what needs to go imo. It's hard to imagine what it's all like without pics, but I'm assuming the kitchen is fully done etc so this would be a crazy expensive route. If the units are nice, you could still use them.
If this was mine and money was no object, I would lose the internal wall completely at the side return, but maybe make a nice orangery type space across the back, keeping the differentiated space and definitely not having weird glassless kitchen windows.
Is the house listed or something? I can't work out why they've done this. Maybe they weren't allowed to remove the original walls?

It's a shame, but I have to agree that this is one of the most stupid extensions I have ever seen and I don't blame you for trying to find a solution.

Not only is it maddeningly wasteful, you're in for an utter nightmare of costs if you want to rebuild that space with a more traditional look. Good luck with the planning permission expenses alone. Not to mention the building supplies and maintenance.

Going against the general opinion here, is this your forever home? If it is, I’d buy it and do whatever you want to it. If you plan on staying there forever, does it depreciating in price really matter to how you want your home? You’ll know in your gut if it’s the right thing to do x

Lots of people redo older extensions especially ones which are badly built, badly insulated and or do not give the required space or aren't well integrated with the rest of the house. Just demolishing it without replacing it with something else is probably less common.
If it's well built and newish then you may be better off looking for somewhere else.
The value may not reduce as much as you may think as you are really often paying for location and number of bedrooms.
It will cost to remove it though and you will need to install new windows. Check to see if you would need planning permission and/or building regulations.

I wouldn't take that on.
Find another house.

The wrap around part isn’t the problem in my mind if it is boot room. Without that the kitchen would have an external window. Then you could block up the other internal window if your prefer (or make it into a serving hatch for the dining space.

But you would have to find a new home for the utility - I would go with the mini bedroom on the 1st floor as the utility and ditch the boot room.

Knocking it completely down would
a) cost a lot
b) devalue the house
c) leave the house unbalanced (harder to tell from photos) as the downstairs would be small for 6 bedrooms.

Just looked at the house particulars and it will drive you mad imo. That half baked extension is probably a consequence of endless to and fros with planners. It's a shame that this is the compromise they reached, but I think that this house is telling you that it's going to be an impossible project. Such a shame

I voted YANBU before I looked at the photos of it but now I think you would be crazy to do it.

It's a lovely house, but I know what you mean about the extension. It is indeed a very ugly extension and from the outside it looks like a pub.

If you've got the cash to knock the extension down and start again do it, but you'll never recoup those costs.

I responded that you were being unreasonable because, I think, it is important to live in the space for a whole year - through all seasons - before considering your proposal.

So I’ve done this but it doesn’t need a total rebuild, just an interior remodelling.
It was an extension which was absolutely fine but they hadn’t removed the old original back wall fully so there was still chest high “peninsula” where the old wall was.
We brought in a builder and had a proper beam put in, which allowed us to knock down the wall and open up the kitchen.
The extension largely stayed as it was.

From memory I think it cost £5K and the cost of the kitchen units which had backed onto the old wall. A very easy job.

I think it's beautiful! I was expecting something really horrible but that's very well done imo!

I put you were unreasonable before clicking on the link.

You are right, the extension in horrible. I wouldn't knock it down but I wouldn't buy it because of it.

The problematic wall is a mahoosive chimney in a listed house. You can see why they’ve done it that way.

Oh my goodness for a minute I thought it was the same house we like just looking at the floor plan, we also don’t like how they’ve extended. Beautiful period double fronted property with modern extension at back, similar layout. Opened link, it’s a lovely looking house.

With our one I think we can rejig the layout, but it would mean ripping out a perfectly fine kitchen (though not to my taste) and knocking through another wall. All just an idea at the moment as need to sell ours before making an offer.

I’m sure you can come up with a way of reconfiguring rather than knocking it down. It all depends on how long you’ll be there, if it’s a home you plan to stay in for a long time then reducing market value for a small amount of time won’t be a biggie, as I’m sure whatever you change it to will be worth it to you long term and by then housing values increased.

It actually doesn't look too bad from the link posted above.

I would keep the garden room until the point at which you want to replace it. Then the cost of demolition can be factored into the rebuild.

If you don't want any kind of extension on this house at all, I would keep looking for somewhere else to buy, as that would be a lot of square footage to lose from a house and your valuation would decrease if you removed it.

I get where you are coming from. The modern extension we put on the back of our period home makes me want to tear it down sometimes. But the house was built in a way that would have made it super expensive to knock down the walls to do anything else…..it’s a compromise that we live with.

you could make that extension, with a bit of remodelling could look far less pub din8ng room, it’s the fireplace that causes the issue opening it up….

You do realise that you can change a place from ‘sparse’ to something more ‘full’ by just, you know, putting more/different stuff in it?! Amazes me the number of people who can’t visualise what a space could look like without the furniture and decoration that’s already in it.

Anyhow, good of you to offer your constructive critique 🙄.

I think it’s a lovely space OP and as everyone has said, if you love everything else about the house, the way to go is to remodel the kitchen to open it out to the view. You wouldn’t need to do too much work to achieve a more open aspect - although I have to say the way it’s designed doesn’t look as enclosed/separated on the photos as it appears on the plans.

But yeah, knocking down a really well constructed and expensively finished extension that comprises a third of your ground floor footage would be completely and utterly mental, not to mention horribly wasteful. In that case I’d walk away and let someone buy it who likes it as it is.

Yes, crazy.

If you love everything else about the house (location, size, views etc), you can afford it, would stay there over a decade, and you’d be likely to afford to reconfigure after a couple of years, then buy it.

Live in it a bit. Get used to how the light moves around at the times of day you use the kitchen. Looks like you’ll need to capture light from south and west in the afternoon/evening. Also, looks like the extension makes the kitchen dark in the mornings (which is when you often want light in a kitchen), as it blocks the light from the east. Get used to how much space it gives you and what you’d lose if you demolished it. Then, figure out a way you could reconfigure it, to make the space lighter, more functional and more in keeping with the home, but also to give you the living space you need. You may not need to pull it all down. And it gives you the advantage of foundations and wiring.

Large modern kitchens on the back of period homes can work when done well. You may need to take out the original walls to make one big space and avoid the ‘add on’ feel. A local architect who specialises in such stuff should be able to give you ideas.