To abandon the extension?

[Extendorsave]

Just after some opinions really as DH and I can't decide what to do and are after some Mumsnet wisdom.
We bought a 1930s semi 2 years ago with the intention of doing an extension. It's a 5 bed semi (2 rooms in the loft) but it needed loads of work. It currently has a small old kitchen and separate dining room, it feels small downstairs. Our plan was to knock through, get a new kitchen and build a utility on the side. 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.
We have 3 kids aged 8, 5 and 2, and planning one more possibly.

As time goes on I feel like we would be better off keeping this money. I imagine all the lovely holidays it would cover, and possibly helping the kids through expensive phases. We are not struggling for money, we can afford a basic holiday every year, but the extra money would mean nicer holidays, maybe extra trips, the ability to not worry about money and buy things we need. Or we could even pay off some of the 380k mortgage!
We also have an additional 30k in savings if that makes a difference, which is our back up money as DH is self employed, so it will remain untouched.

My DH thinks we should do the extension and prioritise making the house nice to live in, I am having doubts as I'm not sure a side utility will make a huge amount of difference to our lives but I do see how much nicer it would be to have an open plan space for having friends over and spending more time together as a family. I don't think it would add much value we there is a ceiling to houses in our road. We might not make it all back if we sold and ideally we don't want to move for a long time.

Anyone had a similar dilemma? What did you do?

Have you considered knocking through the kitchen and dining room and remodelling the conservatory as a utility room? More useful to you and more attractive to buyers. And within budget.

@Extendorsave not really enough showering facilities for 5 bedrooms. we have 2 ensuites and a large bathroom for 4 bedrooms( 1of which has never ever been used for a bedroom in 30 years). even though we also have 3 toilets I have seen me running around with my legs crossed in the morning looking for a loo!

Ive not read all the responses, but could you fit a utility in upstairs? Then maybe all you need to do is knock through to create a kitchen /diner?

We're in a very similar position and in fact our extension has started today! Like you, we felt the living areas were small. We have small, separate kitchen and dining rooms. We've remortgaged to do the build as well.

I'd personally worry about negative equity too, surely this will affect you if you ever need to sell the house unless the value of it has significantly increased since you bought it anyway? Holidays are lovely (we haven't had one in 8 years!) but investing in the home means it works better for you, adds value and is permanent. If you search for a new house what are the odds that one would be decorated exactly as you'd like it? We saw lots of properties on our house search that were very modern but not to our taste so we'd have still wanted to change things anyway.

Also the one thing our house had going for it is that it already has a separate utility room. I couldn't be without it, it's such a game changer.

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?
But I totally agree with most posters that we won't keep it to spend on random luxuries, in hindsight that sounds ridiculous with the long term cost of the debt, but will work out what we need to do to the house, and pay the rest back on the mortgage.

Im really liking some of these ideas that might mean not completely extending but still gaining some family space and utility space.

I am the one person probably that hates the idea of a social kitchen. The kitchen is my space I don’t want other people in it and I would love to be able to shut the door on it. Would love an utility though. Also hate kitchen islands and breakfast bars and want to put walls back in barn like open plan kitchen/ diners…

My house sounds exactly like yours, we’re on the end so have a lot of space at the side of the house. We haven’t yet built into the loft but there’s plans to. I’d absolutely go for it, I have 3 kids (teen, pre teen and almost 10) and I’d 100% go for the utility and extra space. Holidays can come later but you’ll always enjoy your home.

Another vote for doing the work OP. It’s getting increasingly expensive to move nowadays and given your house is quite top heavy I think it will balance it out and add loads of value.
We knocked through our kitchen and diner and added a large conservatory to the back of our house when we moved in and it’s definately been worth it as it’s given us the ability to stay here longer term. The removal of the wall did create a lot of dust though so just be prepared !

Don't use money borrowed as part of a mortgage for holidays! You're then paying back that holiday over the term of your mortgage. Do the extension and add that value to your home

The only thing I would say is it sounds like the house is quite unbalanced with 5 beds and really that isn't going to be improved much by knocking the kitchen through into dining area.

I know you plan to extend with a utility but actually that isn't going to add much living space, it's quite functional, and what you'll be left with is only areasonably big kitchen diner, and a lounge, as the total usable living space for what potentially might become a family of 6.

Sometimes being able to separate out from each other a bit can be quite useful - I would worry with what you propose your teens will just spend all their time in their bedrooms due to lack of living space downstairs.

Is it possible to extend the ground floor out at the back as well as the side, in order to do utility plus make kitchen and second reception room both bigger? This would increase the value of the house more I think but I appreciate would also cost more.

I’d do the house … you can worry about the posh holidays later down the line.

It’s highly unlikely a well built and pleasant extension isn’t going to increase the value of the property quite considerably.

You have 2 choices (or maybe 3):

Spend the money on experiences - memories but money is gone

Invest the money into your home - will go up in value and will likely be a good investment. It will also provide nicer environment for a large family - as the children are older they will need more space and who wants to live in a pokey home?

Use the money to invest into your futures. You mention your husband is self employed. What are your retirement savings like? For a modest retirement, you will need £500k in savings and pensions are amazing products. What about your savings for your children and their grandchildren - what does that look like?

I know what I would be doing and it wouldn’t be burning through the money. We live off income, not capital and certainly not borrowings.

Definitely agree you should do the extension. It's easy to see the appeal of better holidays but you will enjoy the house year round and you will benefit as the children grow.

I definitely understand the desire to travel etc and I imagine it was very stressful dealing with the works with children and you might be doing that again if you want more and to do the extension/renovations.
But I agree that with 4 children, if this is your long term home, having a good downstairs space will be a good investment for family life.
We didn't go ahead with our extension because of costs but it was replacing our horrible conservatory with a proper room, we hadn't borrowed the money yet but it was eye watering for us and meant we wouldn't be able to have nice holidays or enjoy any days out as a family so we decided that it wasn't worth it. But we have spruced it up a little so the space is slightly more useable than before and that's made our living room & kitchen nicer too.
I would not spend borrowed money on a holiday though, ever. That doesn't feel financially sound at all. I would put it against the mortgage if you don't do the extension.
We are definitely 'holiday' people rather than 'house' people though.

This is a concern of mine and one of the reasons I've been wary of doing it and considering just superficially tarting it up and then trying to upsize when the kids get older to get more downstairs living space.
The house as it is would be very expensive to extend further back, due to the house being on a downwards hill (stairs down onto the patio and stairs again down onto the garden) and I wouldn't want to do that work now as the kids would lose garden space.
I think my long term plan (if we stay and do this work) would be to put a chill out room/office down the end of the garden to give some more space, which would be helpful when they have friends over.
I do worry that they will be forced into their rooms but I do think that can happen anyway. My friends daughter is an only child in a large house and at 13 spends all her time in her room.
We are a very sociable family, we love being together and I just hope they don't mind being a bit 'cosy'. I think my idea of upsizing is probably unrealistic now. We live in an expensive area and the next size up is significantly more money, and would be increasing our mortgage so much at a time when kids might need help with uni, cars etc.
I sometimes wish we had moved into the countryside when we had the chance and had a bigger house, but the kids are very settled here, and I wouldn't want to uproot them if we can help it.

You’ll wish for more room when your kids are older! I’d do the extension if the moneys there. Plenty time for holidays.

I can totally see why you didn't go ahead with it. And I relate to being a holiday person rather than a house person. My DH is the opposite, definitely house over holiday, which makes it a bit tricky.

Definitely get the extension done. Our house that we’ve now been in for 7 years sounds very similar to your current situation and last summer we finally took the plunge and had a small extension to the rear, knocking through the galley kitchen into the dining room and squaring off that space, as well as adding a narrow utility area stacked washer and dryer, plus a WC.
It was absolutely the best thing we did (ok so we had no hold last year ) and has given us a nice sized kitchen diner plus a sofa corner. We still have another downstairs room with sofas etc and moving the laundry etc out of the kitchen has allowed us to add a cute island.
zero regrets!
okay, so we had issues with our builder near the end (another story) which was somewhat stressful but it’s all worked out well!
I also wouldn’t dream of using borrowed money for holidays.
our total spend is close to about 100k but with the equity we have, added value and the fact that we do intend to stay here until DD 10 and DS 8 have grown up, it’s taken it from a nice home to a lovely home for us.

Why do people think we will need more space as they grow? Is this due to them being bigger people and having bigger things? Bigger dirty clothes to wash? Lots of bigger friends?
Genuinely interested as ours are all small and still have huge toys like toy kitchens and toot toot garages etc, I was kind of hoping time would help with the space issue a bit but I'm probably being naive!

From my POV it’s because they are literally bigger! All going to be as tall as their dad - take up more space on the sofa, round a dining table etc.

@Extendorsave its about how they use the space as they get older. They may start bringing friends or a boyfriend/girlfriend home regularly. Extra people for dinner. Plus teenagers eat a lot. My DS is constantly in the kitchen looking for food.

Then they start doing their own cooking / baking / protein shakes etc, which adds to the number of people using the kitchen.
If you have a small kitchen it’s fine if it’s just you cooking dinner, but add to that a tall teenager and friends trying to get to the fridge / microwave etc and you see the problem….

(I am currently waiting for my teen to finish baking a cake so that I can start cooking dinner. We really need a bigger kitchen!)

I sold my open plan house so I could get a seperate kitchen and dining room back! I hated open plan, i hate people hovering in the kitchen whilst I am cooking and I like that dinner guests do not see the messy kitchen! Each to their own!

We have 3 boys and their dad is 6'4! (Gulp)

If you’ve been watching The Feud on Channel 5 you defo won’t get your kitchen extension done <misses point of thread>

Watch Kirstie and Phils Love it or List it on Channel 4 catch up channel. Lots of fantastic ideas that either increase value or break even, plus improve quality of life for the families.
Definitely knock through between kitchen and dining room and find space in that area for a sofa and TV, this keeps your lounge as a quieter space.
Consider using the conservatory as a Utility room, or, could you enlarge the downstairs toilet to make it a Utility room?