Perplexed by DH’s home ‘improvements’ plan (with floor plan)

[BlueAndWhiteGem]

I’m looking for some other views on what my DH has proposed to solve our lack of space. It’s us two and a young baby, we lack living space and can’t comfortably fit a dining table.

I’m not keen myself, but would welcome opinions and any other ideas.

His proposal:

-knock through the existing wall to combine living room/kitchen - could add an island and dining table. We only did the kitchen 3 years ago so would mean we can keep that.

-Extend with either single storey build or an orangery and make this the living room. Would run length of back of house and extend out by up to 3metres.

My concerns:

-Kitchen/diner at front of house is unusual, right? Due to lay out of our house, we’d need to walk through it every time to get to living room.

-4 by 3 living room would be small’ish, but could work. We have trees at the back of garden so it would be a nice outlook.

-I’d rather we built an extension and knocked kitchen into it but DH says that would be a lot more expensive and we’d largely lose what we did for it 3 years ago.

Ideally we’d move but whilst possible, that would stretch us financially.

What is your budget?

It's not unusual at all. My last two houses had kitchen at the front - nope last 4 actually. Just thought about it a bit more.

Up to £100,000, but we wouldn’t spend anywhere near all of that as eventually want to explore adding space upstairs.

I probably should have been clearer that it’s more the fact you’d have to walk through it to get to the living area which I’d find odd, but that could just be me!

With that layout I'd knock through to make one open plan space. Your lounge is already a corridor to your kitchen so making one open space is sensible. Unless you get a properly built and insulated orangery it will be too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer for you to get much use out of.... Our neighbours have their kitchen at the front as they were sick of walking through the lounge to take groceries to the kitchen (particularly in the rain!)

Yep that was the same for all 4 houses actually. No hallway.

Moving the door would help with the ‘walking straight into the kitchen’ feel. Attached two examples.

How much square footage is your DH envisioning he adds?

This is a small property, the three bedrooms are all small and the one bathroom tiny

I’d move if budget is £100k

Could you do the single storey extension he wants and use that as dining area? And leave lounge as is?

With that sort of budget I would be looking to move. What are the schools like where you are now? Have you already researched that?

Put your maximum budget into Rightmove, the number of beds, the area and instead of the usual high to low price search, flip it, so low to high, what is the cheapest house in your area that fits your criteria? What has potential long term?

In your current house even if you knock through for one giant open plan space which gives you a dining table you still have a tight upstairs, especially bedroom 3. We had this house and it was marketed as a starter home. We moved when Ds1 was a toddler for a school catchment.

Really good schools locally, and we definitely purchased it intending for it to be a starter home but didn’t realise how much house prices would go up (naive I know!) so to get what we would want nearby e.g bigger three bed or four bed feels a bit stretch now even if just about do-able financially.

Potentially yeah, that could be an option.

I like the idea, unfortunately the living room space is already fairly narrow and this would narrow it even more.

Definitely move. Neither of your ideas will make £100k back and neither will be ideal for a small 3 bed.

Depending on your ages you could look at taking out a longer mortgage term with a view to reducing it back down later on when you don't have young children anymore. Nursery costs are the biggest impact on finances. We did that to get this house. We had paid a mortgage for 8 years, then bought this house on a 25 year mortgage when our children were lower primary. We reduced it back down and will pay it back meaning the 25 years is actually 18.

I think that’s what we will have to do. Both late 30’s currently and ideally didn’t want below a 25 year term, looking at some of the figures I think we will need to go for 30 years and reduce down.

I would move. It’s really 2 bed plus a study as that third room is tiny. It will be okay for now but in a few years it will just be way too small. 100K is a lot of money and I think the best investment would be in a bigger home that will make more back and you can enjoy the benefits of living in a larger area. I don’t think you’ll see the money back for renovations.

With a £100k budget you should move. You know you’re not going to be there long term, why sink tens of thousands into a house that is fundamentally too small for you and where you know you won’t stay? Spend it on a bigger house!

Thanks @ilovepuppies2019 / @FreebieWallopFridge

I know deep down we need to move really, it’s just the prices of the places we’d ideally want to make moving worthwhile. We’d be paying more monthly which is scary, but then I need to think what we’d gain in terms of positives by moving.

I wouldn’t be spending that money on a starter home, you should put a 100k to your next house.

Is this detached or semi or terraced

op what is total sq footage?
and how much hoping to add with £100k?

Detached, but no scope to extend either side as other houses close and garage is seperate.

Not sure of total sq foot sorry

More living space downstairs e.g kitchen/diner and eventually more upstairs but know that’d need more than £100k realistically.

Goodness it is critical to know current sw footage and how much you intend to add!!

like the very first thing you need to find out
presumably your dh knows before he’s done his plan?!

Either move, or do an extension that also gets you a modest improvement upstairs and being content with that. I think trying to do two extensions on this one is too expensive for a property of this size.