Ok, I may sound like a ninny/complete amateur asking this. That's because I am. I have no idea about this stuff. I'm sure there are mnetters out there that do have a clue though!!
Any thoughts/ideas are very welcome as I'm thinking myself into a frenzy now!!
We are thinking about having an extension put on the side our house.
I want to get my head around how it would work.
Basic Info:
We have decided to stay in this house for forseeable future and expand a bit.
We have two boys. We want them to have non-box rooms.
We would like a 2nd bathroom - preferably ensuite to a master, but standalone is fine (with shower/loo/sink)
We want it to stay 4 bed - its fine if the 4th is still a single room. I don't want to end up with 3 doubles and 2 box rooms.
House Info:
Facing the house from the street (which I call the front) it would be above our garage/utility room (which is on the right hand side - we have a single garage, and the utility room is directly behind it). It would add v. approx 2.2m x 6.5m.
There are two back bedrooms (master on the left and big box on the right. The big box (lets call it 3) is the one with the external wall which we want to extend onto.
I've got a floorplan here which makes a whole lot more sense than what I've written!
i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae221/snowmonkie/House/scan0005.jpg
The wall which divides the master and bedroom 3 are not loadbearing.
Neither is the wall which divides the 2nd and 4th bedroom (the double and box room)
As the stairs are next to 4 (box room) I don't think we can do anything about making 4 bigger. We could however knock through from 4 to 2, but lets ignore that for the minute...
So lets say:
Plan A is simplest - we want one big room to be built above garage/utility. Would only need access to it from landing, so quite a small opening for a door to access the new room
Plan B - like plan A, but I want to create a new bit of landing in the new space, then have a new box room at the front of the house, and at the back I want to knock the external room to make room 3 into a nice double room.
Plan C - like plans A or B but somehow incorporating an ensuite bathroom . I don't know how this would work ie where we'd be able to put it. There is a downstairs loo which is directly underneath the stairs.
My FIRST question, is when you are talking about an external wall, is it possible/more expensive/same difference to knock down a substantial section of that external wall? So is plan B viable?
My SECOND question. If plan B isnt viable, or more expensive and we end up going with some sort of version of plan A - what would you do with it? Its a bit narrow imo to be the master although it would fit a double, just with v. little space either side of the bed. To me that would be a tad wierd.
I have more questions, but I need to get my head around whats possible first!
thanks if you got this far :)