How long did your extension/renovation take from start to finish?

[wildstrawberryplace]

About to buy a house that has planning permission in place for a smallish extension. We want to do that work but also extend the kitchen to create a kitchen/dining/family room.

The architect has said 6 months estimate to do the original work, or 12 months if we want to submit new plans and do the kitchen as well.

I was hoping to get it all done by Christmas! Am I being unrealistic here?

How long did yours take and if I may ask, was there anything that slowed it down in particular? Architect seems to think the actual build will take 3 months, so it's the plans, planning, tender etc that is going to take 9 months. Seems bloody slow to me .

7 months - side return and rear extension, new loft room and second floor bathroom, reconfiguring rooms on first and ground floor. It was originally meant to be 6 months but once you open up a house theres no telling what you'll find.

Sorry - planning stage was another couple of months on top of that

Thanks. The thing that puzzles me is all the tricky stuff (roofline extension, dormers, moving gable, reconfiguring internal supporting walls) can be done in 6 months. The kitchen would just be a bog standard square single storey job...but it will take until next July.

Its the second fit that takes a hell of a long time - the main structural work was done after about 4 months.

two storey extension on back , planning granted early November and started next day and completed mid February and that year it snowed a lot

We had a single storey, side and back and it took about 4 months

Took us a year last time
3 months to get plans drawn up & get planning
1 month to tender building work
4 months to wait for builder to start
4 months building work

I felt we were always waiting for something.

Submitted plans for ground floor extension - removal of internal walls, wrap around one storey extension incorporating toilet, utility room and refitted kitchen - plans through in three months - builder started in early Jan and completely finished by beginning of April. Just used same firm for loft extension - planning applied for early Dec, through at beginning of February, builders started on April 16th, all done bar the decorating seven weeks later - two dormers, two bedrooms, bathroom, new boiler, new gutters, chimney removed and ridge tiles all repointed. Was expecting to take longer but they worked quickly.

That makes it sound like we have done loads recently - the first lot of work was seven years ago.

So it looks like I should hope for 9 months but not count on it...