Convert loft before you move in, or after?

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

Following on from my "four of us in a 2-bed house?" thread, we've decided to buy our tiny dream home and convert the loft. I'm in the process of ensuring we can do this!

Assuming we can, we have two choices:

A) add the cost to the mortgage and do it before we move in (we can live with my nearby parents in the meantime. I'm already here and it's lovely). The only drawback is we'd be paying £500/month rent to my parents, and £242/month Shurgard costs for the furniture;

Or B) Move in and save up the £20-30k money needed and do it later.

We can afford the mortgage costs either way, although the 2-3 (?) months when we'll be paying RENT + STORAGE + MORTGAGE will be crippling.

What would you do? How disruptive and messy is a loft conversion? How long does it take? And if you had kids, would it all be too much to have it going on while you lived there?

Sorry for all these threads... I've rapidly become unable to make any decisions without the MN consensus.

They do the majority of work from the roof, and don't 'punch through' until all the structure is done and they are ready to seal up the roof. Most people get loft conversions done while they are in the house - for the sake of paying all that rent and storage I would just move in and get it done on the mortgage.

I would wait and stay with your parents if you can afford it. I did a gut refurb on the house I bought but didn't live in it until the very end because I hate mess and disruption and builders are filthy. The bit I did live through drive me mad.

It really depends in how stressful you find mess.

Good luck!

It's only about a 3 week job.

Usually more like 8-12 weeks in my experience and that of 5 friends who've recently had lofts converted. We lived through a full refurb, it was a nightmare but we managed, the loft itself was the least of our problems though so I would live in with any future lofts we did.

Really? My neighbour just had hers done, including a small ensuite, in 3 weeks. My aunts took 4 weeks. Neither had dormer windows. Maybe that's the difference. They both had enough head height to just do velux windows.

Could you not move the furniture into the new house whilst the work is being done? That would save on storage costs, we did some work on this house before we officially moved in and it was much easier, could just leave the place a mess at night and go back to a clean house.

I'd do it before you move in. It's massively stressful and in fact, you may need remedial work affecting other downstairs rooms resulting from the loft conversion. We needed ceilings to be replastered downstairs because of the work being done upstairs. There is so much dust created from the works.

Plus I'd put it on the mortgage. Borrowing is cheap at the moment and you'll find it very hard to borrow at these rates again in the future.

It takes a good deal of time to save £20 to £30K generally, and if there are four of you - you need the space!!

I agree with poster before, move your furniture in to save the costs of storage but don't move in until the work is done.

I vote for doing it before you move in. Add the cost of extra rent and storage onto the price of the loft if you can to save worrying about money.

We had our loft converted last year and it took almost 5 weeks (with a dormer put in). In our case we did have to have ceilings lowered on the first floor (adding an extra week) and it was this that created the ridiculous amount of dust. Saying that, we managed to live in the house whilst it was all happening and it wasn't too bad.

We had a loft conversion while living in the house, it was ok. Doable IMO.

We had a loft conversion done 11 years ago when I was pregnant with our youngest and DD1 was 18 months old. I think it was fine. Most of the work was done with access through the roof. Think it took 3 months (no dormers). We are currently having kitchen extension which is taking 16 weeks - this is much more disruptive than the loft. I would move in and save rent/storage and add cost to the mortgage.

If you can get the permissions timely enough do it before you move in probably. The advantage of doing it after you have moved is that you have a much better sense of the house and how things would work. That really important if it is unusual, but much less so if you already have seen what you want (eg a loft conversion exactly the same as the neighbouring property). I'd find it hard to plan if I hadn't lived in the house but that probably says more about me than anything else

They do the majority of work from the roof, and don't 'punch through' until all the structure is done and they are ready to seal up the roof.

That's what our builders said. "We'll use scaffolding ..." Day 2 = apocalypse.

Very, very, very messy. Do not move in first if you can help it. I have done it twice.

Thank you all so much!! You're all so funny and helpful.

I was dying to do it before we moved in, but I've been persuaded to wait. I'm scared that means it'll never get done (you know how things can get delayed) but hopefully it'd be ok.

I agree it'd be nice to get a feel for the house before we start changing anything. Plus we'd need to send the party-wall act request letters out now, as they have to go out 2 months before work starts. And we are hoping for a quick purchase (hollow laugh, if it's anything like our experience).

We can always move out to my parents' house when work starts, so we don't HAVE to live in if it's hideous.

Thank you!!!! I'll be back soon no doubt with another question!!!! Xx

PrimalLass, your message really made me laugh. Sorry your experience was apocalyptic. Does it look lovely now?

It did look lovely. I was on mat leave to decamped with DS. Poor DP had to live in it and deal with the builders

The one we did after that (this house) - the builder's bargain price was only valid if we were not here for the first few weeks.