Hope the collected intelligence of MNers can help advise us a bit.
We have a little 3 bedroom Victorian mid-terrace house. It's lovely but the living space is all very segregated. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen and there's no space for anyone to sit and chat in there without getting in the way, far less anywhere for us to eat.
We'd like to use the small amount (7ft x 15ft ish) of dead space between our kitchen and dining room windows and the garden wall for a single storey extension.
We're thinking a glass lean-to roof, and having the kitchen and dining room walls knocked through to make an open plan living space, with an island/breakfast bar along where the kitchen wall is now.
We're restricted by having a downstairs bathroom at the far end of the kitchen which we've decided for a number of reasons (upstairs space, cost, faff) not to re-site.
So my question is - have any of you lot had something similar done?
What factors should we be considering? Roughly how much might it cost in total, before costs of a new kitchen?
What's the best way of going about selecting a builder? Is it best to put a spec on Rated People or similar and give companies the opportunity to quote? Or better to approach firms individually?
An architect is coming to do an initial consultation tomorrow. She charges about £1200 for design and drawings to satisfy planning and building regs, considerably more for drawings to facilitate creation of a full tender for builders. (Apologies if am getting the lingo wrong, am new to this wheeze)
By way of background, we're in the South West area.
Really appreciate whatever wisdom you can pass on.