Gutting the entire inside - would we be mad?

[MillyMollyMandy78]

moved into our forever home last summer. It is in heart of the countryside, close to work and with a stunning 2 acre garden. It is a very dated 2 bedroom bungalow - decent size rooms but needs new flooring throughout, kitchen, bathroom etc. There is just me and DH.

The layout is a bit higgledy-piggledy and you enter the propety through the kitchen, which i don't like. Was thinking we could maybe add a central hallway/ corridor going from the entrance, and maybe swap the front bedroom and kitchen over etc. the only way to do this, and keep good dimensions would be to knock down 4 interior walls, before repositioning them and adding the corridor. Anyone done anything similar and what did it cost you approx? I have no idea if this is all financial pie in the sky! Also, in order to get the corridor/ dimensions right, i was wondering if we should consult an architect, but i have no idea how much they charge? Money is not exactly tight and we hope to be here for a good fifty years or so, so it's worth spending a bit to get it right, but i don't want to be throwing money away!

It may be cheaper to build again
Or open plan?

YEs was wondering that myself! I think it is financially unrealistic but as i am completely inexperienced at this sort of thing i thought i would post on here for ideas

If you are going to knock the majority of the internal walls, you could save money by demolishing and building from scratch. Remember there is no VAT to pay on new builds and you will also be able to build a house with great insulation which will be far cheaper to run long term. Old bungalows are not known for their insulation! You could look at kit build house like Huf Haus where you basically provide the concrete slab and they build a house for you over the course of a week or so. You might even get planning permission to move the house is you have 2 acres - ie they could build for you somewhere else while you live in the bungalow and then demolish the bungalow one you've got the new house to move into.

Having said that - if you want to take down internal walls, anything is pretty much possible with the help of modern steels and at least in a bungalow you are not having to support the weight of an upper floor. I would get a couple of recommended local builder in to get their opinion. Only embark on anything like this if you are reasonably calm and not afraid of a bit of chaos! Have done 3 major refubs (currently on my 4th in the forever house ) and gutting a house is not to be undertaken lightly!

Thanks Wilbur, that's given me food for thought. I am not at all a calm person though so may not be a good idea!

Totally not an expert, but the idea of rebuilding seems like a good idea. A house opposite our old house has been being "renovated" for over two years now with people working on it daily (the owner is not resident). It's a 4/5 bed detached, and I can't help but feel if they'd built the thing anew it would be long since finished by now. I do wonder what on earth they could be doing.

I Agree that would make sense to knock it down rather than gut it but we are not keen tbh. Another option would be a loft conversion, and swap a couple of the downstairs rooms around and have upstairs as a master bedroom and bathroom. Again, will have to look into costs etc

I would examine ways of rearranging without knocking anything down first incase you can get a better layout without structural work.
We rejigged our house a lot and only knocked down walls in two rooms.
For instance what was the kitchen is now the bathroom. Knocked down old bathroom which made a bedroom bigger. Kitchen is now in what was a living room.
We did knock a few walls down though and refloored, rewired, replastered, new central heating, obviously a new kitchen and bathroom and we only spent about forty grand in total. Did lots of the work ourselves though.

Why not get an architect in? I friend of mine had her kitchen/downstairs remodelled - she had an architect in and they had some very good ideas on how to get the most out of the space.

You need an architects. You need builders to give you realistic quotes on renovation vs new build. There are many variables here, they only way you can get an accurate answer is to work out exactly what you want and then ask how much it will cost. The other way is to work our what you have to spend and then ask what you can get for it. Eg I have a 100k and I want x,y,z: is this realistic?

Btw our house renovation budget has quadrupled since we started. We have added a lot more than we intended at the start though, so no surprise there. It all costs more than you think.