Loft conversion in 3 bed 1930s detached house

[KitZacJak]

Just wandering if anyone had converted their loft in a 'typical' 1930s 3 bed detached (the ones with a tiny kitchen and third bedroom, alongside 2 big bedrooms and receptions rooms).

What did you manage to do? Did you manage to get the stairs going back over your stairs so you didn't lose any room from the small third bedroom?

Ideally, I would like to create 2 bedrooms and a shower room. Have a feeling roof would need to be redone and created slightly bigger to do this though!

Just interested to see what people have managed to do with their lofts in my type of house.

Mine was done before I moved in, but yes the layout of the house is as you describe. It's actually a rather modest 1930s house; none of the rooms are big - small front living room, leading to decent-sized kitchen (was originally separate dining room and kitchen, now knocked through). Upstairs family bathroom, two double bedrooms, one box room.

The extension has two bedrooms (smallish but still doubles) and a shower room. The stairs are over the bottom set of stairs (IYSWIM). I can tell they didn't reduce the size of the third bedroom because the neighbours don't have an extension; they just have a bigger landing.

Our back bedroom has a dormer extension and it's a lovely room - sunny and overlooking the garden. The front bedroom is under the slope so it's a funny space but we've just been creative with a mid-sleeper bed and lower level storage.

It's great to have the extra space. We filled the box room with floor to ceiling shelving and now have fantastic storage, which is a great luxury.

Thanks Devora. Sounds like our house as we have knocked the kitchen in the dining room now! Great to know that we can get that space somehow. Do you know if they increased the overall height of the roof at all or just added the dormer? Just wondering as in our loft we can only stand up in the middle part (probably 2m by 2m).

Good idea with the box room too!

Depends on the size of house so difficult to say, but most that I have seen in 3 bed semis end up with stairs going through one of the main bedrooms. I'm not a fan of that really because you lose space from the room and have stairs coming up in the middle of the loft room.

It makes a difference whether the house has a hipped roof or gable.

I don't think they can have, as our roofline is identical to the neighbours. I would say the dormer room has good ceiling height. In the slopey room (technical term) I can stand and touch the ceiling (but I am tall).

We have a typical 1930s semi. We are just finishing up a loft conversion now. We have fit in a huge master bedroom with a very big bathroom. It could have easily been 2 bedrooms & a shower room if that was what we had wanted. We have a large rear dormer which has created loads of space. No space has been taken from the box room for the stairs. They have fit in on the existing landing.

We are in a 1930s semi. Looked at getting a loft converstion but don't have sufficient head height (only 2.1m at present - when you add in supports / insulation, it wouldn't work).

We obviously couldn't raise the roof as we're a semi but discussed options with the loft company and they said our council was reluctant to allow residents to raise the roof - so point of post is just to check whether its likely to be allowed before you get too far with your plans.

Thanks for the comments, our roof is pretty bad so if we got a loft conversion we would have to get it redone. I need to get up there and measure the height! I think it is more 2.0m than 2.2m! A lot of houses nearby have higher roofs (the 4 bed versions of mine) so I don't think raising the roof slightly would be a huge planning issue although it would be a cost issue. Thanks for your help, I will get some companies out to quote and see what they say.

We did it a couple of years ago and are so glad we did. We've got one massive room plus an actual bathroom. Our stairs go above the existing ones and didn't have to take any space out of the box room. We went for a dormer extension which does give lots more space. Good luck!