Adding a second floor to a bungalow

[TheVeryHungryPreggo]

After a long time we finally appear to be moving forward with our plans to move out of London. We have had an offer accepted on a 3-bed bungalow, it has two bedrooms downstairs and one small double bedroom on top which has a mostly sloping ceiling. The house has a big footprint underneath as the lounge and kitchen are quite large. We'd like to just go straight up, have three proper bedrooms (for us, DS and DD) with one ensuite and a family bathroom upstairs, then we could use the downstairs rooms for a study/office and a guest bedroom. There's already a staircase but it would need to be widened and repositioned.

The other houses on the road have all been converted into two-storey houses in the last 30 years, this is the last remaining and looks a bit out of place.

Has anyone done something like this? How much do you think it would cost and how long would it take? Assuming we move in and buy the house in July, DH would like to be starting the building work this time next year to finish up by the end of summer - is that realistic?

There was a house near me that did this and it was featured on a Sarah Beany show. It's the Sussex Coast one;
www.channel4.com/programmes/double-your-house-for-half-the-money/episode-guide/series-3/

I drive past it and it's a bit boxy from the outside but looks lovely in the show. Also they keep going on about maximising the sea views but it overlooks a pub car park. Still, it might be helpful info!

Depends how old it is, and where. Older bungalows may have very notional foundations that will not take the weight of an extra storey. Since I suppose the 1980's or thereabouts even single-storey extensions have to have proper foundations. A local architect or builder would know. Rules and dates vary between Greater London, other cities, and rural areas.

Thanks, that's helpful. It's in Bromley. It was originally quite a small cottage built about 1930. I know the current owner has gone as far as having plans drawn up by their architect (but obviously what we want would look quite different) and has already built an extension to the ground floor and put in the attic bedroom in the last ten years, so I think the foundations are likely to be in good nick - though obviously without X-Ray vision and building expertise I can't know for sure.

I'll have a look at that episode, thanks for the link!

Hi @TheVeryHungryPreggo - we're looking at doing the same thing in Bromley - did you manage to get it all done?! :)

Hello, @13monthsyounger no we didn't succeed in buying that house in the end, we had too much drama on our sales end and had to withdraw.

In the end it took so long to sell ours that we rented in the area just to get here and eventually we bought the house from our landlady as we had settled by then. I think that bungalow is still on the market..

The one thing I took from that though is to be aware of the property boundaries. Bromley as a borough has this rule that you can't get planning for a second storey if your ground floor extends to the property boundary, there must be a 1M border between the boundary and the exterior wall of the house. This was an issue with the one we were looking at so the work would have been less straightforward than we would have liked.

The bungalows seem to be vanishing here as they're on big plots - there are no fewer than three on our road that were demolished and turned into semis or two detached houses in the two years we have lived here.

Thanks for getting back to me :)
That sounds like that all worked out really well for you despite the stress i'm sure you had at the start!

That's good to know on the boundary - that could be touch and go on the one we were looking at actually. Combined with the foundation issues that don't seem to be definitive it seems like such a gamble :/

The plot's not particularly wide in this instance which may be why it hasn't gone, and too expensive to knock down and start again - may be back to the drawing board....