Would you knowingly overdevelop your house? Wwyd in my situation?

[Splandy]

Not sure what to do, would appreciate other opinions. We have received an inheritance and now own our home outright. We are in our late twenties with two children, on a low income. I bloody love my house, it is a decent sized ex council 3 bedroom semi, kitchen diner, conservatory, nice garden, south facing. We originally rented it and are so happy to own it, I never imagined we'd own a house anytime soon.

The previous owner was a bodger and we have already fixed a lot of his work. The kitchen desperately needs replacing. It's quite long but not that wide. There is a 'utility room' next to this. It's the same length as the kitchen and essentially a long corridor which leads to the washing machine. It is an old flat roof, which originally covered outdoor toilet/shed, with bits of wall knocked out, bits added in and old windows and a door stuck in the gaps - like Lego. I am fairly certain it will collapse at some point. There is a side passage next to this, leading to the garden.

I would like to extend out by removing this 'utility room' and building to the boundary wall, so we'd have a large kitchen diner, with a normal sized utility and possibly downstairs loo, skylights in the new bit and bifold doors to garden. The cost of doing this will presumably be quite high. We have about 30k left to kickstart our saving for this project. The plans will probably change over time when it becomes more real, these are just my initial thoughts. The house has increased in value by a bit over the past two years, but I definitely don't think we'd recoup the money we'd be spending, because of the council estate we are on. We are very happy here, walking distance to family members/school/friends and have always lived in the area. I have looked at other houses in the area and we couldn't afford something similar for the amount we'd have if we left this estate. I see no reason why we'd move anytime soon so part of me says do it, but the other part says it's a terrible financial decision! We are extremely careful with money and don't want to make a mistake.

Sorry for disjointed text, am breastfeeding!

There are no high interest accounts in the UK. The max you can get is 5% on a whole £2k, or 3% on £20k. Inflation is not zero!

Fix the house!

Wall cabinets make spaces look smaller so consider open shelving instead.

Conversely I think that wall cabinets look neat and tidy, and shelves look messy and ugly in kitchens.

I keep seeing flats without wall cabinets in the kitchen. So not only is the kitchen small, it doesn't have anywhere to store things either! Puts me right off.

Interesting that quite a few people don't recommend bifold doors. Why do you think they'll date, nilbyname? The idea was that we could seamlessly go between the garden and the kitchen, the garden is nice and sunny, seemed a great idea for the kids. I'm not decided on them at all, it's what I've seen and thought 'that looks great'.

In what way is the ikea kitchen not hardwearing? Are we just talking the cupboard carcasses or was it a full ikea kitchen? I'm a little surprised to hear that, I've read mainly glowing reviews of them on the Internet. My parents have an ikea kitchen which is around twelve years old now and has held up very well.

The problem we have is that I want to get on with this as soon as possible, but don't know how long it'll take us to save the rest. I was starting to consider whether a loan would be a good idea, because the kitchen itself is also shocking, but my husband is very opposed to the idea and says we should just wait and save. It could take years, though. We've paid off the mortgage and have this lump sum left, but we're still on a low income so can't save too much. My idea was give it a set time, save as much as we can, then see what the difference was an consider a loan.

I'd do it, I think. Especially if this was my long term home. If I ever got the chance to buy I'd be buying a home to live in not ab investment so things like resale value would matter a lot less than the house being how I wanted it to be. At any rate I'd get quotes and see what costs I was really looking at.

This is my kitchen. We have a low ceilinged cottage so an open shelve worked better.

Our idea kitchen- the carcass is fine, the worktop is ok- needs piling and sanding once a year but is ok. The cupboard fronts stain very easily and are not tough. They have taken dents, scuffs and on one corner the laminate front has come off. Just my experience. The plinth barses are flimsy but we opted for plastic legs with plinth covers and we should have gone for the metal ones.

Bifold doors- they are so of the moment, ubiquitous, things like that date. Bur I like them too!

If you go ahead with the current plan and build up to the boundary, will you still have access to the rear garden? (eg can the window cleaner get round, could someone deliver a shed/trampoline/whatever, if you chopped down a tree could you dispose of it, etc)

Instead of bifold or sliding doors, can you do french windows?

Your kitchen looks lovely . I'll definitely take on board what you say about the cupboard fronts. I do also have a family friend with a similarly aged ikea kitchen to my parents' and the doors have all peeled. It looks a mess. I love the look of wooden worktops, but i know I'm too lazy to do the upkeep. Thinking about it, I'm not really sure about bifold doors. The amount of space they'd take up on the patio when open is a bit of a pain. I assume you have to keep all space in front of them clear for the fold. Our patio and garden aren't particularly large, so it would start to eat into it.

senua, you've hit on the other great debate! No, there would be no side access. This is why I need some professional to give me lots of different options. We could only extend as far as current utility or extend out totally. I'm leaning towards totally at the moment. We have a brick built shed, but that may well become part of or get knocked down for the kitchen extension. If so, I would buy a new shed at the same time. Don't know what would happen further down the line if we needed a new one, presumably buy one which you build yourself! I don't use the side access at all at the moment. I go through the house with cuttings and grass because the bolt on the side door is too difficult to open. We've had the guttering sorted already and I clean the Windows myself, they're the ones which open and then move into the middle for easy cleaning. The patio really needs redoing, so if we were to extend all the way Out, I'd either get it done first or at the same time. All depends on which doors we go for too, I have seen that you can have bifold so flush with the patio. Probably getting into far more expensive stuff there, though.

We live in an ex council house. The ex council houses are bigger and have substantially bigger gardens than the more upmarket houses about 3 streets away (on a much busier road). We refurbished a bodged house with a view how we want to to live in it. Unless you're planning to move on for whatever reason a house is a home more than an investment and the happiness you get from a home that suits you is far more than money sat earning paltry interest in the bank.

Go for it. I love our bifold doors by the way and can't recommend them enough . They don't take up much space on our deck and we have a level threshold, so deck really is an extension of our living space. Will try to post a pic as they are open now

Thank you, we love it

Here:

When thinking about how much it will cost vs how much you would get back if you moved, you have to factor in how much it would actually cost your move too! It would cost me £20k+ to move so I would deduct that from the cost of any work I was intending to do to see if it was 'worth' it.

Plus id just do it. Fuck it, live happy and have the quality of life you want. Don't worry about the 'what if's' in case you decide to move in 10 years. Life is too short

Ooh, Marmitelover55, they look great! Why did you opt for those rather than sliding doors then? Whichever we choose, I would like it to sit flush. Bit concerned about rain/breeze though. We live on a hill and it can be breezy. We've already had to fill LOTS of holes to stop droughts coming into the kitchen.

nilbyname, is that a drawer underneath the cupboards?

BasinHaircut, why 20k to move? I haven't thought about that at all. We've never incurred house buying costs, this was inherited and my last rented place was only a few minutes down the road, so we moved everything in cars.

I wanted the whole space to be open - with sliding doors one would have always been closed. It's not a very wide aperture so I wanted it as open as possible.

I don't know why that autocorrected to droughts, I'm clearly not worried about a lack of rain coming in under the doors...

Moving costs a fortune. Estate agent fees (usually a percentage of the sale price), solicitor fees, stamp duty, removal company fees...

Do it, you are investing in your home to make your life more enjoyable. Especially as you plan to stay for years and years. Think of any money you may not get as a premium you're paying yourselves to be extremely happy and comfortable forever.

I would get the best quality of everything you can afford. Eg. kitchen and utility, if you get it done up nicely now when it needs updating in 5-10 years you can just change over the doors and appliances and the cabinets and layout will still be fine. Spend now to save later.

Do not get bifolds. Total waste of time and space (speaking from personal experience). You can get glass sliders which slide right into each other at one end if you are looking for that open plan feel. But in the UK it's too cold 10 months of the year to ever have them open!

What a wonderful situation you have found yourselves in.

I have to disagree!! We don't find them a total waste of time and space! We have them open some/most days for about 5 months of the year . I don't understand the hatred they seem to get on mumsnet. We have good quality alumnium ones though and live in the south west - maybe those things make a difference?

We were in this dilemma, without the inheritance, in our previous house. We didn't do it as I wanted to sell and so we lived in a very tatty house for years.

In your situation I would do it if you are planning on staying there for a long time. Ok, you might not recoup the money but you will enjoy the way of life for the x number of years you are there. To me that's worth it, totally. It's not just about the resale value, it's about your lifestyle. But do it on a budget. You never know the prices in your area could change rapidly over the next 10 years anyway.

Oh OP I think you might want to watch last might's Phil and Kirsty's 'Buy it or list it' on ch4. They had a couple who were alsogoing through the same thought process of not over-developing their house as they would exceed the ceiling price for the road. They ended up doing doing what they wanted and did exceed the value of the house but thy seemed to be pleased with it. You have to put a value(monetary or otherwise) on your enjoyment of your home.

I am also in the same dilemma as you only that we are still mortgaged. We also have an ex-council house that we love. We were lucky that the vendors we bought the house off had already done all of the refurb including joining the utility to the rest of the with matching kitchen cupboards, new boiler, etc which really is like a second kitchen. I would like to install a toilet on the ground floor. We have also thought about knocking down the conservatory and replacing it with a solid extension but we reckon that might cost loads. Nobody has actually done any extension work to their home on our road apart from the odd addition of a conservatory or front porch.

'Love it or List it' not buy!

marmite that looks great!

being S facing and having a bit of a sun trap make bifold doors WAY better.

splandy mainly stamp duty but adding in EA fees for selling, solicitors, surveys, removals etc etc you'd be surprised how quickly it adds up!

Maybe look at how much it would cost you and the cost of your development might not seem so bad!

op they are plinth drawers and they are amazing- we keep shopping bags in one and tea towels in the other.

marmite ypur doors are lovely! I do like bifolds! I am Also in the SW and we have put frenchc doors wide open plenty!