Loft conversions

[MrsAlwaysRight]

I'm considering a loft conversion which will comprise of a master bedroom, bathroom and walk in wardrobe.

I'm interested in any top tips/suggestions of things that work really well in your loft conversion or if there are things that you would do differently and also if there was anything you didn't consider but in hindsight would be a must if you did it again.

Thanks in advance

Be really clever in how you fit the stairs into the floor below, and when you are planning take into account that only a part of the room will be space where you can stand up

Thanks missymayhemsmum

Our stairs were contained in a dormer, and we had a massive shelving unit built into the stairs wall. It looks fab, and a great place to have books etc as we've found it difficult to fit a bookshelf in.

Insulation. Lots of it.

Definitely go for at least one dormer window if possible, rather than just velux. They make a big difference to the space. Just be aware that you usually need to obtain planning permission for front facing dormers.

Take what you expect to spend then double it

Best bit of ours, our juliette balcony, especially in hot weather.

We have our walk in wardrobe on the slopes side ,works really well . Definitely do a dormer if you can massive difference . Put a Velux in your wardrobe our room gets very warm and the windows are always open . ( plus the light is nice and you get a bit more head room round the window . )

Get the largest Velux windows you can, not any cheap brand.
Sure you don't want a shower room or at least a toilet up there?

Plan your storage in detail at the same time as the design of the loft space. Sounds obvious but I recently turned down a design job because I was contacted too late (loft already done) and I knew that no one could create even a small amount of decent storage.....had he brought me in at the planning stage we could have sorted all of that out from the start!

Thanks for all the suggestions/tips so far. We are planning on a rear dormer across the full width. Not sure yet if we will be going for velux or a couple of small dormers at the front.

Use the sloping ceiling part for bathroom, closet and leave tall standing room for actual head room. Use eaves space as storage cupboards everywhere you can. Buy rails and drawers cheap from ikea and get builders to build wardrobes around them. Spotlights to maintain roof but get dimmers put on them. Lots of plug sockets which also incorporate usb chargers. Grey wundow frames from outside and white inside for dormer and velux. Shower tray as thin as poss to max head room. Toilet under velux window. All in my humble opinion anyway...

This might sound mundane or pretty obvious. But, I'll say it anyway. Make you plan carefully. You don't want to end up feeling disappointed, particularly on the amount of cash you had to spend for the loft conversion. If you can hire someone to help you with the design, that'll be great.

Thanks PumpingRSI

RussellMPowell we will be using an architect for plans

Go on Pinterest for lots of ideas.

I'm the Pinterest queen!

We've just had a loft conversion - two bedrooms and one bathroom - we've used one whole wall of eaves as storage and had a double dormer at the back - the space is amazing, almost full height ceiling and very spacious and light - it will cost more but the end result is well worth it. Also yes to lots of insulation

We put our stairs over our stairs in a side dormer as roof hipped on 3 sides gives us a massive room and could use old 3rd bedroom as an ensuite for us.

And agree with think of a figure and double it. Ours cost the best part of 50k but that did include re roofing in slate, dormer and ensuite, carpets, painting etc.

Mum2KSS - sounds great!

lovelyupnorth - I'm not going to mention the budget bit to DH as it might put him off

We got ours for £33k and stayed on budget but we got a detailed break down from builder about what was included and stuck to it. And DH is a tenacious project manager!!

Talk to the builder and do listen to any ideas they have. They've done these before so will know what works. I did a lot of "well what would you do", only once did I not take their advice and it looks amazing

Ours was 2 bedrooms one big double en suite with walk in wardrobe and was about 30 k ( in Manchester) .
It's fab and a whole floor to the house rather than another room .

2 words of warning - 2 nasty surprises we didn't originally budget for

1. Find out how much headroom you'll have. Ours was just below 6ft which was not enough so had to lower the ceilings below (£££ and a lot of mess)
2. If you haven't got fireproof doors elsewhere in the house- you'll need them to pass building regs and if you want ones with glass panelling they're seriously expensive.

Ps our total cost was £40k but that including all the new carpets, doors and decorating. It's much bigger than I expected and well worth it.
Ask the builder about building in storage areas eg in the corners of the loft that are not tall enough to be liveable areas. We have three "cubby holes" accessible which have actually given us more useful storage space than we had in the first place.

We've gone through the planning stage and start work in less than 2 weeks. One idea I really liked and hadn't thought of was not to have a full wall and door at the top of the stairs. Going for a half wall to leave the stairs open and door at the bottom of the stairs. Will make the bedroom more open.