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Original poster

Need to extend but house is very awkward

29 replies

AmberCurtain · 14/01/2018 16:18

We are desperate for more space. 2 bed house.....kids sharing a room but need their own. We cant afford a 3 bed in this are so thought about turning the living room into a third bedroom and putting a single story extension/solid wall and roof conservatory on the back of the house to give us back living space. There is no option to do a loft conversion and we are mid terrace so our only option is to go out at the back. The drawback is that I can't see how we would do it without meaning that the new bedrooms only source of light would be looking out into the new extension......or failing that carving the garden in half.

OP posts:
Lindy2 · 14/01/2018 16:21

Can you draw a floor plan? It's hard to give advice without seeing your actual layout.

RandomMess · 14/01/2018 16:34

Make the room at the front of the house a bedroom and everything at the back open plan? We have the lounge area in the dark part with kitchen diner in the light part.

BubblesBuddy · 14/01/2018 16:37

Don’t do solid wall. Is moving not an option to a less good area. You don’t want to extend and spend money to get a poor solution and a house that isn’t worth the price of the extension.

SkyIsTooHigh · 14/01/2018 20:22

Yes we need a diagram. Could you do an extension with rooflights and plenty of windows, so the bit in the middle is open plan to, and gets enough light from, that and the extra bedroom is at the front?

Original poster
AmberCurtain · 14/01/2018 22:03

This is what our house looks like except we don't have that bulge out bit in our kitchen......the wall is flat and there's a cupboard in the hallway.

Need to extend but house is very awkward
OP posts:
Original poster
AmberCurtain · 14/01/2018 22:05

The garden isnt huge......approx 6m long

OP posts:
Original poster
AmberCurtain · 14/01/2018 22:08

we need to stay in the area so my daughter gets into the same senior school as her brother......they don't have a sibling policy.
It's a stupidly expensive area. We live in the cheapest part of this area and 3 beds in our bit rarely come on the market. When they do they are about 100-150k more than our house :-(

OP posts:
glorious · 14/01/2018 22:11

Make the bit where the kitchen is into a bedroom and extend out the back to make the remaining bit of the room bigger giving you a new kitchen?

Badwifey · 14/01/2018 22:17

Why is a lift conversion out of the question? That would be the cheapest option. You won't have much of a garden left if you do a big extension. Have you a front garden or garage? Or room at the side?

blaaake · 14/01/2018 22:28

Could you not do a double storey extension at the back, then turn what is now the bathroom into a bedroom (knocking through the wall between that and the bedroom to make it bigger), leave the other two bedrooms where they are but put the bathroom next to the stairs? The downside is no natural light in the bathroom, but you could get a light tunnel I suppose

SkyIsTooHigh · 14/01/2018 22:32

Easiest would be to put a half width extension behind dining room for a new living area. With plenty of windows and optionally rooflights that shouldn't leave the dining room too dark, but it would turn the kitchen-dining-living area into a corridor. Moving the kitchen into current dining, dining into small extension and making a small bedroom at the front would be a much nicer result I think, and more sellable.

Loads of terraces and semis extend out the back, I wouldn't worry too much about the light in the middle, just choose to use the mid area for dining or kitchen rather than main living area.

Other options are parents sleep in the living room, or you give the children the squarer room and get very creative in separating them with "rooms within a room" - dividers, curtains etc.

I'm wondering if you could nibble off a bit of the living room and understairs cupboard for a little study/bedroom but I think it would be too small for adults and not quiet enough for children.

Original poster
AmberCurtain · 14/01/2018 22:41

The pitch of the roof is minute. You cant stand upright in the loft.
I'm not sure if we'd be allowed a double height extension either.....no one else on this estate has one and the houses are from the 60s so not new.
No room at the front and we are mid terrace so no option to go out at the side.

My daughter has some issues which are making it very hard for her to share with her brother.....so is now in the other bedroom upstairs. boyfriend is already sleeping in the lounge. It's not really going to work long term.......it's not very practical at all

its a crap pu situation :-(

OP posts:
RandomMess · 14/01/2018 22:42

Make the current lounge smaller and the rest of the downstairs open plan.

You could extend across the back making the now small lounge into a decent size room and an L shape kitchen diner lounge.

Why can't you do the loft?

RandomMess · 14/01/2018 22:45

Any preference to whether you have a double or decent single bedroom downstairs?

LtGreggs · 14/01/2018 22:46

I think you have to move kitchen to acknowledge of the house.

LtGreggs · 14/01/2018 22:47

Or even to the back of the house. That would make more sense....

RandomMess · 14/01/2018 22:49

I am also think move the kitchen along far enough to create a bedroom at the front.

Open up between the new kitchen and lounge for open plan. Are any of the walls load bearing? I think it's unlikely they are tbh.

Then you can add on across the back to extend the lounge.

Badwifey · 14/01/2018 22:49

Could you knock through the wall into the living room from the dining room make the living room a bit smaller. It would all be open plan then and do a smaller extension on the living room side and make the extension the bedroom?

grasspigeons · 14/01/2018 22:52

I think you'd need to not do a full width extension at the back, allowing a small window into the current living room. for the cheapest option

grasspigeons · 14/01/2018 22:54

or put the new bedroom where the current kitchen is

and move the kitchen into the new extension as pp

if you have a bit more money

SkyIsTooHigh · 14/01/2018 22:55

So you and your daughter share one room, your son has the other, your boyfriend's on the sofa?

If the area is v desirable have you done the sums on renting out this house and renting somewhere bigger? It would cost more month on month but if say it cost 200 per month more, that would be £2400 per year. Doing that for 10 years could cost you less than an extension that compromises house/garden and therefore doesn't add much to the value. This may be a totally daft idea and the sums may not add up at all.

TheHeartOfTeFiti · 14/01/2018 22:59

Cheapest I can see is to extend dining room even just with a conservatory for a new living room and making living room a downstairs bedroom.

CremeFresh · 14/01/2018 22:59

Could you do a half extension out the back and make that the kitchen ? A bit like this ?

Need to extend but house is very awkward
RandomMess · 15/01/2018 00:07

You want to move the kitchen plumbing as little as possible as drains out the front certainly not into any new extension built!

KnobJockey · 15/01/2018 07:20

Both of those bedrooms are good sizes, and one is a very good size. Some houses in our area have successfully changed smaller bedrooms than that from a 2 to a 3, would that work? Knock through the airing cupboard into the room on the right to give it a bit more space, and speak to a builder to see whether the area above the staircase can also be knocked in to give a built in desk area. We did this in our 2nd room and it made it look massive and was an unusual selling point for the area- it's wasted space normally.

If you're tight for money it's got to be cheaper to reconfigure than build more.