Loft Conversion - worth the hassle?

[Ofchris]

We are thinking of having our loft converted in the new year to add an en-suite bedroom for DH and I. DS is currently in the boxroom. Adding an extra bedroom would give him more room and give my pil somewhere to sleep when they stay rather than us playing musical beds. If anyone’s had this done, was it worth the disruption and how long did it take?

That’s a thought, Lynette, and if be happy to sacrifice the airing cupboard but it’s only small and I can’t see there being room for anything other than a very steep, ladder type staircase!

Ours was £48k. Plus bathroom fittings and tiles. End terrace house in London. That was for a spare room and a large bedroom with ensuite bathroom.

We also had steel beams and a dormer. 75k sounds quite steep.

Completely agree Zonkin that £75k is steep, but we had four quotes and three were around the 75 mark, one was even more expensive! Our house is detached and has a weird shaped roof, hence weird shaped dormer required!

Best thing we ever did! Ours was 15 years ago so price no longer relevant. Huge bedroom with en suite and didn’t lose a room or part of room for the stairs, they run above the other staircase with a 90 degree turn at the bottom and the top.

Totally worth it.

Do get a full width dormer not. Do get a shower room up there. Do not get Juliette balcony doors - pointless and takes up space you then can’t use for radiator or furnitures.

Prices are about as expensive as they have ever been right now though - shortage of labour and the pound is low and raw materials are expensive.

We did ours slightly differently.

Put the stairs over the stairs using a dormer and made into one large bedroom. Down stairs we converted the 3rd smaller bedroom into a en-suite for the master.

So we have 3 big doubles now with one en-suite.

We spent about £50k including re-roofing with slate.

Most definitely yes. It was stressful at times but the space and the way it’s changed the dynamics of the house was worth every penny of the £45k.

Just finishing ours. It started at the end of September and the bulk of the work happened very quickly. We’ve added two bedrooms and a bathroom. Just snagging to complete now. It’s taken longer than the company said, but we estimated around three months ourselves and that was about right. We’ve had it all decorated and have moved in, just bad luck I guess that we’re snagging at this time of year!

Totally worth it. The cost to the company was around 45k. We made a few upgrades and moved the bathroom which incurred extra cost, and had the guttering and other bits done whilst the scaffolding was up. Including decorating, carpets, bathroom, tiles, extra furniture, will come in around £65k which we are quite pleased with. I did an initial budget to include everything I could think of. Majorly underestimated decorating though!!

Hideous mess for a couple
Of days while they break through. But other than that most work seemed to be accessed from the scaffolding.
Def worth it when we did it in London.

Had one done about 8 years ago. Took about 3 months. We added a bedroom and bathroom.
I found it very disruptive. But then I really don't like having builders in the house.
I found it difficult to imagine just exactly how much space we would gain. I would suggest you ask your loft company if you can have a look at loft conversions in your area that they have done previously.
And to answer your question: yes, definitely worth it. We love having this bedroom with an en-suite. And noise from street level doesn't bother us anymore. Plus I love sleeping in a really dark room and we have black out Velux blinds - worth the money.

For those if you who have a loft conversion, how did you add in storage and was it expensive?

We added two double bedrooms and a separate bathroom. It was important to me that my kids weren’t below me at night so they are up there and the bathroom has the bath. The first floor bathroom got a big walk in shower.

Totally worth it, took about three months. Also found 2k worth of vintage comics under the loft floorboards which was nice!

The bedroom on the south side gets really
hot so we should have put air con in there.

Price was 45k for the loft then obviously you’ve got carpets, paint, furniture etc. We borrowed 70k and also had the first floor bathroom done and new boiler etc.