Extend / Move / Stay

[Pevensie]

There are a few Extend / Move discussions, but I'd like suggestions for and experience of staying put. We are outgrowing our 3 bedroom detached house: DD will soon need her own room (she is currently sharing with her brother). The only available space is the box room, which is currently used as a study. An extension is unlikely to give us what we want in this house, even if it solves the more immediate problem of bedrooms. Moving is also difficult given the market, work and school constraints.

There are other possibilities, such as partitioning the children's room, or another kind reconfiguration. Any ideas?

Rent yours out and rent somewhere else?

Put up a office/summerhouse in the garden?

Why wouldn't an extension give you what you want if you get the extra bedroom your DD needs?

Good question. To suit the house and what we'd like (even more space), the extension would have to give more than one bedroom.

I think we need more info. You say you want 5 bedrooms yet you're wanting solutions that don't add any square footage at all?

A garden office does sound like a good shout based on info we have so far, or maybe a modern conservatory/orangery thing with insulated roof.

What is limiting the size of any potential extension? Why not do the standard double height side extension to add room down stairs and upstairs? You could also do a single story back extension for more space.

I'm reluctant to contemplate an extension and moving is tricky. We could solve the bedroom problem with a single storey extension, but it would still leave us with quite a small house. I don't know if we could afford a two storey extension, and I think we might prefer a detached house. So I'm thinking about other solutions such as partitioning, or some of the ideas mentioned so far for the short to near term.

We looked at this last year and decided due to the amount of problems that builders seem to have on even minor works that a big extension wouldn't be manageable for us. So we moved to another house - best thing ever!

We bought a house and then extended it before we moved. Love our house, and thinking of going up in to the loft next year.

Might be helpful if you drew a floor plan? If you want more space but aren't wanting to extend I don't see any other option but to move?

Ah I see, so when you say you need 2 bedrooms, you mean your daughter needs her own room plus you need a study AND additional living space? But short-to-medium term, you'd rather save money and make do than pay out for an extension that falls short of giving you all of that. Is that fair?

It is difficult to generate ideas without even the vaguest plan. The study/desk area is often the easiest to resite. Could you make do with a study corner in your bedroom or under the stairs? Could you move bedroom walls around to slice out an area that you use as a study, but that could be refitted as an ensuite for sale?

We moved to a 4 bed detached. It's not huge as we've never made space for a desk even. We have a kitchen table to eat at, and use the dining table as our communal desk most of the time. But the separation from the neighbours from having a detached house, and more space on the drive and on street parking, are significant gains in quality of life IMO. Moving is ridiculously expensive but you're right, there are "soft" gains in moving that an extension can't always deliver.

@CinnamonToaster yes, that's about it. I wondered about the desk area in the bedroom - nice idea about converting to an ensuite. One of the problems with dual use for a room - and partitioning a bedroom - is access to the windows and light.

Also, I'm aware that we have a lot of wasted space in the rooms themselves - we could put in shelves - although this does not lead to any obvious rearrangement.

We went through this same dilemma a year ago... decided to stay and extend.... then we started to get quotes in! The cost of building work around here is extortionate- so many people extending that builders prices are on the up and we'd have never ever made back what it would have cost us.

We went house hunting and found a 5 bed which, after renovations, has still cost us less than the extension.

I'd say get some ballpark figures in before you get too attached to one idea over the other. Also an estate agents opinion of what the house is worth now, and post build. That'll help you determine whether it's remotely worth the stress, expense and upheaval of a big extension.

That sounds promising. Is there the end of a room you could convert into either a big inbuilt cupboard or a study area?

If you are prepare to post a floorplan I think you'll get a lot more useful help. Look at the kitchen threads on here - posters are full of good ideas and really happy to chip in help, but they need a starting point.

I agree, so much depends on what your particular area is like, building costs and house prices.

For what it's worth, if the location of the house works for school and work, the costs associated with moving would be quite a chunk of money. We did a double storey extension - got a big kitchen diner (could easily have incorporated a study area) with bedroom and ensuite upstairs (could have been 2 small rooms). It was expensive, but we added 150% of the outlay to the cost of the house.

If we'd have moved to get the size of house that we have now, it would have cost what we spent on the works, plus 50%, plus about £40k-£50k in estate agents commission, stamp duty, selling / buying expenses. It's a question of getting a few quotes, looking at what value you might achieve if you did works (ignore estate agents, they'll always tell you to move) and doing your sums.

Here's the floorplan. The garden room is a conservatory and its floor is about 6 inches below the rest of the house. There's an old garage behind and to the side of the house which needs rebuilding.

Thanks for the ideas so far - looking for lateral thinking, as well as redesigns.

What about moving the room in box room closer to window in other room. Then kitchen and dining room knocked together with kitchen door blocked in and access through dining room. Stuff from utility goes into kitchen, make a cupboard at end of a run of units and stack washing machine and tumble dryer with space at side for ironing board, mop and brush, hoover under the stairs. Study area in utility room or insulated log cabin in garden.

Your house layout looks very similar to ours except we've got a full width extension across the back with the kitchen in it. And we're looking to move as we can't extend (semi).

So for the immediate term you just need to resite the study - right? Dd can go in the box room (ds is in ours in midsleeper with storage below) and then i would put a garden office in. We've got one in the garden and it's a proper construction with double glazed doors etc; cost about £11k a few years back. Does someone work from home? But I also would like a guest room and more space in general so I see your dilemma. Loft conversion possible?

Ok how do you use the downstairs space at the moment? What do you do in the dining room? How do you find the kitchen? What do you use the garden room for?

@PostNotInHaste interesting ideas. Could you just clarify first sentence (typo?)

@poster Misty9 Yes, we need to resite the study which is currently in the box room. Could convert loft, but access is currently by a ladder, and I'm not sure how good a space it would be to work in.

@CinnamonToaster The front room is a lounge, the back room is a dining room, where we have all meals. Kitchen is fine for our purposes. The garden room has a few shelves with seeds, small gardening tools, and it's occasionally used for sitting in during the summer.

Oops, sorry ! If possible move the wall between the box room and the room next to it. Currently from plan the dividing wall appears close to box room window. If it were to be closer to the window of the other bedroom I think you might be able to add another couple of feet width to the box room and the other room will still be a decent size for bedroom 2.

Moving the wall between bed2 and the boxroom leftwards would even up those 2 rooms nicely if you are worried about the size of the little one's room. Personally I think it looks decent for a boxroom and you should just rehang the boxroom door to swing outwards. Otherwise I'd be inclined to leave upstairs as a good 3 bed rather than doing anything too radical.

I think the dining room and garden room are the key to this. The dining room should be big enough to hold a desk as well as the dining table, and that still leaves the desk shut off from the telly when one person wants to work and others are relaxing.

Alternatively use the garden room as an office. Get a good electric radiator out there. Yes it'll be costly to run, but it'll probably work out cheaper than building work if you're only doing it for a few years.

Option C is improve and/or extend the garden room to be a more functional office.

No earth-shattering ideas though, I'm afraid. I assume the utility is too small to hold a desk?

Actually if you did knock kitchen and dining room together i’’d chop that little bit off hall in front of cupboard and add it in with entrance there, think that would make a kitchen diner of roughly 20 x 11.5 which would be a good size room and you could potentially have sitting area in there as well as dining table and kitchen.

Then sitting room at front, small study in utility room and the garden room can be a playroom, teenage den in time if that room is ok heating wide. How you use the house tends to change as they get older. Still have the option for study outside in the garden if you wanted.

What’s the construction of the garden room ? Could battens and insulation be added and maybe something done to roof depending on current construction ? Possibly radiator extended out from dining room? Would that then work as a study ?

If even after extension, this house isn't going to serve the purpose, I would recoomon not to spend anything on structural changes. Give Dd the box room. Paint it her choice of colour, new curtains. Get nice bed with underbed storage and wardrobe that can fit.
Repurpose dining room as both study and dining and keep looking and saving for move.

I don't really consider 3m x 2.3m to be a box room! That is a small double room by new build standards. And you don't have the stair bulkhead issue that you trad have in the box rooms.

3m x 2.3m is perfectly nice size for a child to have as their bedroom. with a single bed, wardrobe, drawers, small desk and space to play.

Then either make a study space in the diner if you only occasionally need a study, or chuck a garden room for £15k in the garden if you properly need a quiet space for work.

This would be the easiest and most cost effective way to create enough bedroom and study space.

If you fancy spending loads of cash, you could do the loft to create a maser suite, and a full width back extension to make a big kitchen diner/family space. Or move if you can find something better in the same location, because extension will be £ and hassle.