Extension / loft conversion thread 2020

[missfliss]

Hello,

Thought I'd start a thread for 2020 extenders and converters.

Might be good for us each time say a bit about what works we have planned / are in the midst of if folks are happy to share some / al details.

Current house:
1970s semi with 2.5 (!) bedrooms on South Coast ( Sussex).
Single storey extension ( large kitchen / diner with bifolds) was completed in 2013.

Planned works
Loft conversion with full width rear dormer and small front dormer to create a new master bedroom with large bathroom.

Stage
Planning permission received, builder appointed to start in March

Costs
Build is £60k including VAT. Bathroom / decor extra.
It is a double dormer with aluminium sliding doors to rear and lots of pipe work due to siting the new bathroom at the opposite end to the existing bathroom below.
It's more than expected but we have non-standard plans and are doing the work to stay in the house for years as opposed to maximising profit to sell.

Reasons for doing work
An adult space to hide away and relax!
Also our son has additional needs and we may need to use au pairs in the future ( new room needed). As our son gets older he may need to live with us into adulthood

Plans
Attached

Next steps
Party wall agreement
Deciding on bathroom fittings / flooring within budget

I wonder if there is regional supply problems of plaster. We've just had ours done and no problem.

@Loofah01 also painting this weekend.

Our doors are still coming Friday too 😬🤞🤞

Not much going on here. Some complicated plumbing work going on - not hugely glamorous installing a new soil pipe, but there you go.

Hoping that Juliet balcony might arrive this week, and also possibly the front dormer window.

Still no news on plaster

Picked up the paint for the weekend and think I got a hernia lol If you're curious - screwfix's bare plaster brilliant white. Very adventurous

Finally the last room is our house is carpeted and decorated!

Now to do skirting, fit a few more doors, finish off the kitchen, sort out the horrific mouse problem under our floorboards and sort out the garden.

We’ve cleared our garden of the building debris. We’re nearly there! (Started Jan 2019)

@missfliss have you tried purchasing it from Flooring hut? I bought my LVT from there.

I also tried to purchase a carpet from there but the supplier of the carpet delayed the delivery. Flooring hut was really good because they kept me up to date with their estimated delivery dates and when I couldn’t hold on any longer, they refunded my payment immediately.

How has everyone got on this week? We now have roof trusses and tiling will start next week which is exciting.

That looks great mynameisjane. You must be so pleased to be finally coming to an end after 16 months.

Any luck with plaster missfliss?

We have foundations! Only been 10 weeks

Hi everyone!

Nice pics @mynameisjane - you must be so pleased. Thanks for the tip re flooring, I've actually got someone lined up to supply and fit.

Lovely roof trusses @weepingwillow22 - will be a fab feature!

No real progress for us this week except for complicated and unglamorous plumbing.
Fascias, guttering and Juliet balcony arrived today - languishing in the back garden until they will get fitted on Tuesday.

Roof is 99.9% finished, just a bit of finishing to do when the dormer window gets fitted next week.

Still no plaster. Week after next if we are really really lucky!

Looking at fabric swatches for black out curtains and sheer voiles this evening ...it's a big old window to dress and needs a combo of privacy and decent light blocking.

My builder has admitted he's going to be short on plaster... He might rob another project he's on as mine is further ahead but only if he has a good bead on new supply for the other project.
Plumbing takes ages. The fiddly bits take forever and finish without fanfare! Series of deliveries this week, painting for me on sunday

We are plodding on, roofers asked us to get the ok from neighbors to work tomorrow to get the join from old house to new bit watertight. Bit annoying but gets it done I suppose.

@Slightlydustcovered and @weepingwillow22 we seem to be very close together in our builds! Roofers got the felt on this week at ours, but now waiting on tile delivery... fascias went on this week too.

Have my tiles all chosen and very excited to order them!

Really love those tiles @birdbrained

Does anyone else periodically get anxious at the amount of money they are spending? I know we have budgeted for it but I still get scared sometimes when I look at it.

@missfliss yes absolutely! It would have certainly have been cheaper to move but we'd put so much work into the rest of the house when we moved in 2.5 years ago that we had to stay and do it 🙈

I'm just pleased we got all the funds secured before lockdown/restrictions/lack of work as I'm not sure the bank would have said yes in the current situation.

We had to change the order due to supplies so we knock through before the roof went on the back. The back of the house is open but they have put a false wall in for us.
Builder back on Tuesday to start the roof.
I feel like we've been living on a building site forever as we stopped for about 7 weeks.

Beautiful tiles birdbrained. I hope we all get our roofs on this week.

Missfliss, it is a bit worrying especially when you add it all up on a spreadsheet. I just keep reminding myself of the stamp duty costs for moving which are pretty horrendous. I would much rather be putting it towards making our house nice.

Money? Can't recall having that now, just a series of red digits!

Several hours of painting down and I already ache. If I had the cash someone else would be doing this!! Bare plaster really soaks it up

@missfliss oh god the money yes... we are spending way more on the property than it will be worth on the open market. We couldn't believe it when the quotes came in originally most were around the 200k mark. You can build a new house for that!

We will probably spend around £180k in total. We might add 50-75k in actual value...

We also got a short mortgage so that we could take advantage of a better LTV once we were finished - which looks like a gamble that may not pay off with such uncertainty in the housing market.

While we have no plans to move I don't like the idea of being 'stuck' either. I'm from New Zealand originally and our over-investment here will make it very difficult to leave the U.K.

We are also about £10k short of what we need for everything to be finished completely.

But... I have watched the local market for the last 4 years, there was nothing we could afford that was worth moving for...

@birdbrained we are overspending too. We bought a wreck because I couldn’t pay for someone else’s taste, but it’s certainly an expensive project. They will be carrying me out of it in a box

We too will exceed the ceiling price for the road by the time we are done.
Technically we will still be a three bedroom house. Difference is we will be 3 big bedrooms, 2 bathrooms plus home office rather than 2 double bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a small single ( box room) . We could have squuezed 2 bedrooms plus shower room in - but we don't need 4 bedrooms and no more kids planned.

We also looked at moving last year when we thought we might have to move for our sons schooling ( SEN / long dull legal battle with local authority) but thankfully we could stay put. We too found that we were in that annoying position of not being able to afford what we really wanted and the base price of a "project" being too high to slow us to do the work we would have needed.

We've always loved our house. It's not huge ( semi) the garden is medium size and gets the evening sun, the rooms are lovely proportions with high ceilings. The downstairs space is great since we extended and there are huge windows front and back: the neighbourhood is ideal - green, pretty, friendly, near shops / cafes, river walks just behind and beach 15 monies walk. So all in all we didn't want to leave!

I think we are still on budget for planned works but have dipped in to contingency by £3k so far ( stupid non existent bats). I am waiting for the next nasty surprise. We are going to be ok in terms of spend Vs value in fact if the housing market stays as it is we should gain a little equity. However none of that matters as we are here for at least the next 10 years for kids schools and would be worth it just to live in a nicer home done as we want. I have never had my own anything really from new and a lot of this place is being done with second hand items, but not the kitchen. I want a kitchen I like and works for me for the next 10 years so it will be brand new.

Glad others are not all taking the financially prudent route 

@missfliss this would almost describe our house apart from being near the sea. We are Cambridgeshire and the sea is the thing I miss the most!

We definitely have spent more than the increase in value, but when we finally have to sell (when DH and I can no longer manage the stairs!) it will definitely make the house much easier to sell. Our old kitchen and the TV room were small and dark and let the house down.Together, plus The World's Smallest Extension they make a really nice room.
We still feel that it has been good value for the improvement in how we use the room

@weepingwillow22 Before we did our building work we were looking to move (and actually downsize) but the stamp duty was horrendous. Our budget was always "less than the Stamp Duty!"

Stamp duty is the issue. It’s killing the market

I ache! Kitchen, dining room, en-suite and utility rooms done or at least part done. Ceilings was the urgent bit.
Should anyone be daft enough to decorate an entire house themselves, lessons are - to water down paint on to bare plaster; it soaks in so fast a 10l tub was about 2/3 used on kitchen ceiling alone. Take breaks! Take ibuprofen prior to the day decorating starting. Take breaks!
Lots more but I'm seriously pooped. More of same tomorrow