Fallen for a house but not right layout any advice?

[Redballoon79]

Hello, we’ve found a beautiful house that we love, it has a lovely sturdy feel, nice downstairs space but upstairs the bedrooms are a bit of a squish.

I’ve attached the plan - Any suggestions on how we might be able to make the space work by doing some work up to about 40k?...We would like more bedroom space and a study - there is a stair box in one bedroom, which I think we could make into a cabin bed to save space. Then get rid of built in cupboards in the master.

There is a double garage, but it’s situated on the drive just outside and is a separate building. We could perhaps make this a study and knock down a wall upstairs for a decent 3 bed. Or see if we can get something in the loft, or extended out the front as we have a large driveway. Or maybe the garage could make a decent holiday let?

Really no clue but just such a nice place and area just wondered if anyone had any creative ideas that might persuade hubby it’s worth investing in. He loves it too but also can’t see it working.

Extending out front is difficult when it comes to planning permission.
Loft conversion with ensuite is the only route in my opinion. However you will have stair case issues as the 1st floor is very congested and would probably lose one or part of the two smaller bedrooms to achieve this. As both 1st floor and loft would need reconfiguring to make it work you would be looking at more than 40k to achieve this.

Thanks for the quick reply sillyscrabblegames that’s really good input as we have no clue about these sort of things. If it will cost too much to get more space, then we’ll have to let it go (weeps).

Did think bedroom 2 and 3 could be combined and the en-suite door put on the other side to make one nice master but bedroom 4 will be too small for a teenager I think.

I’d probably go with doing the loft and losing the boxroom in order to get the stairs in. When we had our loft done we just shifted the boxroom wall slightly to fit the stairs in, didn’t add any significant cost as it was just a partition wall. Obviously depends on whether that works for your particular configuration! And if you think bedrooms 2 and 4 are too small anyway I guess that doesn’t work?

Thanks tinierclanger, do you mind me asking a rough cost for your conversion? We would happily move a wall of a smaller room, could still leave desk space for a study. Just did a bit of a street view and found one or two that look like they’ve had it done so hopefully we could get planning permission.

Could you just add a door from the master to bedroom 4 to use it as a dressing room? That would free up floor space in the master to make it more spacious.

For a study, I’d either get a nice garden office or build an extension at the back to re-configure the ground floor for a better kitchen/family room with a study space.

@Redballoon79 it was around 30k but that was about 8 years ago and up north, if it makes a difference! You don’t normally need planning to get the loft done.

Thanks for replying, no planning permission is good! I’m considering finding a nice builder to take round. If the loft could be converted that would be great.

Cutting and pasting my standard answer...
Have a wander around your area and play "spot the velux" to identify houses with loft conversions. If possible, walk round the road behind yours and look for dormers. Then check out local Council planning portal for internal plans. You'll learn a lot more than just looking at Street View. Even if they have extended under Permitted Development, there still might be plans in the Buliding Control section.

Thanks wheredorsthistoiletgo, that’s really sensible advice.

I would forget the loft conversion personally, what I would do is make the current dining room a library/study and block up the opening into the living room, I would then build an extension off the back of the kitchen only, and create a kitchen diner/family room with space for a sofa and French doors out onto the garden. If you did this extension you have two options, either build it as a single story extension where you could create a vaulted ceiling with Velux windows for extra light, or build on top of the new extension to make a much larger third bedroom.