Total house remodel

[VTechnophobe]

We have bought our forever home a few years ago now but it needs updating. It's 1960s with lots of separate rooms so feels quite dark. We'd like to do the following:

• 2 storey extension on rear also incorporating knocking existing kitchen and dining room together to make large kitchen/diner with large doors onto garden
• Above kitchen extension will be master bedroom with ensuite
• New double glazing
• Insulation needs doing throughout all roof spaces
• Improve current air vented central heating (happy to upgrade this and stick with air as is nice not having radiators)
• Rewire throughout
• Paint and new carpet/tiles throughout
• Add a patio off kitchen

We looked at cost of additional borrowing against the house to do the work and with all our savings too we could get £300k (£350k absolute max). Is it doable?

Obviously we're going to get an architect etc but just a gut feel of whether this ballpark is enough as we have no idea what we can do for that money.

It's perfectly livable just dated and a bit draughty in the cold so if we can start the ball rolling this year rather than continuing to save I think we'd go for it.

I know there's lots of you with amazing knowledge of this sort of thing so hope it's not a stupid question to ask!

Yes. That’s enough money. More than enough. Don’t forget your garden. Extensions require garden work afterwards. Make sure you don’t overspend in relation to value. Also an architect might advise you on layout for the rest of the house. Is the flow ok? What else might work and give you a really useful improvement?

We have air source heat pumps. We have 2/3 of the ground floor as under floor heating. Hot air systems are dated but it’s money well spent to get away from gas. You might also want to think about a laundry room and making sure your new space can utilise the garden. It will be fun planning!

Where are you? We’re in London and did total upgrade of our late Victorian semi - side return and kitchen extension, loft extension, full rewire and new heating system, damp-proofing cellar but not full basement conversion, added ensuite, carpet and decoration throughout. It cost us just over £350k - this was going with the cheapest quote from a tender (not the wisest choice it turned out) and focusing on lower cost options where ever possible (spent more on the building fabric and less on kitchen/bathroom spec). I’m really pleased with it but could easily have spent a lot more. We had an architect - which I think meant we ended up with a beautifully designed house that ‘works’ exactly as I wanted - but the total cost of architect was definitely more than I expected.

Suspect your house is in better starting condition than ours so won’t be as expensive - but basically, definitely doable for £350k, but o wouldn’t expect much change or a super luxury finish (depressingly!)

@BubblesBuddy thanks for your reply - really helpful and it is exciting starting to picture how it could be. Garden is a good point. Currently just laid to lawn but would like to have a more interesting layout in the future. I also like the idea of underfloor heating. Hadn't thought of that.

@Zitouna we are in the Midlands. Great to know what you achieved for the same money. I'm an accountant so I'll have to use my spreadsheet skills to track everything. Sounds like such a huge sum but could be quickly spent. I'm pleased you are happy with your new home layout

When foundations are dug for the extension, think about how you might make a garden “room”. The area around the extension will be dug up so what would look better and be more useable than grass. The garden can add a great deal of “space” that works with the house.

RIBA have a fee structure so you might pay that for the better architects. Others are more “commercial” to get the work! However what you need from an architect is vision and someone on your wave length. However you also want to listen to their ideas which might vary from yours. Our architect supplied 8 possibilities for our layout! 6 of which I wouldn’t have thought of!

@Bubblesbuddy I love that idea as feel like we cant really visualise all the possibilities as we've lived in the current layout for so long. Thank you for sharing your tips

You might find that karen, who helped me with our renovation project, might be useful to help you too. She works with a drawing cad system that allows you to see the new layouts in 3D and panoramic view. I've just mentioned her on another thread too. Found her on Houzz she's a concept planner.

I'm sure there are a few out there but she's very well recommended. (OnePlan)

@itsUnderMyPillow thank you! Sounds amazing...like that programme where 2 designers compete and the couple get to walk through the design in VR!

I put a link to one of her panoranics up on another thread.

panorama.2020.net/view/h4rkcotoqumjso5ljetvsq/

Here it is again ( this isn't my one, it's one off her Houzz page )

We did something like this - maybe even 'worse'

We had a rather bad looking three bedroom chalet bungalow. We took the whole roof off, added a 5 meter square double story extension to the rear, came out a meter front and back and put a new roof on. Moved the stairs, knocked every wall in the house down and put new ones up.

We went from 1500 to 2800 square feet.

Cost for the work was £270. I project managed, employed labour on a day rate and beat all the suppliers down to the bone with materials. Had I employed a builder we could have added 30-40% to that cost.

Before I started I had a monster spreadsheet which detailed everything down to bags of cement and number of bricks. I got it to within 5% of the end price.

Oh, and I out in 5k for f*ck-ups which we (the workmen) used!

PM Me if you want advice directly.