Loft conversion (stairs?!) or extension

[Pegase]

We are looking at having one of the above done to extend space in our 3 bed end of terrace. We have a side return to the garden which we would want to keep so wouldn't extend to the side at all, only into the garden (single height).

Loft extension seems easier and would give us an extra bedroom which is more useful than increasing kitchen size (although both would be useful) but where on earth do you fit the stairs?! We have a very small landing so not sure how that would work, although loft is pretty spacious and high.

Following as have the same conundrum

The stairs as far as my research has taught me would need to go in a space stolen from one of the existing bedrooms

I could never see how they would sort the stairs for mine and was convinced it would take out all the third small bedroom.
It’s amazing! It was basically 1m sq of the room (but as a rectangle) which provided understairs storage as well.
They either go over your existing staircase back the other way which takes no extra room hardly or like mine if you have dogleg twist it round. But the actual floor space it takes up is minimal, it all goes up!

Our loft conversion didn't take any space from the bedrooms, the staircase goes up over the existing stairs, although the stairs are narrower than usual. Many loft companies will come around and do a free quote for you and explain how it will all work. You just have to make sure you have enough head height up there (I think it's just over 2m?).

Sorry to be clear - the head height doesn't affect the staircase! You can only convert your loft if your roof is high enough.

Questions - if you do the loft extension do you have storage for whatever you currently have up there?
I often wonder what people do with Christmas trees/decorations/suitcases etc if they have no loft
Does someone need a bedroom or do you have enough for the people in the house? Would it effectively become a guest room?

Just be aware if you are going from 2 floor to 3 floors you must ensure you have a dedicated fire escape to your front door so you can't have an open plan livingroom/hallway. Your kitchen may also have to be self contained depending where it is. Our living room, kitchen and hallway were open plan which stopped us going up. Also you might have to have a dorma fitted in the loft to give enough head height at the top of your new stairs.

I would strongly recommend getting an architect in. We found one specialising in drawing up very basic plans but finding best solution for stairs, windows, etc. He only charged £500, plans weren't 'full ' plans, but all the lift conversion companies we spoke to wanted to draw up their own full plans anyway. So the £500 got us a stair solution that I would have never thought of. We lost a very small amount of space from one of the bedrooms.

We've had both loft and downstairs extension done. For us, lift was a must (we needed the extra bedroom), kitchen was a luxury, but it's wonderful to have the extra space.

Most important tip, plan from the inside out. Think really carefully where your furniture will go, how you'll use the space, etc. That will help you on where to put doors, which way they should open or whether you want pocket doors, where to put windows, where to put sockets and switches etc. I found many builders don't really focus much on this. They tend to put light fittings in the centre of the room or somewhere else random unless you are really clear in what you want. Rather than thinking 'lets design a room' think 'what's a problem and what's the solution that will work for us'.

With regards to the fire escape- if there’s no possible way of doing it thee are ways to meet building regs with sprinkler systems instead

The loft space we had before is now the eaves but it made us sort through a lot of stuff. I’d say we have just as much room as before in the eaves now but before It was only boarded around the hatch. There’s more storage that you’d expect if you have one side walled off at about 1m high. You can calculate the floor space.
Wrt fire all our doors had to be replaced with fire doors (nice ones) and we have wired smoke alarms on every floor. Building regs check it all.

Just be aware if you are going from 2 floor to 3 floors you must ensure you have a dedicated fire escape to your front door so you can't have an open plan livingroom/hallway. Your kitchen may also have to be self contained depending where it is. Our living room, kitchen and hallway were open plan which stopped us going up

Just finished a loft conversion, going from 3 floors to 4, and we have both open plan living room/hallway and an open plan kitchen.

We did a loft conversion, OP (though the people who lived here before had extended the kitchen so wasn't the same conundrum). However, we didn't lose any space off the bedrooms really (about an inch). The new stairs just went back up over the old stairs.

Best thing is to get a few loft companies round to have a chat with them. What you can do and how much space you'll lose on the first floor depends on the size of loft and pitch of roof etc. You might be surprised.

Just thinking, if you could get two bedrooms or a bedroom and maybe a study or something too up there, that might swing the decision in the loft's favour.

Also, it's very easy to do. You never need to move out or anything. We had about two very dusty days but other than that we barely knew they were there!

Hmm that sounds tempting- keeping all the mess out of the way! At the moment we have 2 small double bedrooms (one master and one for DD) and a small spare room but I am pregnant again and so the ideal would be for two children to have the second floor bedrooms and for us to go up onto the third floor. Also the doubles are too small to fit a king size bed in either and would love to have a king!

The roof is pretty high- haven't measured but DH is over 6 foot and far far from the top when standing.

We live in a conservation area so although loft conversions are common, not sure if we would get away with a dormer

@Mildura, building control and an architect both gave us this information. Perhaps regs are different in your area.

We did our loft 3 years ago and needed to kit the whole house out for fire escapes, as part of building regs sign off. Needed fire doors on all floors, built in alarms etc. Added a fair bit of cost but we had our architect sort it all out prior to getting quotes. Stairs went back on themselves over stairs and were custom built to get the right curve and angle. Lost a bit of a double room but we gained so much more.

@S0upertrooper
Perhaps regs are different in your area

I don't think building regs are regional, they're national requirements.. We had to have mains-wired smoke alarms fitted to every room in the house, but that was all.