Floor plan help

[ITriedAnother]

We have almost completed on a three-bed, 1930s semi-detached house in NW England. We plan to stay here long-term and, as we have two small kids, the house will need to grow with us (and has the potential to do so). In an ideal world, we would have:

Kitchen/ diner
Separate living room
Utility room
Downstairs toilet
Playroom
Fourth bedroom

Other houses on the street (which are exactly the same floor plan) have done loft conversions, rear extensions, and side extensions so we know they are possible. An extra bedroom adds £100k+ to the house value (going by recent sold prices of houses on street) although as this is a long-term home we're not too worried about ceiling price. The garden is very long (goes back much further than the detached garage) so we don't mind doing an extension. We are the only house on the street that has a garage - I don't think we need a garage but can see it might be useful for storage.

We initially have £100k to spend on cosmetic improvements and/or extension. We don't envisage significant work needed on e.g. electrics or plumbing as these have been redone in the last five years. We would then be able to save c. £30k a year to do more work if needed.

What would you do with the floor plans? And what work would you do before we move in and what would you do later?

Thank you!

Sorry, drive is approx 3m wide not 2m

We've been trying to buy an already extended 1930s semi. This is the floor plan, you could mirror something like that but not sure what the cost would be

Oh sorry, just saw your drive width. This might not work then

I have a 3 bed semi which is reasonably similar to yours. We are planning a single storey rear extension and our budget is £100k. We considered a loft conversion but we have decided to just do the extension now and then do the loft conversion later. I think the living space will make the biggest difference to us now. We have a 3yo and I'm pregnant with DC2 so I want all our bedrooms to be on the same floor for now. When they're older I will appreciate a master bedroom and en suite on the top floor

Looking at your ground floor plan it's fairly obvious that you just need to extend to the rear. You will need to consider how to get light into the room that is currently the dining room. If you make it all open plan it won't be an issue but if you're having a separate room with limited light consider internal glazing.

Personally I would leave the living room as it is and the rest is a blank canvas really. A good architect could give you ideas and options. We have gone for a kitchen/diner/family room and the family area will be the play room bit, so we can keep an eye on the kids while cooking/tidying in the kitchen. But some people prefer a separate play room so you can shut the door on the toys and mess.

I would keep the garage as storage, theoretically you could convert it (or some of it) into living space but as it's detached I think the use would be limited - unless one of you works from home and wants an office which is completely separate from the house, for example.

We have an annex at the end of the garden which is great in theory but we don't use it for much apart from storage. Having said that we will need it as an office when DC2 arrives (currently using bedroom 3 as an office but want to clear it for baby).

When you do your loft conversion the stairs will need to go somewhere and you may well lose space in bedroom 3 - you could ask a couple of loft conversion specialists to look at it and see what they say.

What I would definitely do on the second floor is knock through between the toilet and bathroom as that would give you a bigger family bathroom.

If the driveway is 3m wide then a side extension could be a possibility (we have less space on the side so we're not doing it).

Look at the council planning permission website and check out the floor plans of other extension/loft conversion projects on the street.

Could you afford to live elsewhere while you get the work done? We are going to try to get a short term rental so we can stay out of the house during the worst of it, budget permitting.

Not an extension as such but if you have a long garden then a heated ‘play room’ for when your DC are teenagers would be a really nice addition...then their mates have somewhere safe to hang out together

I would just extend out the back. Make a big kitchen diner and turn the first part of the kitchen into a utility. So put a wall up after window. Then 4th bedroom in loft. There is a potential to bring upstairs out over the extension as well.

Thanks so much all. @AnotherEmma it sounds like our situations are quite similar.

@fuzzymoon and AnotherEmma, rear extension was my initial consideration but because the gap between the kitchen and the detached garage is only about 2m, an extension would presumably then touch the wall of the garage unless we got rid of it or incorporated it some how. This is what I keep getting stuck on. I don't mind getting rid of the garage but if there was a way to keep it and have a rear extension, I think I'd prefer that but I can't imagine what that would look like. I would also ideally keep outside access to the back garden, even if just a gate.

@wonderrotunda I love this idea!

@beggingforsleep, that looks great but I think you're right that our drive isn't big enough unfortunately.

I should have said @AnotherEmma, we can stay elsewhere during the worst of the building work.

Have you spoken to any architects yet? They'll have suggestions.

If I were you I would consider a two storey side extension, you would lose your driveway but you would gain space on both floors - you could increase the side of bedroom 3, have space for stairs up to a loft conversion, and could have a bigger bathroom. Downstairs you'd enlarge the hall and you'd have extra space to the side which means you wouldn't have to go out too far to the rear, so you could still leave a gap between garage and extension for access to garden. In theory you wouldn't have to extend further than the existing kitchen, you could just extend from dining room so it goes out as far (if that makes any sense!)

Can you move the garage back or have a door from kitchen diner into it and a door in the garage door (this is a thing) to take bins out. This would mean nipping to the bin would happen undercover and stop you having to go out in all weathers.

Demolish the garage, do rear extension, rebuild garage at side of house with enough space at one side to get bins out or door at the back to take them through.

I'd be surprised if the garage is brick built if it's original so wouldn't compromise extending the living space by leaving it in situ. You could then extend at the back of the garage in future or have deep enough foundations to enable you to build a second storey above it in future.

It depends on how much you want to keep your driveway.

If I didn't mind losing the driveway then I would do a 2 story side extension. Back half would be the kitchen and front a family room. Upstairs would be an ensuite master bedroom. Turning the smallest room partly into stairs to a future attic room and partly half into hallway to new master suite.

I would maybe consider a rear extension to really make the kitchen/diner a grand space but not go out too far and wouldn't do it if too expensive as the room would already be 5 x 4 metres, plus the current dining room that could be knocked through. OR left.

If no side extension, I would go out the
back with a rear extension, making an L shapes kitchen that wrapped around the existing dining room, leaving the original window shape as a feature. The old dining room would become a snug, gaining light from a light filled extension but becoming a clay internal room. I have one right now and it's so lovely and snug.
Or of course knock it all through.

I would also do a loft extension, with stairs from smallest bedroom with an upstairs laundry space in the rest of that room. But this would mean 3 bedrooms but all would be large.

I would later on convert the garage into a standalone space so office, teen den, gym or music room.

Thanksall, these are really helpful suggestions!

We are currently extending ours. And doing a 2 story to this

Hi, just wondering @ITriedAnother if you ever did this? We have exactly the same layout and just trying to work out what to do...