Loft conversion or kitchen extension

[Puffthemagicdragongoestobed]

We recently moved into our current house. The reasons why we moved was that it is in the catchment of very good schools, in a leafy area and it has a large garden. We bought it planning to extend it, as size wise it’s a bit smaller than what we had hoped for but the best we could find in our price range in this pricey area.
We have a reasonable budget for the works, about £100k made up of extra mortgage and savings.

So, I had my heart set on a kitchen extension. The kitchen needs updating anyway and I would love the extra space downstairs. We would turn it into a kitchen/ dining living space with big sliding doors, utility, loo, view into the garden. We would keep the front room as a cosy grown up living room.

Now the dilemma.
We actually need more bedroom space. We have 3 bedrooms upstairs and an office/ guest bedroom downstairs. The 3rd bedroom upstairs is a bit on the small side, though it’s nice and has a bay window. It’s bigger than a box room but not much bigger. We gave it to 10 year old DS, whilst 6 year old DD got the bigger bedroom as she is the one who has all the toys. DS mainly plays video games and reads, so he doesn’t really need the space. We decorated the room really nicely to compensate for the size and at the moment it’s the loveliest bedroom in the house, it’s light and airy as well. But small. Whilst DS likes it, he does complain about its size.
The only real solution would be to extend into the loft, adding a master plus en-suite and storage, and then let DS have one of the bigger bedrooms and use his current bedroom as a spare room. I like the idea of sleeping tucked away in the loft. DS would have much more space as he enters teenage hood and he is already a tall kid.

But this would mean we do not have enough money to do the ground floor extension. We probably have enough to do up the kitchen and knock through into the dining room so that we have an open plan kitchen diner. But then it feels we have missed the opportunity to build an amazing ground floor extension.

What would you do in our situation? I feel the loft would be the sensible option, given that the roof needs doing as well. Also, the previous owners spent a lot of money on a lovely patio very recently, which would most likely be smashed up to make space for the kitchen extension.
But my heart says ground floor!

(I know it’s a first world problem, but here we are...)

Thank you!

Personally I'd do downstairs first as you will spend so much more time there during the day and evenings with your family and friends.

Can you buy your son one of those bunk-type beds that has the bed on top and a sofa underneath to maximise the space in his room? In another six years all he'll want to do is be in his room so maybe you could plan to do the loft around then?

Have you priced up both options to see if you can afford both as £100k is a sizeable amount.

How badly does the roof need doing? If you're going to need to do it in the next couple of years, I'd say roof and conversion are more important.

You said you had a guest room downstairs, could your 10yo room become that after you do the loft allowing you more flexibility to change thing round downstairs. If you have a large kitchen, dinner, lounge will you ever use a 'grown up' lounge.

Lots to think about. Try looking at similar properties on rightmove and look at the floor plans, always really helpful.

Thank you both for your thoughts. I think we should show the kids pictures of how a downstairs extension could look so that they can appreciate what we would gain. At the moment they just moan about their rooms not being big enough (DD had a slightly bigger room previously as well).
Imarocket, so far we only got rough quotes for the ground floor which were around £70k plus VAT so this wouldn’t leave much. We haven’t had many quotes yet though as we wanted to get the plans done first.
With regards to the grown up lounge you may be right, it could become an underused room. I have considered it as a play room/ music room as well.

Definitely do downstairs. The whole family will benefit from this lovely new space. I have a large kitchen/diner/sofa area and it is the most used area in the house. It's great to have a separate lounge area so the family can spread out without having to escape to bedrooms.
The lounge isn't now redundant now by any means.
I certainly wouldn't pander to the children and their requests for bigger bedrooms. They sound fine. Not everyone can have massive bedrooms. This is what you can afford in the area you want to live. I wouldn't be swayed to much by them. Besides it sounds like it may be a possibility to extend in to the loft in the future. But if not they will get over it! X

Thanks for your comment Letitgo. That’s kind of how I feel. They have lovely bedrooms already.

We did both. The kitchen extension made the most difference to our lives - we did that first.

Do the kitchen extension now and loft conversion when the kids are hitting their teens. Or make the downstairs sitting room a bedroom.

We did loft first, as having a downstairs extension makes the scaffolding more complicated and also bedrooms add value - so we increased the house value by adding two bedrooms and a bathroom in the loft and a couple of years later were able to borrow the money against the house to do the downstairs.

Kerlassic, good point about the scaffolding for the loft. I am also a bit worried about that if we do downstairs first. DH thinks it’s doable though..

I'd do the bedrooms first, especially if the roof needs doing anyway, then as PP said you can borrow against the house to do the downstairs.

Are the kids really going to appreciate the downstairs space? It sounds to me like the downstairs is for you and sorting the bedroom would be for your son - the logistics makes it easier to do the bedrooms first and means you all have somewhere nice to retreat to when the downstairs work happens

If you do decide to do the loft first, a kitchen respray will cost under 6k (Unless your kitchen is huge) and give it enough of a refresh to wait to do the kitchen extention.

Have you considered a 2 storey extension, kitchen with bedroom above? It is not always that much more expensive to add the extra storey and could work out cheaper than the kitchen extension plus loft conversion.

Are you good at DIY?
We had the extension built but fitted the bathroom and kitchen as well as doing all the painting ourselves to keep costs down.

Could have written your post, but we ended up doing a double storey extension. Can't you do that to get extra bedroom space? Maybe speak to an architect to give you ideas?

If its a choice, 100% downstairs first. As,a family, you'll get maximum return on the extra space and it would add more value than a loft conversion.

I would do the downstairs first but address the bedroom issue in another way - e.g by swapping the kids bedrooms in a couple of years so that both kids get a turn at the bigger room or giving him the guest room downstairs to use as additional space when you don't have guests.

I wonder if your son less wants the additional space and more feels that your daughter was favoured - I totally get why you did it this way but he will be aware that most of his friends' parents will have given the older child the bigger room. Basically wondering if reassurance that he is important might be more what it's about and could be achieved another way

Kitchen !!! Kids are selfish and of course want stuff for themselves but the family space will be better for all of you . We had a kitchen extension last year and it's made us all spend more time downstairs as we doubled its size and added a games room ( for PlayStation etc ) so the kids weren't up in their rooms all the time .

We did already have big bedrooms though to be fair .. I just think you only sleep there really don't you .?

I'd give your DS a preteen cave in the garden. An insulated shed with power, a small heater for the winter and an off switch wired back to your new kitchen extension so you can ensure its all turned off at night.

Could you not scale down your plans a little and do both? We had the same dilemma and ended up deciding to get them both done (on hold now because of corona) and our builders quoted us £60k. We're in a v expensive part of the SE too - but we're going for the most basic type of box extension, no fitted kitchen, budget bathroom etc which all brings the cost down a lot.

Downstairs! Lift conversions are always a disappointment - freezing in the winter and too hot in the summer

We did the bedroom first and have a lovely master suite with dressing area, large fitted wardrobes and bathroom (big enough to have a bath). I love it.

And perfect temperature wise - if built by reputable builder with sufficient radiators for the space

Definitely do downstairs. You've already got four bedrooms and only two DC if I'm reading rightly. When you have more options for space downstairs, the bedrooms will really only be for sleeping in. The downstairs work will make the biggest difference to all your lives. You could do the loft later, or swap their rooms later, or he could switch to the downstairs bedroom when he's older. fwiw, we did the loft before the kitchen and then both boys decided they wanted to share a room so now we've got two spares after all that. The loft is nice but the kitchen/diner has had way more positive impact.

Downstairs, always. For me, living space is much more important than sleeping space. Houses can become top heavy which is always puts me off.

I would do the rear extension first, as the family will benefit from the extra space gained downstairs. We did our extension first and plan to do the loft conversion in a few years.