If you’ve extended your house, what would you redo again, or do differently?

[Yellownotblue]

We’re planning an extension to our house - the pre app has just gone in (it’s quite a big extension by London standards - not typical side return). Basically extending at the back, side (on two storeys) and over the existing outrigger. We’re not adding bedrooms, but we are making the whole house more spacious and adding bathrooms and a big scullery, as well as redesigning the ground floor and doing a new kitchen.

We’re now at the stage of planning the layout and the look & feel.

I have a lot of ideas, we have a good design team (I think!) but I’d love to know what works and doesn’t work in your extension.

Is there anything you think ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I went without x for so long’?

And conversely, is there anything you think you wouldn’t bother with if you extended again?

Any idea, big or small, welcome. For instance, are you happy with your glazing, choice of flooring, flow between rooms, lighting?

Thank you lovely mners 💐

Who else is sniggering at "motion controlled light" for a bathroom?

(PS we have these and it's brill)

@WhereDoesThisToiletGo

Large pantry so all non chilled food is in the same place - no hunting through various cupboards We did this in our recent kitchen upgrade. 1000mm wide full height cupboard, base unit depth. Three lower drawers, upper shelves are shallower but there are storage racks mounted inside the doors so nothing gets pushed to the back and lost. All ambient foodstuff go in there. It has automatic internal lighting.

@WhereDoesThisToiletGo this sounds amazing. Any chance you could post a picture?

We have our washer and dryer upstairs temporarily while our extension is being built. I'm loving having them upstairs and wish we had the space to have them upstairs permanently.

@Graffitiqueen here you go.
It is my pride and joy. Bottom drawer and top shelf are mostly duplicates when I buy a BOGOF deal

Be sure to research heat pumps thoroughly.
They're getting popular in France but only really work properly above freezing.
When you need them most in very cold weather they won't always work.

@WhereDoesThisToiletGo that looks amazing! Sadly I don't think we have room for one.

@WhereDoesThisToiletGo lovely !

@positivelynegative

We’ve fitted a laundry chute. It’s on our landing and falls into our laundry basket in the utility.

We’ve also opened up our staircase to make it much larger, and sacrificed a bedroom and bathroom for a bigger landing. The big landing feels very spacious and makes the house feel really large. We want more space, not more rooms.

Downstairs we changed the dining room into a study and a gym. I want to be able to have a separate space to have a running machine, but we have a large dining area in the kitchen so a second space seemed unnecessary.

If I built again I’d make sure the architect thought more about the practical application of his design ideas.

@positivelynegative I’m interested how you’ve changed your dining room into a study and gym. We’ve just moved into a house with what was a quite formal dining room and I’m thinking of doing the same as you. Do you have two distinct areas? Thanks

@Jedstre yes definitely, separate rooms. The gym has AC and big TV, the study is filled with crap. I would never have my friends sat in a different room waiting for me to serve them, and I can't afford a housekeeper to serve me like that's ever going to happen so we got shot of it. 2 doors. 2 uses.

@positivelynegative

We’ve fitted a laundry chute. It’s on our landing and falls into our laundry basket in the utility.

We’ve also opened up our staircase to make it much larger, and sacrificed a bedroom and bathroom for a bigger landing. The big landing feels very spacious and makes the house feel really large. We want more space, not more rooms.

Downstairs we changed the dining room into a study and a gym. I want to be able to have a separate space to have a running machine, but we have a large dining area in the kitchen so a second space seemed unnecessary.

If I built again I’d make sure the architect thought more about the practical application of his design ideas.

That’s very interesting. I’ve always wanted a laundry chute, to my mind they were the epitome of posh in the 80s. I wanted my parents to have one - but our laundry room was upstairs :-).

I’m interested in your staircase being made bigger and creating a landing. This is one of the designs that we are contemplating. We also don’t need more bedrooms. What does the landing add to the overall flow of the house?

A boring one. We had additional downpipe from gutters installed into separate drain outlets. The reason being that I assume due to climate change that the downpours we get not are very sudden and heavy in a short space of time overloading gutters, particularly e is two storey to one story and the buildings tend to discharge the water onto the one storey roof.

My building inspector said it was a really good thing to do and in his experience building regulations should be changed as water overload to gutters is an increasing problem (I saw a thread on MN a few months ago about the same problem)

@Yellownotblue

The landing just feels very indulgent and grand really, it just shouts big space that we can afford to give over space to atmosphere rather than function - not sure I’d express that IRL!

Everyone’s room is at a different corner of it (not rammed in the corner though), so you don’t bump into anyone on the landing. The stairs are wide and turn twice around an enlarged central opening, this goes up through the loft to a large window so the height is also nice to look up to. It feels large and airy.

Part of the reason we did it was to have a front window on the landing and not just a roof light. That meant getting rid of a bedroom, but we have 4 large doubles on that floor so a 5th just wasn’t needed.

We all have our own bathroom so it’s not got loads of doors off of it. There is enough room to dress the area with furniture and lamps and we have some night lights too.

We were a bit unsure and looked at ways to grab some back into various rooms, but I’m so pleased we didn’t. The rooms are all big doubles with storage, why make them bigger.

Thoroughly recommend 2 dishwashers - but would do a lot of research into the heat source pumps - not always as good as one might think - best to ask a few people who have them . If you do get one make sure you have cast iron guarantees . Solar - great .

Also agree with the walk in pantry , separate laundry and closed in boot room - these areas open to back door can look really messy so best behind a closed door if you have space .

Insulation and sound proofing. We live in a flat though so I don't think you can ever have enough. Cornice (its a Victorian conversion). It just looks fantastic and is one of my favourite features.

@annabelindajane do you have a utility room and boot room separately? We're thinking of combining these.

We ve opted to have separate rooms although was tempted to join them as would have had a much larger room . I like to have space to have an ironing board up all the time and also reasoned if you have clean clothes airing etc then a muddy boot room might not be the best mix - our boot room is just off the back door in a small hall . However we do live in the country and more exposed to mud than the city. I will also store all our linen and towels in floor to ceiling cupboards in the laundry . Be interested to hear other people’s thoughts .

We have a large linen cupboard upstairs, because that’s where we use all the bedding and towels ( we just have a downstairs loo) . I can see the logic of storing it beside the laundry area but we don’t have space there.

We have A cloakroom near the front door, where our everyday Jackets / coats go. And where visitors hang their jackets ( in the days when we had visitors). It’s kept reasonably neat and tidy, mostly because I put away all the out of season clothes in a wardrobe upstairs.

Then we have an enormous pile of wellies , muddy shoes, hockey shoes, football boots and scruffy outdoor jackets at the back door.

I have no idea why we seem to have so many outdoor jackets / hats / gloves / scarves . Maybe it’s because we live in the country but work in a nearby city, so have both smart and muddy clothes / footwear.

We do have 5 adult sized humans but even so 😕

We don’t even have a dog to blame.

Things we love:

• The laundry chute
• master switches for every room. You can connect all the lamps and turn them all on/off at once with the wall switch. Game changer.
• We have nooks for boot room type storage by each of the main doors to make it easier to store things for going in and out. It’s so frustrating having wellies and coats like up by the back door because there is nowhere to put them! The one near the kitchen has a dedicated area for backpacks which I love. No more school bags living on the kitchen table. 👍
• We have whole house air and water filtration systems. They felt a bit indulgent when we installed them, but we are so thankful now, especially for the air filtration. The water filter was expensive (like 3k if I remember correctly), but it saves loads in the long run because it’s better for the pipes, appliances, etc. Plus I don’t have to

descale the shower glass and coffee pot every other day.

Regrets:

• wish we had more plug sockets. I wish I’d thought about where I want to plug in things like Christmas lights as there would also be some strategically placed outdoor sockets.
• I would have liked to get a solar roof, or at least have the wiring installed so that we could easily install panels later
• wish I’d paid closer attention to details like door swing relative to how we intended to use the space, light switch placement, etc.
• not a fan of the ultra thin quartz worktops we got for the kitchen. They look good and actually wear very well, but they feel a bit flimsy which really bothers me.
• I wish I had created a budget line for things like built-ins and furniture/rugs/light fixtures/etc specifically for the space.

I’m reviving this thread to thank absolutely everyone who posted. I turned all of your advice into a note to discuss with DH - in all, that’s 67 items for discussion 😳. The timing is perfect as we just got through our pre application today. Finally I feel we’re making progress!

Thank you again for taking the time to share your experience, it’s all been very useful. 💐

How nice of you to come back and update us! Glad to hear things are moving ahead OK.