Loft conversion v single storey extension

[united4ever]

So which is better? Need a home office but only 50k ish to spend and if we do one I cannot see us being able to afford the other anytime soon but probably never.

It's a 3 bed semi, we have 2 kids (8 and 11). My son's room is tiny. With a loft conversion we could take some space from master bedroom for stairs and have the loft as the master bedroom with a dormer (Not too bothered about an suite). Then even losing the staircase, my son would get an upgrade to our old bedroom and I could use the box room he leaves as an office. So we end up with a 4 bed house (though box room used as office).

Single storey extension (Not even sure it can be done for 50k). Extend kitchen out to rear and the side (demolish garage to side) and have a room on the side as office (as well as much better kitchen/diner). We wanted to do this to the kitchen/dining for a long time but could never afford it. I am aware we are not adding a bedroom here and my growing son is stuck in the box room.

I know the above are two different things but which would you go for? In terms of cost I am thinking the loft would be cheaper but add more value (extra bedroom). Head is saying loft, heart is saying kitchen diner.

Finally, I don't want to waste builders time, I contacted one to bask them if they could quote. He asked where we are up to? Did we have drawings? We don't. I would value a builders opinion on the costs of both but I suspect we are going to have to decide first, get an architect to do plans, then get the builder to quote (He even said he is booked up for the year so quotes are for next year!). I would get a few quotes anyway. Any idea on the order to follow here. I totally get that a builder wants someone who knows exactly what they want but hard to make a decision when cost is such a big factor.

Unless he's a one stop shop asking a builder to quote (even rough) is pointless without drawings - there are too many variables.
I think £50k is not enough to do the extension if it also means a new kitchen (I'm doing a much more straightforward extension with new kitchen and I'm budgeting about 60-70k), but you should be able to do a loft (and do add an en suite - when you sell people will expect it, and adding a bathroom is always a good idea).

Could you not convert your garage into an office space instead of demolishing it? Depending on how big it is, it could be office for you with a chill out room for when the kids are teens.

I think it sounds like you just need to move OP!

If you can’t move then loft...and live with kitchen diner.

Otherwise you might up with quite an unbalanced house. It’s still going to be a 2 bed house and box room but with a lovely downstairs.

A £50k extension,.....sounds unlikely. ours sounded similar and we were getting quoted £70k not including new kitchen (we live somewhere expensive for builders).

We got an architectural technician to come round and have a quick look, and he pointed out a couple of obvious things. He gave us an idea of price...but only a really rough idea from his experience. We used him for the eventual plans.

We also called a builder we’d used before and one a friend was using round as we had more of an idea then and they gave us a v rough idea of cost. So builders will, but I think having had the architectural drawings guy round first meant we knew more what could be done before we talked to builder.

But yes....move maybe?

We're in the same position OP. 1940's small semi with a teeny box room as the third bedroom. We've had a rough quote for the rear extension of £60k, which is for 3m x 8m because we want to extend into the driveway to make it worth it (Also knocking down the garage).
Moving isn't an option. To get a bigger 3rd bedroom round here we'd need to pay an extra £150k, and generally we'd lose other features of our current house (large driveway, characterful large garden, quiet road in area we like).

Could you upgrade the garage, and link to house (if not already) then this could be a downstairs bedroom for your almost teen.

As with WetJan, moving would be the more expensive option to get what we want. We have great location and kids settled in nice schools.

The garage is a detached building, 1960s build (like the house). Pic attached. I don't see how that could be turned into a nice room. We could demolish and build on the side of course a room attached to the side of the house.

We are in the north west by the way.

We had this dilemma. We’ve gone for doing the downstairs with a view to doing the loft maybe in 5 years if we can afford it.

Our logic was that we only have a tiny galley kitchen so would end up with a rather top heavy house if we did the loft but not downstairs, whereas the downstairs feels too small for a family home at the moment and would make the biggest difference to us in the short term. We have no plans to sell but figured if we did have to, a really nice downstairs would probably balance out the “need” to do a loft conversion to get a fourth bedroom.

However, if I were in your position and had a kitchen diner already (if I’ve understood you correctly), I would go for the loft. It sounds as though it would make the biggest difference to your daily lives (the most important factor in terms of building work, I think) and that the downstairs is not sufficiently “disadvantaging” either to you or to future buyers.

Lofts are much, much cheaper to do and can be quicker and less intrusive if you want to stay in the house while they do it. I think you need to cost them both and look at the value they will add to the property in the future. How long are you planning to stay?

Doing the downstairs extension leaves your son in the box room. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So it sounds like your decision is between the nicer kitchen you’ve wanted for ages, or your son having more space.

I thought your loft sounded fab. That might not cost £50k, so you could still save up for the kitchen?

Thanks, am leaning more towards the loft at the moment. We could keep saving for a few years and do the full extension but by the time we do that our kids will be almost grown up and maybe leaving home a few years later. Plus building costs seem to be rapidly increasing so the job could cost a lot more in a few years. Then I am 46, adding to my mortgage will see me repaying it into my 60s!

In your position I would go for the loft. We have a 1930s semi which had had the loft converted long before we moved in to give a 4th bedroom and 2nd bathroom.

How much garden space would you lose with the extension? How big is your garden? Would you be prepared to lose this space?

In your situation, I would do the loft but also consider stretching my finances to remortgage and do the extension at the same time

Garden is quite big so would still have reasonable garden if we extend. Yeah, I don't really know how we could stretch our finances anymore. Bank would lend us 40k on mortgage, we have 10k in savings. How can we 'stretch' beyond that? Personal loans etc?

Try remortgaging instead of equity releasing with your current lender. You might be able to borrow more.

We have a similar dilemma but no choice of doing loft conversion as roof pitch isn't quite high enough - raising the roof would be ££. The box room is fine for sleeping/clothes for my 11 year old DS but we are thinking of knocking down our prefab garage and getting a proper "garden building" with 2/3rds being a "games room" where DS can have his friends over and the other 1/3 being a store/utility area. In your case could be home office. Would cost around £25k so much cheaper than other options. And not another set of stairs to hoover!!

We had a similar dilemma. We went for the loft conversion (£50k) which gave us two extra double bedrooms and a shower room. We needed the space and were advised it would add value to the house as we'd go from two to four bed. That said, everyday I fantasize about a beautiful kitchen extension but as our kitchen meets our needs, if we did it the only purpose would be because we wanted it not needed it. It would also have cost a lot more than a loft extension. In hindsight, we should have remortgaged to pay for the kitchen and enjoyed it and made our money back/made even on resale. As it is, I can't face the hassle of building work - have had bad experiences - and would rather sell and find our forever home and do it then!

Loft. 100%
It’s cheaper, faster and less disruptive.
It also adds more value to your house. Gives you an extra room. Get the en-suite too. Even if you’re not bothered, it will better when you have teenagers and if you ever sell the house, a loft conversion without an en-suite isn’t appealing.

We did our loft first and the value it added to the house meant we could remortgage two years later and do the kitchen extension.

If what you need is office space, I’d replace the garage with an office. Much cheaper than your other options (even if you go top spec, highly-insultated and with plumbing) and so much less disruptive. Ours was completed in 3 weeks, from demolition of the old garage to decorated and ready to use.
For an office, we’ve found having it properly separated from the house is an asset.

My neighbours had a loft extension done recently. I was gobsmacked at the build quality (or lack of). Its basically a square wooden box made of mdf (the stuff you see used to board up broken shop windows) sides covered in tiles (which clashes nicely with their pebbledashing), with a flat, felt covered mdf roof. Is that usual construction? Apparently theyve paid 85k, for what is effectively a large shed on their roof it.

Don't knock down your garage! You will devalue your house.

Can you do smaller versions of both? IE non Dormer loft bedroom for DS and smaller kitchen extension?

Exact same dilemma here but not about which to do but if to do it or move. Box room here really is a single bed size and nothing else aside from a bed side chest. No clue why they didn't make it a bit bigger by moving the wall back into the large double room - probs load bearing though
I'm thinking loft but DH not keen. Not sure why. It's large and loads of other houses have done it on the road

Loft is much more do-able for your budget and much easier to live with during the works.

Risk is head height above the stairs. You need atleast 2m clear head height above where the stairs pop up and remember that the head height in the loft will get about 300mm/ 1 ft lower with all the new insulation (may not be that thick but thinner will mean more expensive insulation).

You may also need to upgrade all of the doors off your stairs to fire doors and upgrade your fire alarm system because rules are stricter for 3 storey houses.

All in all though costs will escalate much less than if you were doing the rear extension with a new kitchen!

Yeah, I believe head height would be doable (neighbour has done it and exact same floor plan/size). I called up my existing mortgage provider to ask them how much more we could borrow - is it likely then that remortgaging would enable us to borrow much more? We are nearly half way through a 5 year fixed mortgage so I guess that would mean waiting for the fixed term to end or paying early exit fees which i would loath.

In terms of remortgaging, what we did was after the loft was completed and after our (then) current term was up (avoid fees), we then had the house revalued by an estate agent.
With the new higher value, we had our mortgage broker find us a deal to remortgage so that the bank agreed to release cash based on the now higher value of the house. But the cash was released on the basis of further improvement of the house (kitchen) and we needed to submit a quote for the works to show what the funds were for.

For a loft conversation, if you don’t go nuts with the costs, it adds approx the same value as you’ve spent. (In our area anyway)
Kitchen extensions are more expensive and don’t add the same value to the house but do make life a bit nicer when they’re done.

We were advised that if we wanted to do both, to do the loft first. The money wouldn’t work if we did kitchen first.