Adding patio doors to external wall...

[Waitforwhat]

We are having a garage conversion done and just want to make sure I add anything else to the list that may need doing. We currently have a very dark front room with 2x very small north facing windows and a small window which is south facing. In my dreams, I would love to have small french doors added to the south facing wall (in addition to the window. Not to access the garden but mainly for light. Would you do that? Is it worth it?

We took out a window in a north facing wall and replaced with small patio doors. So much more light, and the room looks very different for it.

South facing would also make your room warmer

Something like this!

I'd do it. The only thing I'd think about would be internal wall space... will you still have enough? For things like tv, sideboards radiators etc

If that small window is already in the room why not incorporate it into the knock through and get wider doors? Even more light then!

Radiator is under the small window shown in the pic above. We should still have enough space for the sofa, tv etc. My only concern is that we had flooring put down a couple of years ago! Will that affect the flooring at all? Any idea of cost as that’s structural work right?

It's a really good idea. You could just put a big window in. But if you put french windows in then it's nice to have a patio outside or steps - otherwise will look a bit odd.

They'll need to put a lintel in - but in brick that's not that hard.

Or you could go the whole hog and put in a big sliding door across the whole space including the little window or get the little window made tallker too.

Moving the meter box isn't difficult.

So @Annalou30, trying to avoid the radiator as I said (so we don’t have to pay for extra work) and also because we have an L shaped sofa the end of the room

It wouldn’t cost a great deal to move the radiator. Depends what kind of doors you were looking at but £3000ish should sort it if it’s a straightforward cavity wall and UPVC doors. I’ve knocked through a window to doors before (using same lintel) and was less than this, but currently looking to do similar to a very thick stone wall+new steels+timber doors and seem to be looking at £5000+

Just for context. Here is the space inside, so the French doors will go around where the coffee tables are now. We also have a small patio/round sitting area that end of the garden. See attached pics!

Looks like it would make a huge difference!

Thanks @Annalou30 for rough costings that’s very useful! I also called the council and was told that we also need a building control application. Ideally it will be good to have all the messy building work with the garage conversion :). Any idea if we need to look at repairing/redoing the flooring? (I hope not!)

We did ours about 2 years ago. Would have been around 2k with a lintel, but we already had one so was about £1500.

Your skirting and floor would need to be made good. Have you any spare flooring?

Yes, luckily we still have some spare floor boards, so hopefully that’s all we need!

We did it on a thick stone wall and had steps built down to the garden. It has made a huge difference to the room.

We engaged a structural engineer to do the calculations and gave these to the builder. We sourced the doors ourselves as we wanted wooden rather than UPVC in keeping with the rest of the house. The builders made good the floor afterwards.

Cost came in at roughly £5k all in, up north. Just be warned it is a filthy job though! But completely worth it.

It sounds like a good investment given the amount of sunshine ☀️ it will let in! @TheMagicDeckchair any chance you can share a pic or two of the space now? 😊 thanks!

@Waitforwhat here’s the doors- they’re 6ft wide. The view was an unexpected bonus. You can see where they’ve made good the floor too.

That looks amazing! Thanks @TheMagicDeckchair for sharing!

Sorry to revive this thread, but I have a builder coming round on Sat to finalise plans fir building work and wanted to have your thoughts lovely people on what exactly to ask. So I was thinking to ask for french doors opening (to the left of the window shown above), but I was also potentially thinking of blocking up the east facing window that’s behind the tv. Would you do that? That window get rarely open plus we might be able to have a nice built in unit/hang the tv on the wall once that’s bricked up. Any thoughts? Thanks

Looking at your photo removing that window would make sense.

If they carefully remove the bricks where the doors are being put in , they can reuse them to block the window opening and will look better.

Ah, that’s great idea @Chumleymouse...and might potentially save on costs? I’ll suggest to the builder and see what he says!

It takes more time to remove them carefully but personally I think it’s worthwhile doing if possible as it’s the best match you will get.

Most builders won’t be keen on it because it involves more work.

Do you lose much light to the left of the telly if you block up that window? Personally I think it would look better with the window blocked as it would be very 'Windowy ' in that room, which looks quite small anyway

The room itself it’s not that small (it is not huge either). Took another picture for better representation. Hoping that the patio door will let in enough light to compensate for the blocked up window

Here is the picture