Absolute beginner needs all your advice

[Straysocks]

This is a long one ...

I need to have my house remodeled to accommodate my lovely sister who is now living with us. She has various cognitive and mobility needs and so will live on the ground floor of our 3 bed mid terrace. I'm taking the opportunity to do other work so it's one lot of upheaval and then hopefully a wonderful home to live in.

I am a total building novice. I've no partner or parent to talk this through with and no friends who can invest enough time/thought into the detail of such a project. I've seen the wealth of experience on this board and hoping for some (any!) guidance/suggestions.

Our largish, rectangular downstairs bathroom will become her en-suite bedroom and this is the trickiest room. The chimney breast will have to go. Currently all of the plumbing is near quite the large window at the rear of the room (and house). It therefore makes sense to put the en-suite facilities there but this means the bedroom will not have a window. I can put Perspex in the top of a partition wall for light but there will be no view out. To split the room long ways to accommodate the window would leave less than a metre width and would make the bedroom too long like a hallway. I would really like the bathroom facilities to be brought to the opposite side but think the raising of the floor and laying of new pipes will be costly.

I am also removing the upper part of the chimney breast from the bedroom above - this is a wall of one neighbour.

I am relocating our upstairs bathroom with a sloping roof into the bigger bedroom next to it to make a new family bathroom with a shower, so far that seems ok.

Another chimney breast, upper and lower, will come out. This is on my other neighbour's wall. It will create more space downstairs in our dining room and upstairs in the hallway leading to the soon-to-be swapped bedroom/bathroom upstairs. That will allow me to bring the doorway of the former bathroom/new bedroom forward to make a bigger cozy child's bedroom out of the room with the sloping roof.

Thank you if you've held on so far. Finally, downstairs has a funny little arch between the dining room and tiny kitchen. I will knock that small wall out to make a kitchen diner.

As I understand, 3 support beams will be needed. Two for the chimney breasts and one for the kitchen/diner.

So, I've had 4 builders visit who have said broadly similar things, given similar prices and timeframes, which I find reassuring.

I'm lying awake (again) struggling with the complexity of it. I can draw an outline of each room, place radiators where I want them, think about new sockets, select flooring for the whole house but I am worried that I have not had an architect plan or consulted a structural engineer. Do I need to? If I did what could I expect their costs to be? Do I need to check with my insurance company that I can do this? This may sound upside down but I am lost and panicked. The longer this takes me the longer we live in unsuitable environment the greater the strain on all of us as a new family of four rather than three. I'd really appreciate the benefit of your experience, thanks for reading this far!

[Straysocks]

@moveblues

Ask for a referral for a community PT. they should be able to talk this through

Do you mean a physio? I'll see if it's possible. I'm doubtful the delay can be circumvented but worth a shot, thanks

[Straysocks]

@SecretDoor

Would it be easier to move to a more suitable property?

I have given this a lot of thought and have looked around. I couldn't buy my own house now financially, could not get anything bigger. Also, wherever we go I'll have to adapt so that's further expense.

[Straysocks]

@ablutiions that looks impressive. I think we'd both prefer a bathroom with a door, I'm holding onto the idea that if I do bring the plumbing further up the room that it could possibly also be accessed by others - not properly formulated that yet.

She already receives assistance bathing so it will have to allow two people to move around and good point on the wider doorways if we are anyway changing things, thank you.

[Straysocks]

@TwigTheWonderKid

No advice on the process or building-related stuff but in terms of your sister's needs will the bedroom and bathroom be big enough if her mobility reduces and she needs to use a walking frame or wheelchair? You'd also need to make sure door frames are wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair.

The draft plan doesn't really allow for that but it is part 1 of my eventual plan to branch out into next door (and then the universe).

[Straysocks]

@minipie @SecretDoor My sister would absolutely love that! Me and the kids would be mortified though, we're quite a shy bunch - my sister got all the charm and extrovert tendencies for all of us.

[sospspsp]

Go for pocket doors, much easier if you have mobility problems as there's no door to negotiate around.

Good luck op you sound like you have a wonderful sister, are a wonderful sister and a lovely family!

[Straysocks]

@sospspsp

Go for pocket doors, much easier if you have mobility problems as there's no door to negotiate around.

Good luck op you sound like you have a wonderful sister, are a wonderful sister and a lovely family!

Pocket doors! Just googled, brilliant, thank you!!