Help! 1960's detached renovation/extension ideas/ house layout please!!

[Gimmesomeskin]

If anybody would like to help me, I would love any input.
We have had an offer accepted on a fabulous 1960's detached house with a large garden. We can see so much potential in making it a forever family home, but can't seem to get our head around the layout. We will get an architect once sale has gone through, and spend time living in the house first before getting plans drawn up, but in the meantime we want to get excited about potential ideas.
We would love a big social open plan living/dining/kitchen, and thought we could build that along the back as a single story extension, opening out onto the garden.
We will potentially be adding a garden room/home office at the back of the garden.
As well as that that we would need an ensuite with the master bedroom, a family bathroom and two other double bedrooms. We're not sure if we can reconfigure the first floor to accommodate these requirements, or whether we need a first floor extension.
There is also the garage, and utility tacked on the sides of the house, great storage but are not insulated, the utility has a polycarbonate roof.
I have read about relocating stairs and changing positions of entrances to change the flow through the house. I am really open to any ideas. We have a budget of £130,000 in Suffolk. I would love to hear your ideas, Thanks!

Anyone ? Any idea's welcome please 🙏!!

We live in a 1960s detached which was similar to yours because it was 1 room deep and had a big garden. If I had your layout I would do this:
living room = dining room
dining room = snug/family room/office
kitchen = back half (the bit that runs next to current dining room) becomes toilet
kitchen = (the bit not changed to toilet) becomes pantry/ utility
WC = get rid of it and turn that bit into entrance to new kitchen/living room
then build a big kitchen/diner and a new living room on the back.
this is pretty much what we have done, we’ve included steels in the build so that we can extend upstairs in future as our budget (similar to to yours ) wasn’t enough for a 2 storey extension.
It’s got so much potential OP!
But…. Lots of work is harder than it looks on TV. We are close to finish and I’ve cried every day this week. It’s exhausting! Don’t underestimate how hard it is, I don’t regret it…. But it’s been sooooo much harder than I expected 😆

1960s detached come with a lot of potential. The perfect style of house to add value to.

OP, what is the current sq.ft of the house in total? £130k? Are you also looking to renovate the rest of the house, like reskinning the walls, new flooring, heating etc?

JackyinaTracky - thank you so much for that information. That has helped me so much. I really liked the idea of putting steels in so that you can extend upstairs in the future. Exciting that you are close to finishing it! We have never renovated before, so we need to be realistic, so thanks for telling me your experience.

sst1234 - that is good to hear. The current sq.ft is 1648. Yes will need to renovate the rest of the house. The heating will stay as current. Is £130k optimistic do you think?

Let’s break this down. It sounds like your main goal is to add space as you have a large plot, which sounds like a good idea. You could add a an extension along the back of the house to hold a kitchen and dining room and open up the wall to the current sitting room to make it part of the living space. Current utility stays as a utility with direct access from the new kitchen extension. Although if the roof isn’t great, it sometimes helps to knock down these things and reclaim the space. Current kitchen could become a utility and the dining room could be a second living area or or office. This way downstairs would be well proportioned with a seamless flow.

Upstairs definitely needs another bathroom and a dressing area to master bedroom, like you say. However if you add anything to the current layout, at least one, if not two bedrooms would become small and impractical. The most long term and wow solution would be to go up into the loft or make the single story extension into a double. With a double story extension you could have have 4 doubles with the master having a walk in dressing and an en-suite. If you go up into the loft instead, you would have 4 doubles and at least 2 en-suites, really future proofing the place.

In any case, £130k will not be enough. It looks an 8m wide kitchen extension alone will cost around £80k with all the fees. The rest would probably be enough for a basic renovation like reskimming walls, new flooring, updating the heating.

If you want to do everything you want, without going up into the loft or extending the bedrooms in anyway, you’re looking at around £250k. If you want to get the additional bathroom by extending upstairs, you won’t get much change out of £300k.

And it’s not a renovation you could do while living there. You could, but it would really impact your quality of life and test you in ways you didn’t think possible.

Sorry, it’s probably not what you wanted to hear. But with all that said, depending on the location you bought in, you could have an amazing finished product at the end which would be worth more than you put into it.

@sst1234 I agree I think £130k (assuming that also has to cover vat) isn't going to be enough to do everything.
I'd list out everything you need to do (eg rewire, plumbing, roof etc) and put a realistic £ to those.
Then work out what are your next needs (eg we need a home office to enable us to work) and add the £ to that.
Then put in priority order what you'd like. So you might put a large kitchen / diner / family above a dressing room and then add the costs to those.
I don't want to be a doom merchant, but the reality is that you can get excited about the project and in theory do some amazing things to this house. But whether you can actually afford them is another matter. I say this as someone who is still renovating and having to revise my expectations due to rising costs. We've already shelved an extension into the loft.
Plus also keep in mind that the extra square footage needs to be heated, powered and maintained which is increasingly expensive. So think as long term as you can.
£130k should still make meaningful changes, you may have to prioritise what those changes are, rather than do everything you possibly could.

Quite a few people have put the sort of extension you are describing on the back of their houses round here. What has happened in every case is that the existing rooms have lost a lot of light ( and the big room is a nightmare to heat, but that’s another story)

could you extend on the side, maybe where the utility is? Your ‘original’ house seems to be very sensibly laid out with a good flow, I wouldn’t personally want to mess about with that too much.

We recently (18 months ago) had an extension completed, which was two storey to the side and single storey along the rear. It came to £100k give or take to second fix, a plastered box essentially. No kitchen, fittings, bathroom etc.

On the pic the bit outlined in red was the existing house. The single storey is 9m across, by 4 wide from memory.

Oh, and link to house please 😁

18 months was was a lifetime ago, when it comes of cost of building work. I would not take any number from that long ago to mean anything today.

sst1234 - thanks for breaking down the costs. There are a lot more than I thought. I think we are going to have to revise our expectations. We definitely want an open plan kitchen/dining/living so we would prioritise that area.

whereeverilaymycat - thanks for your input. I will definitely start making a list of everything, in order to see where the first needs are, then go from there.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen - that is a good point you make about the light, and thinking of the other rooms. The utility and the garage are possible options to extend into. I will definitely be giving that some thought. The kitchen is too small as it is for our needs, so we want to make that bigger.

IhearyouClemFandango - thank you for showing me your plan, it looks fantastic. How much more did it take to complete on top of the £100k?

This is really helping me, thanks everyone.

Absolutely, that was kind of what I was getting at. It took us to £100k to get to a shell even before everything went nuts, we were v lucky to get in when we did.

it is still a work in progress tbh OP, so final costs tbc!

It's all about the light op - have you watched any of 'Your Home Made Perfect?' Yeah, it's 'just another home makeover show' but I personally think the architects tend to prioritise light.

I mean, you have a massive dining room joined to a too-small kitchen. Really, you could just knock through to create one lovely big space, perhaps with a small side return to give you a separate utility. That would be simple enough. Where you want bigger changes (imo) is upstairs - a second bathroom (at least) which means you potentially need to go up to create a master suite. That would make your budget go further.