How would you extend this bungalow..picture included.

[Sandals12]

I'm inheriting this 1960s bungalow from granny. 90metres squared. On a beautiful 1 acre plot, lovely drive up to it. Most of land is at front of house. Front (with living rooms) is south facing. I feel the current living rooms are of good size for us so could maybe retain them.

Any suggestions on how to extend? We would like 3 or 4 bedrooms, two living areas. Utility room, ideally 2 bathrooms/shower rooms. Nothing too fancy or unique required. Top budget 190,000 without getting a loan, because I think it will take that amount with the pruce of materials. We will be doing some of work, tiling etc but not most of work.

How much land do you have at the side?

We had a similar project and built a side extension so we had a T shaped house, and we went up into the roof to create two more bedrooms.

On the right there's a garage (detached) that can be done away with but lots of room to the right, none to left. Lots of room front and back.

I know we will get an architect obviously but it's nice to get ideas. Did you extend out front a bit as well to make the t shaoe, That's interesting.

Yes, more at the back then the front as that is how the landscape dictated but a T is more interesting than an L IMO. We also fill in one of the returns with a front porch.

We are on a sloping site so that made it trickier but we have a big kitchen/diner and then a dining/living in the downstairs, with lovely corner folding patio doors out to the garden.

Upstairs we have two bedrooms both with en-suites in the eaves. Later on we converted the garage so we have two doubles downstairs plus an office area. Because our garden is roomy we put in a home office in a shed which is my sanctuary.

*filled

That sounds so lovely, we voukd probably convert the attic too to two big bedrooms. Did you get an architect to do the plans. Corner patio doors sound lovely. It's all very daunting especially the price of everything. I had never any desire to build!:-(

When we were house hunting we saw quite a few bungalows that had been extended in a way that made the middle rooms very dark, even when they were open-plan to the extension. So I would not extend that bungalow at the front or back.

The other common thing with bungalow extensions was to add on bedrooms which were only accessible through the living room, and again, I thought these were badly planned.

The best developments were where they’d put a fabby master bedroom with en-suite into the roof space.

That floor plan also looks like you could extend either side without losing light but you need your architect to come up with a good plan for accessing the new rooms sensibly.

Extending into the loft is the obvious option but could you consider extending towards the double garage and build above it if the structure permits?

If you’re looking for inspiration, try looking at some of these articles. You could also have a look at their back catalogue if you take out a Readly magazine subscription for a month (which is currently free).

Rather that thinking of the plan, try thinking about how you would use the space, what you want the extension to do and who will be using that space. Children / guests / master bed/ utility / storage
Think about the qualities you want that space to have - light, cosy, looking towards a particular view, energy efficiency etc
Find pictures of spaces that you like and think about why you like them - try to be realistic when doing this as although you can extend it won't be a tardis
Then talk to your architect - this will help you get the most of what you want and also give them good parameters to work to.
I am an architect and often people come to me with fixed ideas about extending/refurbishing but when you take them back to first principles you end up getting better results because they think about why they are doing the work and what they want from the end product and I can steer them to things they hadn't even considered.

I think that the inside space could be reconfigured to give you most of the things you want. With a loft conversion I don't think you would need an extension too. You could always add one on at at later date if needed.

I would do loft conversion first and then work out where the one/ two downstairs bedrooms would go then rethink the downstairs spaces.

Yes, we had an architect but we also modified the plans as we went along, DH has some talent and skills which helped.

It is a lot of money, no question. The other advice I would give is at all possible live in the property for a year before drawing up plans. You get more of a sense of light and sound and how you inhabit and move around a place in different seasons.

I would designate a side of the property as bedrooms & at least 1 main bathroom, then the other side as living/entertaining spaces with a WC as a minimum

Some great advice here thanks. Nice to hear from an architect too and about not having fixed ideas. I will definitely be reading those articles too, thanks. It's always helpful to see what others have done.