Property fans, please give me your opinion on our extension plans...

[llareggub]

We live in a house that is approximately 12 years old on a relatively large corner plot. We have a nice view from the front and are not over-looked at the back. We have access to good schools and can walk into the centre of our town. So far so good.

When we bought the house we bought it with a view to extending it from 3 bedrooms to 4 bedrooms. The bedrooms aren't huge, in fact, only 2 of the bedrooms are any good at all. The 3rd is a single and is currently our study. We have plans for a 2nd child so obviously that will become the nursery.

Now that we have lived here a while we have decided that we have 3 options. We find the house too small for our needs and we want more living space. I would really appreciate your views:

1. Convert our garage into living space and extend our small kitchen into a dining kitchen. Our through dining/living room would become a living room only. Garage would become a playroom/study/mess.

2. Convert kitchen only, retaining our garage as a storeroom. We think it is too small for a car BTW.

3. Move. We could afford to move but are reluctant to do so as we like the house, position etc.

If we go for options 1 or 2 I don't really care about the size of our bedrooms. We could also add in option 4 which is building another bedroom over the garage but I'm not sure there is any point.

If we went for option 1, do you think the downstairs would be too big for the number of bedrooms? Effectively we would be doubling the living space downstairs. Do you think it would add enough value to justify the additional cost on the mortgage?

I think when you take away the garage, you have to have enough parking space for one less vehicle than the number of bedrooms you have, iyswim - so if you have 3 bedrooms, you need space for 2 cars. Will you still have that?

(or in your case, 4 bedrooms, so you need space for 3 cars). I'm not sure if that applies everywhere, but it certainly did when we were having our extension done.

We enough room for 2 cars and plan to stick with 3 bedrooms.

If garage is too small for a car, I'd say 1 but check with planning as new(ish) houses sometimes have restrictions on them regarding parking provision.

Other people in the street have done it so I don't think there is a restriction. Do you think losing the garage would be an issue when selling?

Are you us - we have 2 big/1 small bedrooms and 2 kids. We intend to knock through into our garage and make a kitchen/diner. These days it is all about flexible living space so go for 1 !!

I'd say 1.

Never heard of the car ratio before. We have a five-bedroom house with no OSP, and that doesn't cause us a problem.

The most important thing in property is Location, Location, Location.

I think if you can pull off an extension - ie it fits well with the original property, then that is the way to go. Moving costs are so high, and would go a long way in an extension.

A consulation with an architect would give you ideas that you had never thought of yourself.

Location is very important to us as there is a local independent school foundation that offers an excellent financial assistance programme for families in our postcode only. There is assistance for families with incomes up to £80k per annum so it does make private education very affordable!

We have got problems with the upstairs bedrooms here, 2 that are fine and one that is rubbish and already is a bit of a struggle now DS is 4.

I've gone through all the options. Moving is going to cost us around 20k, so we are extending in such a way that it will balance out the upstairs with the downstairs and make the house work properly. I don't want to move as I like it where we are so this for me is a much better option.

We've had 4 architects before deciding what to do and have taken several years but I am really confident that we will get good value for money doing what we do and have a house that will cope fine with two teenagers lolling around it.

We converted our garage into a dining room a few years back. It is a good sized room but was very tight for a car. I think it cost us about £2,500 - £3,000 all in.
We are currently selling the house and it hasn't been an issue at all. We have off road parking for 3 cars.

I'd prob go for option 1, but do as chocolateteapot did and get the views of several architects before deciding.
Moving is a real hassle and expensive/disruptive, I know as we are moving next month and it is very stressful, esp when you have DCs.

In our area most garages have been converted into playrooms. I don't think it would be a problem selling without a garage, as long as you still have a driveway it will be fine.

If I was looking for a family home, my wish list would include, 3 bedrooms, kitchen with room for a table, somewhere to park, a family/playroom and 2 showers or a bedroom big enough to make an ensuite.

Option 1, it means you have somewhere to stash all their toys if you think about storage carefully. We have a conservatory that we use as the playroom but it really just has very clever storage so the majority of the toys go into Ikea Trofast storage.

It means our lounge gets tidied at the end of the day so feels grown up at night, we would love a dining kitchen (we are intending to move so no point doing it here)

We only have minimal toys in the boys bedrooms as for us it is a place where they relax and sleep not somewhere to play so a tiny bedroom won't matter.

You may need a good sized shed to house all the stuff currently in the garage but it will also make you clear out all the stuff you don't really need.

You might be able to squeeze in a utility too if your garage comes off your kitchen.

To see if any of your neighbours have extended put your postcode into google maps for arial view of your road and a look at the neighbours. You can zoom in quite close! It might give you some ideas.

Thanks for your input, some really good advice here. I think we are going to go for option 1 but we are hoping to get an architect around this week for further advice. I can't wait to get the plastic toys out of our living room!