Is my extension plan too adventurous?

[ThisLimeBiscuit]

Hello ladies

i I am a silent lurker of mumsnet and cannot express my gratitude to so many of you for making me feel assured and not a failure through so many of my moments in life. Now I am stuck on another one and who better to ask than you?

we bought a fixer upper 3 years ago and wanted to live in to see what doesn’t work before embarking on extensions/ renovations. My dream plan is below….before I venture out and have my dreams shattered, I though I would ask you ladies if I am being too adventures and will ultimately face rejection? My current house plan vs my dream house plan….please be honest and wake me up from my dream 😂

@ThisLimeBiscuit the toilet on the ground floor is an awful distance from the playroom which is only accessible from the family kitchen diner. toileting will be a nightmare. I think you need to find a better place closer to the family kitchen for the toilet. and make it a bit bigger too.

Just seen the £200-300k. No way would you do it for that. Just that back room is going to cost you well into 3 figures - and that would be before you start fitting out the kitchen, laundry etc.

@ThisLimeBiscuit Go to an architect say which rooms you would like, how many bedrooms, bathrooms etc. You want a big kitchen at the back of the house, a dining room, play room and whatever else you want, then let the architect come up with some provisional plans.

once again, thank you everyone for your feedback. Haha yes I did say my plan maybe a fools paradise. While I appreciate the suggestion of buying a house, the area we live in is quite expensive and anything we would like would be by far more expensive than the extension. The plot IS quite large and the street only has four houses on it.

As for the front extension, it would be an infill extension. Good thing is all other houses have done it so I believe we would get planning permission. Currently we have about 9 cars worth of parking in the front of our house and with infill, extension we would have 8 cars parking. .

Back extention would be a 6m by 12m which I didn’t think was too large. As I said we do have quite a big garden and neighbours who have done large extensions.

A little background on the house. This is a 1930s house and we are the second owners of the house. This house has only had one owner before. Not much has been done to the house since it was built, apart from new kitchen that might be 20 years old.

yes a lot of you are right with me not thinking beyond my own limited knowledge and that’s why I posted it here to get feedback as it opens up different possibilities for me. I think I was just trying not to remove original walls haha. This house has very thick walls, so much so that getting internet connection becomes hard sometimes. And the house is not in rural setting or green belt so I don’t think there will be hard to the character of the area. It is near the Thames River but just outside the flood zone. The attack has quite a high roof, this house has the highest roof of all houses on the street so we have plenty of space there.

we have 3 children. 2 boys and a girl so the boys will have the bedrooms with a shared bathroom on the second floor. And yes as my husband works from home, an office is a must. Living currently with 1 bathroom and 1 seperate toilet might be the reason for me filling the house with bathrooms!! Lol

thank you again, specially to those of you have who genuinely given me constructive feedback😊

@ThisLimeBiscuit "The house has thick walls" - you are falling into the trap architects always see - trying to work too much within the space which already exists. It will lead to compromised designs if you do that. If a thick wall needs to be removed it can be done.

Spending 200-300k on a renovation/extension I wouldn't worry too much about thick walls.

I also forgot to mention that we do have quite a large family and a lot of get togethers. What may seem boxy back extension to many, is something I have always loved. The kitchen, dining, sitting open plan is the reason we bought this house as the plot would allow us to build that extension. It may seem strange to many why I would want a lounge and a separate dining room however when you have around 30people over once a month atleast, you want to have the space to plonk them in different areas.

yes current dining room/ playroom seemed wrong even to me…I guess I could just turn the current kitchen/ outside utility into the dining room and put the kitchen at the other end of the extension. The dining space without the windows can be turned into a downstairs toilet and a coats/shoes closet space…..

we do want to keep our garage, not to use for the car as we won’t need it to park the car but as a general storage area with access into the house. From previous experience of having a garage without access to the main house means it’s a forgotten space. We never used it in our previous house.

We will be going to the Architect soon as our estimate to starting the extension is in 2 years as we think that’s how long, if not longer, it will take just to have everything in place….i just wanted to know if I was being silly in wanting so many different things…which again I understand can be subjective according to all of our circumstances however thank you to those of you who have been kind in your response and not outright dismissed what I may want.

I wont comment on the specific plans as you have enough of those. But your budget is totally unrealistic. We had a 50m2 single story extension 2 years ago, with some internal reconfiguration, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, and it was £220K.

The internet will tell you that typical costs for a single storey extension is £1.5k - £3k per sqm, but whenever I see anyone talking about extension quotes, the quotes are always at the top end of that or way over. If you are in an expensive area in the south you could easily be more into the £4k per sqm sort of level.
A 6m x 12m rear extension is 72sqm, so that could be over £216k for that part of the work alone. (For context you could easily get a 2-bed flat into a space much smaller than that)
Just do a mental tot up of how much fitting a kitchen or a bathroom costs (again factoring in being in an expensive part of the world) - for a kitchen, laundry and 3 new bathrooms, I'm thinking £70k minimum - but that's probably for a pretty basic spec, could escalate way over that.
so I'm rocketing up to £300k here and I haven't considered the cost of the two storey front extension, or the internal remodelling.

It's not that you are silly for wanting what you have in that plan, just that you need to be realistic about the scale of what you've proposed there.

We built a tower on to our house, so I don't think you are being adventurous enough 😀.

I'm not clear why you need to rejig the first floor to that extent if you have a loft conversion too. Surely you can create the closet and ensuite easily anyway.

You are right. We may have to build the extension in two parts….specially considering costs and obviously from someone who is experienced it’s such good feedback! Thank you! I did say I was being ambitious 😂😂

Haha love it!!!

It’s 17ft by 8ft….can you fit a good sized wardrobe for two and a good sized shower room in that space? Everywhere I saw on Pinterest, you need a massive space to build a bathroom!

You are right….most likely we will need to up our budget….the only saving grace maybe that we have our own builders( my dad and brother’s company to do the work)…

Our ensuite is 7ft x 9ft and previous was smaller.

Even with people over a lot, you won't use that separate dining room much. I doubt the seperate living room will get much use either. You'll probably end up spending most of your time in the kitchen/dining/livingroom.

Open plan can also be a pain with a large family, especially if someone wants to study/watch-tv while cooking is going on.

I don't think you'd use the small dining room with no windows. Why would anyone sit there when you have another table in the kitchen? The children would probably prefer to be under your feet in the kitchen than in the small playroom. Although having somewhere to store the toys is good.

I'd increase the size of the living room so you have somewhere to watch tv in the evenings.

One thing that I would recommend is finding an architect that specialises in interiors. Or someone that calls themselves a spacial designer or similar. (Totally sexist, but they're probably a woman.) So many architects focus on creating impressive spaces and not so much thought on the practicalities of living in them. It sounds like you need some advice on how to make the spaces really practical and useful rather than just enormous.
I work in planning, and I see so many plans where they create massive spaces or warrens of rooms, but I still wonder where they will put their coats etc, I get fed up with them!

Will you really use a separate dining room when you have such a spacious kitchen with room for a large table? I imagine you will entertain in there when you have guests. We recently built our house and don't have a separate dining room and I don't miss it at all. We have a large kitchen/dining/living area and it's a much better entertaining space than having a separate dining room

I would also be looking at future proofing the house, with at least 1 downstairs bedroom and a downstairs wet room.

It’s not sexist at all to me as I think women find it easier to share their thought process with another woman. I made this plan on magic plan which is an app I am a complete novice at so, so many mistakes in there. The storage area next to the kitchen is the pantry and the closet next to that would be the coats and shoes closet as that is a must with a busy household and if you have the space! Laundry room/ utility room is again something I would like to have. Maybe I need to rethink the seperate dining room and think about what rooms do I want. I just want very good storage in the house and a place for everything where your advice is really useful about having someone with an interior design perspective too. I absolutely love American interiors and would like to somehow create that too…

That’s a good idea! Maybe change the downstairs dining/playroom area to a bedroom with an en-suite?