If you could only do 1 would you do a loft conversion or a garden room?

[greenbeanie]

Opinions wanted please. We have enough money to either do a loft conversion or get rid of our 50 year old single glazed conservatory and replace it with a garden room knocked through into one of the reception rooms. The loft conversion would give us a big master bedroom, ensuite, dressing room and storage room and the garden room would create a room about 15x30ft. Not sure which to do as we can only afford 1, what would you do??

We had the same dilemma and went for the garden room in the end. Our garden room goes right the way across the back of the house, freeing up our old, poky dining room to be a play room. Access to the garden room is open plan from the play room and the kitchen, and the whole house feels more spacious.

We have a big dining table, sofa and storage in the garden room and is has become the place where we spend all of our time. We have sun in the morning, so it feels lovely and warm at breakfast. As a result we seem to spend more time in the garden, as we keep the doors open and wander in and out. I'm really pleased we went for the garden room, but as it has pretty much doubled our living areas downstairs, we'll need to climb several rungs up the ladder to get equivalent space in a house with more bedrooms.

We just sleep upstairs. We've done some serious work on our storage (thanks IKEA) so don't miss having the extra bedroom. In your situation an extra bathroom would be handy though. We have two and a loo downstairs, so perhaps would have reached a different conclusion in your situation. I guess it comes down to what do you need more of, sleep space or living space?

We're hoping to save enough money to extend over our garage eventually, so whilst we chose the garden room option we haven't ruled out the extra bedroom!

i would decide depending on the sun aspect to yoru garden - we have south facing so would love garden room type as could benefit from all that free heat - loft room would be good if you dont mind sleeping on floor above kids and also if you dont need your loft to store all your crap in - for that purpose alone our loft is essential.

I had the same dilemma so asked our local estate agent. He recommended doing the garden room first as otherwise house would have been top heavy. Had lovely garden room/live in kitchen done which is now the room we spend all our time. Definitely the right thing to do for us. We have floor to ceiling windows facing on to the garden so it is a lovely light room and we get sun all day as it is double aspect. Really has a wow factor.