Hi

So we bought our first hovel 4 yrs ago and are desperate for more space with the arrival of miniRRR 1&2. Our house is unusual in that it’s a very small detached house. The obvious answer is to convert the garage but I’m wondering if it’s possible at all to extend the back of the house which currently has two upstairs bedrooms. So my questions are:

– ball park figure to convert the garage? Has elec but would need a suspended floor and door into adjacent kitchen

– would it be possible and / or financially feasible to extend out the back? I’m guessing £25k+ and probably not get that money back on a £160k house?

Pics:

http://s862.photobucket.com/user/Danclair/library/Mobile%20Uploads

Thanks 🙂

My LA has some quite strict rules on turning a garage into habitation but given you’re is integral it may not be so much of an issue.

Go up? Roof pitch looks very shallow but might be possible to add another level up there?

Any other houses in the area done anything (use google earth to look) – see what their costs were/sale values?

Re garage – one of my neighbours (in an identical house) has already converted her garage although it was 20+ years ago.

The roof pitch is too shallow to go up given that I can’t stand up in the loft ..

Tbh as for getting our money back on our development it’s hard to figure out – we live in an area which isn’t exactly affluent (lots of council houses) but we’re close to transport links and the peaks. There’s also a giant eco dome mega resort complex being built down the road which I can’t figure out will have a positive or negative effect on the house value!

You either need to spend the brass to make the house work for you, or you move. No point in wondering if you’re going to get the money back, that’s just daft 🙂

Can’t you build forwards where the conservatory bit is? What’s out back?

^^ probably right.

So there’s an integral garage to the front and the conservatory is out back onto the garden – hence wondering if we could flatten conservator and build up 2 stories at the rear?

Re moving – our dilemma is that within the local area anything the next “step” up is likely to be semi detached and we really like knowing that it’s only us getting disturbed by the mini RRR’s 🙂

fwiw; I’m currently going through the process of converting an attached garage.

Cost so far

£300 LA Building Regs approval
£1000 removal of existing garage door and brick up with matching bricks

Anticipated bills:

£3-400 for a new window (our garage was already glazed; you’d need to have it done as part of the brick up)
£200ish for electrics (there’s already power so it’s just installation of new back boxes and sockets)
£1000 – 1500 to insulate and plaster internally.

After that; it’s painting + laying a floor (either tiles or wood) – we were lucky that the garage was built with a DPM (I suspect the previous owner had half an eye on conversion when they got it built)

^^ interesting , thanks

Our garage floor is concrete at ground level and about a foot lower than the floor of the kitchen so would need joists, insulation etc . I was thinking £5-8k for garage conversion but I’ve no idea really :-S

If you went two stories on the back would that roof angle and height mean flat roof to the extension?

Do you need more upstairs space or would more downstairs be enough? If downstairs them how about convert the garage, add a bit to the front so the bit to the right of the door projected the same distance and then a single story extension to the rear.

^^ yep i guess a rear extension would need to be flat roofed.

I like the idea of converting the garage and extending out into the porch and to the side.

The thing is, upstairs is pretty damn tiny too – 3 small bedrooms and a micro bathroom. I guess we’d use the space downstairs more though.
If we went for a double height rear extension I can’t imagine how the rooms could be configured (i have no imagination) as we’d lose one existing (box) room to get to the extended bit…

yep i guess a rear extension would need to be flat roofed.

Run the new roof 90° to the existing room.

Getting the layout to work internally can be a challenge with extending. Sister-in-laws house feels a bit disjointed due to the extensions it’s had.

Is gas and electric meters, fuseboard etc in the garage?

We recently got some quotes for converting our garage – to knock through from the main house, add two fire rated doors (one into the new room and a further one into the garage from the room) all done to regs. spec and had two all in prices (inc electrics/heating) – one at £12k, the other at £8k (approx 11ft x 9ft room with corridor).

[Ignoring money for a moment] I’d be getting rid of the conservatory and building a single storey extension with bifold doors onto a patio/the garden as well as converting the garage to living space.
I doubt you’d have any planning issue with either job but garage would defo be first on the list. You could always convert the back 2/3 of the garage into living accommodation and leave the front as it is for storage.
Not hard to do, probs just a suspended floor to bring it up the the same height as the ground floor, electrics and dry line with insulated plasterboard.
Also looks like you’ve got a load of wasted storage space under the conservatory if it has a suspended floor.

If you went two stories on the back would that roof angle and height mean flat roof to the extension?

If you applied to go two storeys I think the planners would not be keen and if I were a neighbour I’d be unhappy as flat roof would look funk ugly.
If you need that much more space then move…. it’ll be cheaper.

Is gas and electric meters, fuseboard etc in the garage?

Nope, they’re stuffed in the corner of the kitchen next to the garage at the front of the house.

Also looks like you’ve got a load of wasted storage space under the conservatory if it has a suspended floor

Sort of. The whole plot is in a slope so the conservatory is about 3 feet off ground level at it’s furthest point from the house. If we had a new conservatory i’d think about putting some storage space in there. However, I’d really much prefer a proper extension than a new conservatory – ie something that can be used all year round. The more I think about it the more a full height extension seems unlikely to be do able and like you say not too fugly..

I’d really much prefer a proper extension than a new conservatory

Oh christ yes…. we’re not in the 80’s now!
We’ve just turned an ‘interesting’ house that we’re flipping from this:

into this:

The OCD in my it twitching at the two different heights of the first floor windows.

in my it

?

Yep… wasn’t worth doing anything about that!

Edit: We live in a three bedroom Victorian semi and the only shared walls are the kitchen, back bedroom and front bedroom. Third bedroom doesn’t share a wall nor does the general living space so not to noisy.

« Stalking hat on« 

I wondered how long that would take!

Well we’re in the catchment areas for decent schools and MrsRRR is a teacher so we’re less worried about that. Thing is, expanding a bit could be 10-20k, anything bigger worth moving to is £60k+…

Sharkbait – very nice ! Please come and do the same to ours. Kind regards

Not a problem RRR… oh wait, I’ve just seen your budget 😉

Seriously though I’d be doing the garage, it defo falls within your budget (even allowing for a new window at the front and brickwork). Just remember you need storage somewhere.

Yep I’m not sure this area warrants much of a spend although there hasn’t been a car fire in a month or so now 🙂

Yep, I’m guessing the garage should be the focus initially and yes all the junk prized possessions would need dumping in a shed.

What sort of costs (vaguely) do rear single story extensions er cost? I assume £20k+ ? I need to befriend some builders I think ..

One of the neighbours has extended their place it’s given them a lot more room and made the inside of the house feel bigger.

Garage in the back garden at the end of the drive converted into shower & bedroom and the remainder of the drive up to the front of the house is now the kitchen.

Downsides – nowhere to park the car(s) and can only access the rear of the house via the house. Gardening stuff has to be carried through the house and wheelie bins at the front tut tut

I assume £20k+ ?

Definitely if you’re knocking the existing back of the house out (as we did in the 3rd of my pictures ^) due to structural work.

The thing is, upstairs is pretty damn tiny too – 3 small bedrooms and a micro bathroom. I guess we’d use the space downstairs more though.

I’d say move if you can stretch to the money required. We spent a considerable sum extending our last place when we should have used the money to trade up. It sort of all worked out ok, but I wouldn’t do it again. Off street parking including a garage is becoming more desireable.

Rear single storey extension would be permitted development if less than 4m from existing back wall and less than 4m high. Assuming no limits by council (article 4 etc). There is also prior notification which enables 6m from existing rear of house. You should be fine converting the garage. Pop down to your local planners – they should at least have a drop in session. I’d say looking at your garage only problem with this is needing to build a shed to put all the stuff you have in there!

RopeyReignRider – Member
However, I’d really much prefer a proper extension than a new conservatory – ie something that can be used all year round

We used ours all year for the past year, and I’ve just done this which has made it even better

The obvious solution appears to be to ditch that white monstrosity and go out across the back of the house on both ground and first floor.

no point in doing ground only as I assume you will need more bedrooms. Also more efficient to do two floors at the same time although you obviously need to cough up a big load of cash in one go rather than doing the round floor now and first floor in say ten years time.

Stop thinking about it as an investment and more as a house where you want to enjoy living with your family.

We went across the back of our house with this extension. Cost me an arm, a leg and my right nut (joke: no testicles were hurt during the building work).

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