Creating a New Life in the Country - MSE Style!

gingernutbizkit

Hi all,

Anyone who has followed my threads on the House buying forums will know that two weeks ago the Ging family moved to our new house in the country. Mrs Ging and I have dreamed in the past about our three lovely kids getting to grow up in a tranquil setting not too far from the hubbub of city life and now they are waking up to see cows and sheep in the fields in front of the house .

There are three reasons for us being able to afford to move here.
1) Over the past three years we had committed to paying off a chunk of our mortgage thanks to advice on these forums.
2) We got the house for £33,000 less than the asking value.
3) The house needs a lot of work doing to it.

We have now taken out our savings of £20,000 (again thanks to :money:) and been allowed a loan of the same amount from our bank. So our total amount to invest in the property is £40k. The house could very easily swallow double this amount and so the purpose of this diary is to monitor our plans and spending and do do everything the MSE way!!!

As always, advisers, supporters and the down-right nosey are all welcome to follow!

Ging x

gingernutbizkit

The House As It Is

The house is a semi detached 1930's building with fields in front used for cattle grazing and a nature reserve below. It has three bedroom and a bathroom upstairs and downstairs there's a porch, lounge, kitchen, playroom, shower room and garage.

The problems are as follows:

porch - is tiny. You have to walk sideways to get through the small door and then can only take one step before you get to the front door.
Lounge - good size but you have to walk through it to get to all the other rooms.
Kitchen - small, galley style and very dated. This will need to be ripped out.
Playroom - huge room (3.4x5.7m) but very little light as the window is small. Plus the shower room is right in the middle of the room in the most stupid place.
Shower Room - small and smelly! Can't actually bring myself to have a shower in it .
Garage - Handy but not really necessary. This is the first time I've owned a house that even has off road parking!
bathroom - great size but pink and floral!!!
Bedroom one - 3mx3.45m so quite a good size except that the chimney takes up a corner of the room and can't be removed as it's shared with neighbours. This makes getting furniture in the room tricky and the room feels cramped.
Bedroom two - 3mx3.15m. Same issue as bedroom one.
Bedroom three - TINY. 2mx1.90m. My son has a high bed in there with a wardrobe and desk below but will this do when he's a teenager??
Heating - new system required. Currently a horrible log fire in the lounge and tank taking up room in the already small second bedroom.
Electrics - need attention. We're not on a meter and need a new fuse board.
Decoration - Hideous!! We're quite retro/modern types and everything is vinyl wallpapered, artex ceilings, floral and there's some lovely kitchen tiles with ducks on them!

gingernutbizkit

The Plan!!


The plan.... is a work in progress!

The initial idea was to build above the garage and playroom to give us two extra bedroom and an ensuite. The problem that we have now become aware of is that we would not be allowed to come out to the full width of the downstairs rooms due to living in a greenbelt area. We have to leave 1m from the boundary line. This means that the maximum depth of the rooms would be 2.4m and therefore we would not be able to get a double bed in them plus the ensuite would no longer fit either. If we did this we would end up with two small doubles, three single rooms and one family bathroom. We would have to keep the room downstairs as we couldn't afford to extend the kitchen out.

What the house really needs is a double storey extension to the side and rear which other houses have done but this is way out of our price range and I'm not prepared to stretch us financially any further.

So the plan is UPSIDE DOWN LIVING!!! A bit different I know but I think it'll work. This is how the rooms will all change:

Downstairs.
porch - removed and eventually replaced with a bigger one when we can afford it.
Lounge - divided into a double bedroom and a family bathroom.
Kitchen - A single bedroom.
Playroom - master bedroom. Shower room removed and ensuite put at the back of the room. Patio doors out onto garden and second window to give more light.
Garage - converted to large bedroom.

Upstairs

bathroom - cloakroom and utility.
Bedroom one - Lounge.
Bedroom two - Playroom.
Bedroom three - Study
Extension over garage - 10mx2.4m new kitchen and dining room. Also if the man at planning agrees we would like a balcony with steps down to garden to make the most of the views. I suspect them will say no to this though. The room will be long and thin so we will have to decorate accordingly.


Heating - considering an electric system as there is no mains gas in the village. We will then in the future look at solar panels. We want the tank taken out of the current bedroom and put in the back of the garage. We want this done soome as there are currently several rooms with no heating so it'll be a cold winter!
Electrics - Get a meter and new fuse board done. There's a few other light/sockets to move around too.
Decoration - Redecorate walls and new flooring.

The aim is to do all of this for £40k so we will have to keep on top of the budget at every step.

Ging x

gingernutbizkit

our budget will be posted here.

scottishminnie

Good luck. I'm nosey so will be following your progress with much interest.

One piece of advice if you don't mind me poking my nose in- allow 10-15% contingency on top of your budget. We biult our house some 15 years back and blew the budget spectacularly and it wasn't on flash things (well apart from a jacuzzi bath which I've used all of a dozen or so times!) but lots of little upgrades.

I'm a farm girl, born and bred, and am lucky enough to live in the country and you can't beat the sight of open fields around you. Doesn't matter how pants things are it's great to come home and get away from the madness of too many people and too many buildings.

Do keep us all posted:)

gingernutbizkit

Morning folks,

Phone call first thing this morning from the man at the planning department. He needs us to dig a trial hole to check if the foundations are strong enough to build above the garage. He seemed to think that there would be little objection to this extension although I have not mentioned the idea of a balcony and outdoor staircase at this point.

One of our new neighbours is an architect and has offered to do the drawings for us . I'm not expecting this to be done freely but I think he's less like to rip us off when we live in the same road! I spoke with him at the weekend and he said he would arrange to come over. I'm really impatient and desperate to get the ball rolling so I hope he will be in touch soon.

I need to contact NPower today to arrange for us to get an electric meter. We haven't been able to do this so far as the previous occupants hadn't done any meter readings . It's costing us a fortune!!

Ging x

Doozergirl

You're not serious about turning a 1930s semi upside down? You haven't posted all the room sizes but it sounds like downstairs is bigger than up and may still be after the extension?

You are going to seriously downvalue your house and you and your neighbour are going to wind each other up when you're doing the exact opposite of each other on the same floor. When your kids wake up early and are chattering and playing the xbox next to the neighbours bed on a sunday morning or when they're having a dinner party or watching tv when you're trying to sleep.

Give us a floorplan please. If you want to save money, it would be a more traditional layout and no architect. There are that many permutations of an extended 1930s semi, we can easily find the right one. I think that stopping to think is the key MSE activity here.


Upside down has it's place but not in a semi.

Gloomendoom

Doozergirl wrote: »

Upside down has it's place but not in a semi.

I lived in an upside-down end-of-terrace for a year. Everything Doozergirl has said is true. It is not a good idea.

I think the most annoying thing was our neighbour hoovering at six thirty in the morning, banging the skirting boards as she went.

gingernutbizkit

The walls between us and the neighbours are very thick. They can't hear us and we can't hear them.
This is the house we wish to stay in forever so no issue about down valuing the property.

We have stopped to think and tried many different versions with a traditional layout. I realise that upside-down living is not conventional but as well as practical benefits (i.e getting the right size bedrooms in) it has pleasurable ones too - having the living spaces upstairs to make the most of the views, being able to step outside my bedroom in the morning onto the garden before the kids wake up etc.

That said, we are still very much in the early stages of our thinking and all thoughts are welcome.
Ging x

gingernutbizkit

I should also have said that the floor space of both upstairs and downstairs will be an identical size so only the room configurations that would be different.
ging x

Doozergirl

The extension over the garage can be split into two smaller rooms for children. 2.4metres is 8 foot which is a decent width for a child's room. I'd anticipate that each of those rooms would be at least 10ft long which is more than absolutely fine! The current smallest bedroom becomes an ensuite to your bedroom and you keep the family bathroom upstairs (or the smallest bed becomes family bathroom and the existing one, the ensuite - whichever works). If you have the same space upstairs as down, then it's simply a matter of reconfiguring spaces to suit you. If you're desperate for a downstairs bedroom then have an upstairs playroom/sitting room which in some way takes advantage of the view and a downstairs bedroom instead. Have the garage as a new kitchen dining space, though it would make sense for me, for it to be the biggest room in the house. Fitted wardrobes, built in storage etc will always help utilise space. Ikea is great for inspiration. Chimney breasts can be removed in semi detached houses, you will need a structural engineer for help.

Whilst it might be nice to walk out of the bedroom into the garden, it's also pretty nice to be able to sit in your lounge with the doors open and watch the children play. Or to invite guests to sit outside and drink/eat outside in the summer and be able to step from the kitchen to a patio without trudging upstairs to the kitchen to fetch things. Ditto carrying heavy shopping up, and rubbish back down stairs in wet, snowy weather.

The expense of creating upstairs living is going to be far more than adding a storey to the side of your house and adding drainage for one new ensuite. The sheer weight of a kitchen in a family home is a massive load to bear onto 80 year old beams. need brand new drainage created for the new family bathroom downstairs, new drainage upstairs for a kitchen and you're putting up walls downstairs in an existing layout.

Stairs outside will be subject to building regulations, balconies are hotly contested things, planners are not keen on them in general and attached neighbours even less so with regards to privacy.

Fair enough if this is your forever house but how are you going to cope as you get older when you're constantly having to go upstairs? Or if fate took a hand and it had to be sold? I'd seriously reconsider. If you ever have money to extend the house out to the back and allow it to grow with your needs, it will be infinitely easier if the living space is already downstairs.

I'm happy to help with any input that I can, I reconfigure houses for a living; I promise I'm not simply trying to throw a spanner in the works with my negativity . The argument however for upstairs sleeping accommodation is that overwhelming however, it's why most houses are that way around! Super if you have a nice detached house and pots of money to turn a house around successfully, but considering that this is a semi, a 1930s build and money is an issue, moving a few walls downstairs to get the right layout and taking that cost is going to be a far better investment and arguably lower cost than extras like balconies, outside steps and the major hassle of accommodating lots of drainage upstairs - not an easy job.

I'd love to see a floorplan, I've not found one I couldn't work with - certainly not the the degree where upstairs living became a more sensible option. You can make the most of views downstairs with larger windows or indeed more windows. There's nothing to stop you from opening up what you already have.

I'm in the process right now of buying a 1930s semi which has already been extended to the side. That extension is 2.4 metres wide. You're right that it isn't ideal for a master bedroom but it will make two decent bedrooms.