£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

babychick

Hi, delurking to say I’m loving your diary (read it from the start, it’s taken me 3 days!) and also to ask if you’ve had a search of your local planning applications to see if there are any different plans for similar properties in your area that may have come up with a genius idea neither you nor your architect have thought of?! We have a bungalow too (not even a dormer) and have added a flat roof extension this year, it’s given us soooo much more space!

warby68

My off the wall idea would have been one of those garden office pods for your work and possibly to double as a family fun room.

Then devote some of your downstairs to sleeping space for you with lower cost partitioning upstairs to make 3 beds for the children.

Not a forever thing but a way to manage until your finances are stronger.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 62: Day 4

Woohoo, finally back home. DH is away now until tomorrow - we are ships in the night at the moment - but we'll all have the weekend together.

Sat down and looked at all the drawings last night and spent some time with a measuring tape and have come up with a variation on one of the architect's designs at the smaller end of the spectrum which I think we should be able to afford. It involves keeping both bathrooms downstairs (exactly where they are now in fact), but it's either a bathroom or our bedroom which has to be down here, and since the bathrooms are already here it seems cheaper to leave the plumbing where it is. I'm going to price it up roughly today and see how it looks. I need to bring it in at £40k or less to leave room for a contingency fund of 10%+ (obviously this is all borrowed, so not really a contingency fund, just the borrowing we can access!).

It was so awkward discussing it with DH last night - he hates to make any decision quickly, likes to sit and process, and I'm one of those who would rather make a decision just to get the situation off my plate and onto someone else's. So he feels like he's being rushed and I feel like we're moving at glacial speed! But I think we've hit a good balance.

We also need to ensure we don't let the architect's fees drift upwards at this point with endless revisions - we are going to cost out this design then get him to do the final design sketch if we think it will work budget-wise. We will have a shopping list of things to add to his initial sketch, but I don't want to get into more consultations, revisions, consultations and revisions.

Not a lot else to achieve today, am trying to give myself a quiet one after the madness of the past week or so - have travelled from deep SW to Wales, to London, to SW, to Somerset, to London and back again since last Wednesday.

Dh's work have sent round a letter confirming that their bonus will be paid this month, but still absolutely no information about the sum. So it might be a fiver :eek: . Have carefully wiped it from my mind for this month so i don't mentally spend it before it appears in case it turns out to be low (it really might only be £100, we have no information at all - it's a goodwill bonus rather than a structured scheme).

Glorious weather forecast here today - up to 20 degrees and sunny all day.

To do today:
1. Price up extension.
2. Email architect.
3. Do some packed lunch baking.

Debt repayment:
- £32.22/30 April rounding down pot.
- £1,925.16/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

Treadingonplaymobil

warby68 wrote: »

My off the wall idea would have been one of those garden office pods for your work and possibly to double as a family fun room.

Then devote some of your downstairs to sleeping space for you with lower cost partitioning upstairs to make 3 beds for the children.

Not a forever thing but a way to manage until your finances are stronger.

We have discussed an office pod and may go for one at some stage, but as an extra rather than a main living space in the house. I was all up for getting one first and seeing how we get on, but DH wasn't as it wouldn't actually be everyday living space for us, which is fair enough - it'll be a couple more years before DC1 is wanting to hang out in a totally separate building I think. Would be lovely for my work but a total indulgence at this stage.

enthusiasticsaver

It's a shame your budget won't stretch to the most expensive option but not a surprise.

Presumably the rear dormer extension gives you another bedroom so you then have three with your biggest bedroom split in two? I would think that is a priority as your kids get older so at least that is doable.

Keeping the bathrooms where they are will be the cheapest option so sensible to leave them.

Obviously £20k is the loan from your mum so you are going to be looking for £20k unsecured borrowing sometime next year?

My daughter and her husband spent £24k installing new kitchen and downstairs bathroom and remodelling their downstairs configuration to give them large kitchen diner and playroom. That was without any extension, just moving walls so £40k seems low for single storey and rear dormer extension. Is that just for the basic shell and services without kitting it out with new bathrooms and kitchen?

Treadingonplaymobil

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

It's a shame your budget won't stretch to the most expensive option but not a surprise.

Presumably the rear dormer extension gives you another bedroom so you then have three with your biggest bedroom split in two? I would think that is a priority as your kids get older so at least that is doable.

Keeping the bathrooms where they are will be the cheapest option so sensible to leave them.

Obviously £20k is the loan from your mum so you are going to be looking for £20k unsecured borrowing sometime next year?

My daughter and her husband spent £24k installing new kitchen and downstairs bathroom and remodelling their downstairs configuration to give them large kitchen diner and playroom. That was without any extension, just moving walls so £40k seems low for single storey and rear dormer extension. Is that just for the basic shell and services without kitting it out with new bathrooms and kitchen?

The rear dormer actually gives us the four bedrooms we want, just means the bathroom can't be upstairs too, which is fine - we've not had an upstairs bathroom for years now, and in several other houses, and we're not concerned about resale value.

In order to fund it we'll be borrowing the £20k from my mum, plus a secured loan of £25k, plus there is £8,500 available to draw down on the mortgage before we even attempt to have the house revalued. I'm hoping all of that will get the shell and bathrooms done, and we can save for the kitchen if necessary once the £25k loan is rolled into the mortgage at a lower repayment rate (because the value of the house will have increased - our broker has confirmed this will be possible and is likely even with just the shell built). Ideally we'll get the whole lot done for that sum, but I don't want to be too ambitious. We're looking at adding 28 square metres and significantly remodelling a further 12 square metres with this design.

Doing it like this also means that we can start with the loan from my mum (for which she has set interest at 1% and repayment at £100pm, hopefully to be increased at some stage, but no pressure), and not need to take out the larger personal loan until later on the build, which means our debt level will be lower at the point we go for further borrowing. All of that will be decided once we get into builders' quotes though.

Silver_Queen

Sounds like you have everything pretty well worked out! I wish I could contribute but this extension talk is well out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to add my support and tell you that your plan sounds doable and dare I say it...sensible.

enthusiasticsaver

Do you have enough equity to do the £25k secured loan without having it revalued?

Treadingonplaymobil

Sorry, that should say personal loan, not secured loan! Not intending to get that secured.

Busy_Mee1

Have you checked out the timescales for planning consent and spoken to any builders about their workloads. Good builders around here have jobs lined up for the next 6-12 months. You might have an ideal timeframe in mind but realistically that will depend on your builder's workload and those jobs being done on time. When we built our extension the builder gave us a likely start date that was 6 months away but that was delayed by a further 4 months for various reasons. When we built our house it took 12 months from the beginning of the planning to the builder starting work.

You might actually have longer to pay off your debt than you think, and I actually think that would be no bad thing. I would strongly advise getting yourself into as strong a financial position as you can, there is nothing more stressful than running out of money on a building project. I have that particular Tee shirt !