Interior layout change

Lozzers84

Haha, ok. Good point re hotels!

Sounds from what you are all saying that it's not outside the realms of possibility to do and it's not a crazy idea and we'd have a few options... So that sounds positive to me.

quotememiserable

Well the wall you'd need to take out, doesn't have a ground floor wall beneath it, according the floorplan, so it can't be structural. I think you're taking of a week for a builder and his mate plus materials, so maybe £3k. Assuming you won't be living here and you can rip into the job.
Plus the cost of the bathroom itself, and some plastering and stuff. £8-10k maybe?. You need to talk to some tradespeople though and get some actual prices.
It will need ventilation, but it can go out through the roof space above so it's no big issue.

Section106

quotememiserable wrote: »

Well the wall you'd need to take out, doesn't have a ground floor wall beneath it, according the floorplan, so it can't be structural.....

That could turn out to be a very dangerous/expensive assumption.

There's no way of telling from the property details alone whether there was a wall below it on the ground floor which was removed as part of previous remodelling of the ground floor.

Personally, my guess is that the Kitchen/Breakfast Room were quite likely to have been two rooms originally, and the wall on the first floor could well be sitting on top of a steel beam where that ground floor wall used to be.

Some of those internal first-floor walls have got to be structural. Something needs to be holding up the rather complicated roof arrangement sitting on top of it all.

I would start from the point of view that there has to be something to explain the rather unusual bedroom layout - structural constraints might be the most likely explanation.

getmore4less

Those floor plans don't match the outside of the property.

I would check what structural work has been done before there may be no wall under the wall you want to move now but might have been.
the rear extension was done in 96 same time as next door that put their dormer in in 2000.

next doors floor plans

Lozzers84

Thanks, we did see those floor plans from next door when we were thinking about possibilities. The long bedroom wouldn't work for us and the ensuite would be much better we think. As you can see that property has also ended up as a 3 bed despite the extension.

We would look to have a full survey done before purchase.

So maybe the best course of action would be to attempt to pay for a builders time to attend a viewing if we can and then either way if we still want it make an offer subject to survey...? I assume the surveyor could check suitability to do this work as part of that survey if we ask...

Does involve spending money upfront but, as I'm sure I will be reminded, better to do that now than a lot more later.

No one has mentioned drainage for the ensuite, does that mean noone thinks it would be too much of problem?

Thanks again for all your responses, really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Doozergirl

It's a structural engineer you need to assess what can be done. It can be done, it's just whether it needs steels or not.

The surveyor will not tell you, they aren't qualified. A builder seems pretty pointless at this stage. It's not a major job, and fairly easy to ballpark a figure.

As for drainage, there's a toilet underneath on the ground floor, so that looks hopeful. You need to see if it's a normal toilet. Flush it and listen for an electric pump running. If there's no noise and it just seems like a regular toilet, then they've run a 4" pipe under the subfloor to the soil stack already and you just need to make alterations to run the pipe up to the ensuite.

I'm not sure you need to spend anything at this point. £10k is a fairly safe budget for the work, you just put the price up depending on how much you want to spend on the bathroom.

SmashedAvacado

Your problem is that its really a three bedroom house and isnt ever going to be a four bedroom house with the way the windows are (unless you can knock another window out or remove your loft entirely and make the upstairs double height with skylights. The best bet is to try to make it work as best as you can as three bed and two bathroom. Next door is probably the most workable.

Lozzers84

To be honest it being a 3 bed house is not a problem for us. It's comparable in price to other 3 beds in the area but with more space. We think we could make it into a really nice 3 bed.

£10k is definitely affordable for us. If its in that vicinity even if the bathroom is on top of that it would be ok.

Section106

Lozzers84 wrote: »

To be honest it being a 3 bed house is not a problem for us. It's comparable in price to other 3 beds in the area but with more space. We think we could make it into a really nice 3 bed.

£10k is definitely affordable for us. If its in that vicinity even if the bathroom is on top of that it would be ok.

I would suggest a more cautious approach. There is a danger in spending a lot of money on a property to make it perfect, but ending up with something which is worth no more than comparable properties in the area.

If you are keen on spending money making improvements to a building then you might be better off with a 'blank canvas' property, rather than one which has already been significantly altered in ways which are difficult to understand without having detailed structural surveys and analysis.

I agree with Doozergirl that you need a structural engineer's opinion. Things can be done, but there are some limits, and at the top of your mind should always be cost vs the value of the improvement made.

Looking at the floorplans side-by-side, it looks like the wall between bedrooms 1 and 4 is the original rear external wall of the property. The gap containing the folding door between the two rooms is probably where the original window was, hence it being wider than a standard doorway. That wall would have supported the original roof, and probably still plays a major part in supporting the revised roof arrangement.

If you look at the plans for number 31 you can see that same wall has been largely retained, even though it protrudes inconveniently across both bedrooms 2 and 3. You would only leave that wall in their bedroom 3 if it was structurally necessary to do so.

I think the cost and complexity of removing that wall - which would be essential for your proposal - would almost certainly be disproportionate to the increase in value of having a en-suite to bedroom 1. Adding a second toilet/shower as they have at 31 might be more feasible, but could throw up some interesting party wall issues.

The complexity of the existing alterations can be seen if you look at the satellite (birds-eye) image of the rear of the property and compare the roof to that of some of the unaltered neighbouring properties. The roof on number 31 has also been adapted in a very similar way (by the same builder perhaps?)

If you do go ahead with the purchase I would make sure you get a surveyor to take a very close look at the valley arrangement (almost a flat-roof ) between the two rear extensions. It appears to step-down part way from front to back for no apparent reason. However, access to it is nearly impossible on your side because the conservatory is in the way. Personally, for that one reason alone, I would be looking for a different property to buy.

Lozzers84

Ok. We will be going back for another viewing before deciding anything anyway.

Did not notice there was anything wrong with the roof... So thanks for pointing that out... In the event we do proceed will definitely ask some questions about that.