Home extension advice - kitchen, side or rear two storey

Parties03

Hi, 
we are in the process of buying a 1930's detached house with a drive at the front and side also, and a large garden. It has 3 beds - one good size and two not as great. We are hoping to stay here for a long time so would like to extend it to meet our needs. 
At the moment, the kitchen has been extended back already and is a good size, and the living room and dining room have been knocked through into one room. The old galley kitchen has been made into a good size utility but this is also where the kitchen sink sits! I'd like to make a kitchen/ diner/ sitting space - not to replace the lounge but just one where we can have the kitchen, dining table and a corner sofa looking out into the garden. 
ideas:
- knock through the walls between the dining room + utility + kitchen to make this one large square room - would be roughly 19ft wide x 24ft deep
- add a side extension to allow for a utility, along with a downstairs toilet and maybe shower, and towards the front of the house use this extension to add a boot/ cloakroom
or do I need to add more onto the kitchen to make it more of the space I am looking for? the depth is ideal but I am wondering if I should consider part of the side extension being for the kitchen also to make it more of a 24ftx24ft size room, as I'm planning on the side extension anyway. 

additional to this, I want to make the upstairs more spacious and was considering extending over the top of the kitchen (assuming all ok to do).  I think an upstairs side extension would be really narrow and not achieve a lot for the space available.  If we extended over the kitchen, I'd extend the family bathroom, bedroom 2 and bedroom 3 and have a larger landing, allowing for stairs to be added at a later date for an attic conversion for bedroom 4. 

please see the floor plans below to give a better idea what I'm talking about! Pink and green just because I couldn't do it any other way and to allow differentiation between floors  

Rosa_Damascena

Looks good but you would of course require PP.

I wouldn't discount building over the side extension, because you may not be able to extend as far out as the whole kitchen diner, depending on your neighbour's line of sight. A side extension could give B3 more width in which you could stick an en-suite. If there was the option to turn right at the top of the stairs, I would use this as an occasional room and then as the space for a staircase for access to your loft plan when that materialises. Perhaps consider French doors and a sun balcony to the rear of B2 and B3, depending on the aspect of the house.

As for the rest...Doozergirl?

Parties03

Rosa_Damascena said:

Looks good but you would of course require PP.

I wouldn't discount building over the side extension, because you may not be able to extend as far out as the whole kitchen diner, depending on your neighbour's line of sight. A side extension could give B3 more width in which you could stick an en-suite. If there was the option to turn right at the top of the stairs, I would use this as an occasional room and then as the space for a staircase for access to your loft plan when that materialises. Perhaps consider French doors and a sun balcony to the rear of B2 and B3, depending on the aspect of the house.

As for the rest...Doozergirl?

thank you! haha yes this is all assuming PP is ok, hopefully should be but I'm new to this tbh. I agree, maybe we can't go out as far as the kitchen diner depth so this idea is great too.  The garden is south facing so hopefully big windows will be sufficient for those two, they'll actually end up being quite nice rooms if we can get them a decent size! 

Rosa_Damascena

Parties03 said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Looks good but you would of course require PP.

I wouldn't discount building over the side extension, because you may not be able to extend as far out as the whole kitchen diner, depending on your neighbour's line of sight. A side extension could give B3 more width in which you could stick an en-suite. If there was the option to turn right at the top of the stairs, I would use this as an occasional room and then as the space for a staircase for access to your loft plan when that materialises. Perhaps consider French doors and a sun balcony to the rear of B2 and B3, depending on the aspect of the house.

As for the rest...Doozergirl?

thank you! haha yes this is all assuming PP is ok, hopefully should be but I'm new to this tbh. I agree, maybe we can't go out as far as the kitchen diner depth so this idea is great too.  The garden is south facing so hopefully big windows will be sufficient for those two, they'll actually end up being quite nice rooms if we can get them a decent size! 

Then whilst you're having the work done, consider changing the patio door / utility room situation into a back wall of doors so you can enjoy your view of the garden to its best advantage.

When looking for my home I held out for a south or west facing garden, and I can promise you having one facing south is not a decision you are going to regret unless you are photosensitive.

Parties03

Rosa_Damascena said:

Then whilst you're having the work done, consider changing the patio door / utility room situation into a back wall of doors so you can enjoy your view of the garden to its best advantage.

When looking for my home I held out for a south or west facing garden, and I can promise you having one facing south is not a decision you are going to regret unless you are photosensitive.

agree - we got lucky as a lot of the houses we have looked at so far, and offered on but lost out on were north facing so we are really happy with this! 
do you happen to have any ideas of how to maintain light in the kitchen, assuming we do an extension over most of it at the rear of the house? My current kitchen is south facing and has velux windows which allow loads of light but almost too hot through spring and summer. I'm planning on having a larger kitchen window/ door at the back of the room anyway, wonder if this would be enough? 

Doozergirl

Your new bedrooms should go out to the side for a few reasons. 

1) the stairs are in perfect position to turn right at the top of the stairs. 

2) A double fronted house looks larger, looks attractive and is more desirable.  
3) If you extend over the back you will have virtuallly no light in the middle of the house, particularly downstairs, because you are attached.   Build to the side and every room gets a decent window aspect.  

5) As already mentioned.  The 45 degree angle from your neighbours.  You will be overshadowing them so it may not be acceptable to the planners.  

You've also got structural issues in attempting to remove the back wall of the house.  You can't sneak space for those two back bedrooms from the existing house without there being clear evidence of the knock through in the new rooms.    There will also be a large pillar in the centre of that new open plan space downstairs.  You just zone the areas around it or build the kitchen around it.  

There must be a million or more of these houses extended to the side in the country.  My current house being one of them.    Rightmove will be full of successful floor plans of 1930s house with side extensions.   

If the family bathroom is in need of replacement, I would remove it entirely as it has been stolen from the original second bedroom.  Reinstate the larger bedroom,   turn bed 3 into the bathroom and add two bedrooms into your side extension, leaving you with at least three decent doubles . 

Parties03

Doozergirl said:

Your new bedrooms should go out to the side for a few reasons. 

1) the stairs are in perfect position to turn right at the top of the stairs. 

2) A double fronted house looks larger, looks attractive and is more desirable.  
3) If you extend over the back you will have virtuallly no light in the middle of the house, particularly downstairs, because you are attached.   Build to the side and every room gets a decent window aspect.  

5) As already mentioned.  The 45 degree angle from your neighbours.  You will be overshadowing them so it may not be acceptable to the planners.  

You've also got structural issues in attempting to remove the back wall of the house.  You can't sneak space for those two back bedrooms from the existing house without there being clear evidence of the knock through in the new rooms.    There will also be a large pillar in the centre of that new open plan space downstairs.  You just zone the areas around it or build the kitchen around it.  

There must be a million or more of these houses extended to the side in the country.  My current house being one of them.    Rightmove will be full of successful floor plans of 1930s house with side extensions.   

If the family bathroom is in need of replacement, I would remove it entirely as it has been stolen from the original second bedroom.  Reinstate the larger bedroom,   turn bed 3 into the bathroom and add two bedrooms into your side extension, leaving you with at least three decent doubles . 

thanks! I've had a good look at rightmove and there are lots but not many include the measurements of these rooms, just the floor plan of them.  My hesitation with going to the side is that we want to leave clearance between the boundary and end of the house to allow passage into the garden, so this needs to be at least 1m? I haven't measured but I think the space between the side of the house and the boundary wall is 10-12foot, so accounting for passageway/wall space, the rooms would probably only be about 6ft wide which isn't that great, unless I'm miscalculating something? I guess they'll be long though, but not the ideal shape. 

I agree about loss of light to the middle of the house though that's a good point, and good point about the back wall - I'm obviously not educated about this and just drawing on a floorplan haha, but maybe in that case it would make more sense to consider extending out backwards and sideways from the kitchen, which was the original plan we had. 

the only thing RE building backwards that may work in our favour is that the house to the right (as you look at them) is set quite a fair bit more forwards than ours. But I suspect may still interfere with light possibly. 

Yeah I totally agree about the bathroom - plan was to move it into the side extension if we went that route to allow B2 to be back to full size. Also having a side extension bit means I guess we could fit 4 bedrooms (2 good size, 1 ok ish, 1 small) on the first floor... 

Out of curiosity, at what point is a side extension too narrow (for final internal width of a bedroom and bathroom) to be worth the effort and cost it would be? I think 6ft is really pushing it... My toddler's current bedroom is 6'11" x12 and that's ok. 

appreciate all your insight!

*edit - adding another floor plan idea I had for first floor if a side extension is viable:

king132

A lot of expense for not a lot of space in my opinion for the side extension. 3m-3.5m from existing wall to boundary. Minus at least 1-1.5m space for fence panels (whatever the boundary is) and footpath from boundary to wall. Minus around 400mm for brick/block/ insulation and plastering. Then you are left with maybe 1m-1.5m width internal space. Add pipework and a washing machine into that space and you've just got enough space to walk through.

Parties03

king132 said:

A lot of expense for not a lot of space in my opinion for the side extension. 3m-3.5m from existing wall to boundary. Minus at least 1-1.5m space for fence panels (whatever the boundary is) and footpath from boundary to wall. Minus around 400mm for brick/block/ insulation and plastering. Then you are left with maybe 1m-1.5m width internal space. Add pipework and a washing machine into that space and you've just got enough space to walk through.

this is what I think will be the case, which is why I was looking to extend backwards instead. I don't see benefit > cost of rooms gained upstairs with a side extension, would be fine downstairs for a utility or cloakroom or something though. 

Doozergirl

I think 2.4m externally is about the least to be ideal for a single bedroom with the bed running across the back wall and good space for the bathroom door to open in the middle with a bath to one side and toilet/sink to the other. 

You could get away with a bit less but the space would be a bit more compromised.  You have length, though, so maybe 2.1 externally, 1.8 internally and you'd still fit a decent wardrobe at the end of a single bed.  

I expect the planners would want to see 1m to the boundary.  

Parties03

Doozergirl said:

I think 2.4m externally is about the least to be ideal for a single bedroom with the bed running across the back wall and good space for the bathroom door to open in the middle with a bath to one side and toilet/sink to the other. 

You could get away with a bit less but the space would be a bit more compromised.  You have length, though, so maybe 2.1 externally, 1.8 internally and you'd still fit a decent wardrobe at the end of a single bed.  

I expect the planners would want to see 1m to the boundary.  

thank you yes I think so, and we want 1m clearance anyway to have access to the garden for bikes and tools etc. 
I'll measure the side next time we are there, fingers crossed its a bit wider than I've said but I don't think so haha