Comments/Thoughts/Advice needed re extension

tommyedinburgh

We have the above house which has the kitchen and a dining area to the rear. This was actually part of the original home built in 1895 and not an extension as such. The rear part currently measures 7.1m x 2.65m and is accessed off a rear living room area. Our neighbour has the same mirrored on their side. 

We would like to knock through from the living area to make it a much larger living space / kitchen. We are proposing to take off the roof and the current wall that has the door - window - french doors on it and move the wall 1.9m further out which will make it stop before the second window on the rear elevation which is a bedroom. We’d like to knock through as high as above the current rear living room window so that the new extension ceiling is higher up. We’d then replace the roof at a much shallower angle and put bi-folding doors down the newly built replacement wall. We are hoping that we could put a box utility room at the bottom end and the dining area there. 

This would then give us the existing rear living room, same width feeding into the new wider kitchen area with an island / breakfast bar etc, feeding into the dining area with a box utility room adjacent to the dining area. 

We have toyed with moving to get this type of living arrangement but would need to significantly up our mortgage. We see this as a compromise that would save us a fortune (at the expense of going into our already modest garden). 

Just looking for thoughts and observations? 

Doozergirl

How much would it cost to move to a bigger house and how much do you expect the extension to cost? 

The design challenge is to work out the pitch of the new roof, given that half of the present roof belongs to someone else.  One shallow roof pitch may be a challenge for slate, which has a minimum capability of about 20 degrees.    

tommyedinburgh

Doozergirl said:

How much would it cost to move to a bigger house and how much do you expect the extension to cost? 

The design challenge is to work out the pitch of the new roof, given that half of the present roof belongs to someone else.  One shallow roof pitch may be a challenge for slate, which has a minimum capability of about 20 degrees.    

Really appreciate you comments Doozergirl, this is exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. 

We currently have just under £100k on our mortgage with a house value of £205k. The informal discussion we’ve had with a local builder was in the region of £40k for the work. The houses we’ve been looking at (similar sq metre) have been £290-£330k. 

To stay here and get what we want - £40k. 

To move to get what we seek - £90-£130k more. 

Doozergirl

Seems to add up.  It will cost more once your new kitchen is in and everything tidied up, but I couldn't see it costing more than the new house. 

I suspect that a flat roof would be more practical.  You could raise it fairly high though. 🙂

tommyedinburgh

Doozergirl said:

Seems to add up.  It will cost more once your new kitchen is in and everything tidied up, but I couldn't see it costing more than the new house. 

I suspect that a flat roof would be more practical.  You could raise it fairly high though. 🙂

We’ve an architect due to come when the restrictions are eased etc. Fingers crossed!

tommyedinburgh

My wife and I are back to square one, we can't decide whether or not we are better to extend as described in my OP or rather come out full width parallel with the existing elevation of the main part of the house and move the bedroom window to the side. Any reasoned contributions very welcome, here is an alternative photo of the house albeit and older one to see the full width.

edgex

As Doozergirl has said, it's the roofline that's going to be the issue.
You would need to have discussions with the neighbour & planning, but I wonder if you could raise the ridge height on the kitchen block just enough so that the new roof eave would match the main roof at that midpoint between the two rear windows.
The neighbour would end up with a few courses of stonework visible at the top of their roof.

tommyedinburgh

edgex said:

As Doozergirl has said, it's the roofline that's going to be the issue.
You would need to have discussions with the neighbour & planning, but I wonder if you could raise the ridge height on the kitchen block just enough so that the new roof eave would match the main roof at that midpoint between the two rear windows.
The neighbour would end up with a few courses of stonework visible at the top of their roof.

That was exactly our idea, we've had the architect round and its achievable, the problem is only we can decide if we want to remove the wall and make the rear bit wider or extend across the width of the rear elevation, it is so hard trying to decide.

tommyedinburgh

We’ve brainstormed and come up with the idea of extending out full width across the rear of the house whilst simultaneously widening the rear part.

It would provide us with the chance to create a utility room at the rear and the larger, open plan kitchen/dining/living area, albeit an irregular shape I suppose. Does this floor plan look reasonably minded? 

edgex

If your not allowed a flat roof, then a full width extension could be an issue;
the roof ridge would have to go up a lot higher, possibly to the main roof height
the new roof is going to cut across where you have the velux windows