What would you do? Need to replace conservatory somehow...

Jaguar_Skills

GDB2222 said:

Found it on RM. It’s a great house, with a great garden etc. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to move.


I too would be concerned at spending almost 25% of the purchase price on improvements that suit you but maybe won’t suit any potential buyers. For example, the kitchen looks great at the moment, and the first stage of your project is to rip it out and throw it away. 

Yes I get that.  We don’t have to move the kitchen, like you say that’s a big cost and it’s actually nice.

we could just leave that there and rebuild on the footprint of the conservatory to make open plan living/dining.

i should have said that the intention is also to put in a garden room.

couldnt believe you find the house! Thats freaky!

Jaguar_Skills

Doozergirl said:

What is a realistic budget?  

What do you really need from the house that you don't have?   I'm going to suggest that a second ensuite (for example) is a want, rather than a need.  

The answers to your questions hinge mainly on you!

I’m not really sure on the budget until I remortgage tbh - I was just looking for inspiration.  

Jaguar_Skills

Albermarle said:

So you bought a larger than average size house ( around 200 m2) with 4 bedrooms and numerous ensuites/dressing rooms/utility rooms.
If you wanted a > 250 m2 house with more space you would probably have been better off buying a bigger house ?
Or just knock the Conservatory down and develop the area as more of an 'outside room' 
Outside kitchens/dining areas that are partly covered seem popular, if you are the entertaining types.

Albermarle said:

So you bought a larger than average size house ( around 200 m2) with 4 bedrooms and numerous ensuites/dressing rooms/utility rooms.
If you wanted a > 250 m2 house with more space you would probably have been better off buying a bigger house ?
Or just knock the Conservatory down and develop the area as more of an 'outside room' 
Outside kitchens/dining areas that are partly covered seem popular, if you are the entertaining types.

Yes potentially but this ticks all the boxes for us other than the rubbish conservatory which is cracking and too hot currently. 

The plan is to put a garden room out so I could move my office there and we could then just rebuild on the footprint of the current conservatory and leave kitchen where it is.  

Green_hopeful

It does look lovely. I would live in it a bit and see how it works for you. Nothing looks like it needs urgently changing. People rush to make changes but there could be different or better ways to do it. 

GDB2222

Jaguar_Skills said:

GDB2222 said:

Found it on RM. It’s a great house, with a great garden etc. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to move.


I too would be concerned at spending almost 25% of the purchase price on improvements that suit you but maybe won’t suit any potential buyers. For example, the kitchen looks great at the moment, and the first stage of your project is to rip it out and throw it away. 

Yes I get that.  We don’t have to move the kitchen, like you say that’s a big cost and it’s actually nice.

we could just leave that there and rebuild on the footprint of the conservatory to make open plan living/dining.

i should have said that the intention is also to put in a garden room.

couldnt believe you find the house! Thats freaky!

Yes, it is rather creepy, isn't it. Even more worryingly, it only took a minute to do.  

Promise I won't stalk you!

Out of interest, there must be millions of conservatories built like that. There ought to be a better solution to the problems than knocking the whole down?

GDB2222

Jaguar_Skills said:

ThisIsWeird said:

Could we have a photo of the conservatory, or a link to the sales pics if it's shown there? Thanks.

There’s the photo of the conservatory 👍

I'm struggling to see how you would build a two storey extension across the back of that without ending up with an incredibly ugly building?

Maybe a roof with two apexes, like an upside down W?  

ThisIsWeird

Jaguar_Skills said:

There’s the photo of the conservatory 👍

Thanks! I was hoping it would be that style. Man, what a project! You should be able to turn that into a fully-functioning, all-year-round dream jobbie for very little money. £30k-ish?

Yes, yes, yes - turn it into a garden room. An orangery. They are completely different to 'conservatories', in both function and appearance.

Start your Pinteresting.

If they are in good condition, you can even reuse most of these windows. You can paint them a more suitable colour - typically sage green, or anthracite - but that's up to you - but I'd lose half of them, replacing them with blocks of 'wall'.

'Wall' would be SIPS built on site - ie, 6" timber frame, ply-faced, and filled with insulation. Outside can be clad or rendered. Insulated solid roof, with skylights. Or, a single large square skylantern in the middle of the pitched surrounding roof will emphasise the orangery look.

No BC needed, as you wouldn't be - cough - making it a fully 'habitable' space, but it would be; this will be as well insulated as the rest of your house.

Start Pinteresting, get some interior shots that make you go 'ooooh!', and use that to inform the payout of windows and walls. Lots of architrave inside around the windows. You won't want to leave this room.

FIREDreamer

Assuming I found the right house, took 5 seconds to image search on iPad (didn’t know you could do this, useful to know), the conservatory looks fine to me. You might be able to put a more solid coloured roof on it to make it more like a normal room in temperature and appearance?

FreeBear

ThisIsWeird said: No BC needed, as you wouldn't be - cough - making it a fully 'habitable' space, but it would be; this will be as well insulated as the rest of your house.

And put some exterior grade doors in to separate it from the rest of the house. It is a Building Regs requirement, and it allows you to shut the space off when not in use.

kimwp

ThisIsWeird said:

Jaguar_Skills said:

There’s the photo of the conservatory 👍

Thanks! I was hoping it would be that style. Man, what a project! You should be able to turn that into a fully-functioning, all-year-round dream jobbie for very little money. £30k-ish?

Yes, yes, yes - turn it into a garden room. An orangery. They are completely different to 'conservatories', in both function and appearance.

Start your Pinteresting.

If they are in good condition, you can even reuse most of these windows. You can paint them a more suitable colour - typically sage green, or anthracite - but that's up to you - but I'd lose half of them, replacing them with blocks of 'wall'.

'Wall' would be SIPS built on site - ie, 6" timber frame, ply-faced, and filled with insulation. Outside can be clad or rendered. Insulated solid roof, with skylights. Or, a single large square skylantern in the middle of the pitched surrounding roof will emphasise the orangery look.

No BC needed, as you wouldn't be - cough - making it a fully 'habitable' space, but it would be; this will be as well insulated as the rest of your house.

Start Pinteresting, get some interior shots that make you go 'ooooh!', and use that to inform the payout of windows and walls. Lots of architrave inside around the windows. You won't want to leave this room.

From the ad,  the kitchen seems to be open to the not-insulated-to-todays-standards conservatory, so I think building control probably wouldn't be happy with the current situation as (unless there are doors not shown), it should be up to the standard of a fully habitable space already.