Extend house or re-design interior?

[Mr Ed]

Hi,

Just looking for your opinions please. I'm thinking of either extending our kitchen/dining room into the back garden which would take up about a third of it, or re-designing the downstairs so that we have a large living/kitchen/dining area. I'm imagine the latter option would be more difficult as it would involve knocking supporting walls... However we would retain our nice garden space. Which option would add more value?

Also, how far can you extend before planning permission is required?

Thanks in advance, Mr Ed.

 

[Sue Ellen]

Hi Ed,

You will probably find the info you need with regard to planning here.

A local estate agent might give you guidance about the difference in value.

If you reorganise the whole of downstairs you may well have to move out for some time which will add to the expense and cause inconvenience. One thing that I've noticed is that a lot of people who make changes to their house rather than move are the very ones who do go ahead with the move in the long term.

At the end of the day IMHO its really a personal choice with regard to how much you value your garden space. These days the value you get from it would probably be minimal but you never know we might get a summer one of these years

 

[Toby]

If you have kids then the value of your garden space is probably high even with the wet weather.

We did an extension but opted to only convert garage rather than go out the back as we didn't want to waste garden space. our logic was we can always put on a conservatory in the future if we need to when kids are older but since we had a small garden anyway we preferred to make the space we had work better instead.

We knocked down lots of interior walls and changed the downstairs from 4 pokey rooms to a lovely open plan space with double dooors to close between one room if need and a separate room where the garage used to be. Its brillant, not as much floorspace as people who put huge breakfast rooms out the back but I don't know wheat we'd do with that space now if we'd added it cos what we have is perfect.

It is very messy though, house is wrecked getting the walls knocked so its definitely desruptive!