Extension modern for living

Overview

House size before: 241sqm

House size after: 265sqm

Plot size: 618sqm

Bedrooms: 5

Heating: gas boiler

Ventilation: natural with extractor fans

Renovation cost: £110k + VAT all in

When you can see your breath indoors, you know it’s time to invest in a home renovation project. For Emma and Jonathan Rhodes, that meant knocking down the old conservatory to replace it with a family friendly open plan extension.

When we bought the house it had a lean-to at the back, a type of conservatory with thin plastic roof. It was so cold, you could see your breath for six months of the year. You just couldn’t heat that room,” says Jonathan.

“Warmth and comfort stopped us from using what was the brightest room in the house, as it was south facing. We knew we needed to knock it down and rebuild an extension that would be nice and warm.”

Above all, Johnathan and Emma wanted to create a comfortable space to live in and entertain their extended family. “We like a simple minimalistic style, not an awful lot of clutter,” he adds, an ethos that guided them throughout the build.

Reconfiguration

“Initially we figured we’d stick on a box on the back of the house, and we got an architectural technician to draw that up for us. But something just wasn’t right with that, we weren’t that happy with it,” says Jonathan. “That’s when we approached an architect.”

“I suppose that was the difference with hiring an architect, Aisling looked at the entire plan. She immediately identified that the layout wasn’t working. Upon entering the house, you had to take quite a long route to get around to the kitchen, going through a little TV room. It didn’t really make sense.”

“Aisling suggested we move the bathroom to the centre of the house, knock some walls so that when you walk into the house you’re able to see through to the kitchen and access it. As soon as she said it, we knew that’s what we needed.”

Even though the couple wanted a bright home to live in, the darkest part of the semidetached home is in fact what made the most difference to their life. “There’s still no natural light in there but it doesn’t matter as we’re making the best use of what was dead space, converting it into a functional room,” says Emma, speaking of her favourite design feature.

That’s right, it’s the utility room. “We’d never had one in our previous house so it was a bit of a novelty. The roof in that section is higher than in the rest of the house, so that makes it feel more airy and it gives us room to use the pulley rack that hides away.”

“Our laundry area used to be in the kitchen so having somewhere to put

Garden. A work in progress, Jonathan says the hard landscaping was done by the builder and they planned what to plant themselves. What he didn’t expect was how expensive the paving stones would be. “I thought pave that area, that’ll be cheap as chips,” he says. “Then I realised, OK, maybe not.”

Emma and Jonathan ’s tips

Keep your neighbours on side. Especially when you’re living in a semi-detached house, building work is messy, dirty and can cause structural issues.

Move out. We were lucky to be able to move out, to Emma’s parents’ house. Not everyone can do that but it’s the most efficient way to do it – we’re not quite sure we’d have been able to cope with the dust either. If we’d been trying to live in the house at the same time, there’s no doubt in our minds that it would have taken longer. We thank our lucky stars we moved in right before the Covid lockdown.

that stuff away felt luxurious. Believe it or not, having a sink in the utility was a breakthrough moment,” laughs Emma. Ventilation is through a mechanised ceiling vent.

“We didn’t have much choice about where things went if we wanted it all to fit; we stacked the washer and dryer one on top of the other.”

They also added a shower to the downstairs wc. “I do a lot of running in the surrounding hills so when I come in I need to have a shower so I don’t bring muck through the whole house,” adds Emma. But to keep the family home neat and tidy in the most commonly used rooms, they knew they would need a lot of storage to keep to as clutter free a lifestyle as they could. “We added quite a bit of shelving and that keeps the space tidy,” says Jonathan.

“I quite like plants so I needed a bright area where I could put my pots, which I got to do on one wall in the living room. The shelving actually turned out to be one of my favourite design features.”

Project management

“We were both working full time, with children, which means we didn’t have any spare time. So Aisling did the project management for us,” says Jonathan. “We had to get planning permission but we were lucky in that it came through really quickly, even Aisling was surprised at the turnaround time.”

“Then we tendered to three or four builders Aisling had worked with in the past. She’d given us a shortlist of contractors she knew were reliable and she could work with. The costings came in above what we were expecting.”

“We met all of them and to be honest it was hard to choose, so we went on price. That builder happened to be working on

Aisling’s house at the time too. He was really good. During the build, the building control officer came a few times to check on the work and we had no issues.”

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“Aisling organised regular site meetings with ourselves and the builder, which took the stress out of it,” adds Jonathan. “She drew up a RIBA contract for us to sign and she was very good at setting out a payment schedule. When things would be done, we would have a look at it. Then for each stage, on her site visits she would sign off and issue the payment certificates. It was very structured. There was none of the ‘when do we pay for this when do we pay for that’ it was all done on completion of the different stages.”

The insulation and heating upgrades were essential to deliver the warmth and cosiness the couple wanted. They also switched to underfloor heating and went from oil to gas. “We did quite a few things at the same time,” says Jonathan. “I won’t say I have no regrets now with the way gas prices are going, but there’s no doubt the new boiler is a lot more efficient.”

“We put in loads of insulation in the new part and you really notice it when you’re going from the old part of the 1920s house to the extension, it’s nice and warm.” At the design stage, there were certain things Aisling thought about that the couple hadn’t considered. “We have an overhanging canopy at the back to protect us from overheating as we’re south facing,” says Jonathan. “At the time I’m not entirely sure if I believed Aisling that we needed it but it turned out to be absolutely the case, it does get hot and the overhang does take the edge off the intense summer months.”

“I’m a sun worshipper so it’s perfect for me, it’s definitely never too hot,” adds Emma. “I love that we added windows to the eastern elevation too, which means better quality of light throughout the day, as it now comes from two angles instead of just the one.”

But the windows did cost plenty, and caused some delays. “Because it had to come up from one supplier in the south and it needed a special crane to get it fitted in,” says Jonathan. “That led to delays. That added to the expense too, as did going for two panel doors are opposed to three or four. But we’re really glad we spent on those elements.”

Bathrooms and kitchen

The new downstairs toilet and utility room were included in the budget through a PC sum, meaning they set a notional budget for those items. Unlike most self-builders, they stuck to that allocation. “We went around to suppliers our builder recommended and we chose what we wanted form there, tiles and so forth. We chose what we liked within the confines of our budget,” says Jonathan. They found their lighting supplier through recommendations and knew what they wanted for the floor coverings – “very forgiving” sandy grey wood effect tiles for the open plan area which are easy to clean and work well with underfloor heating. And unusual as it may be, Emma and Jonathan were disciplined. Apart from the windows, the only add on to the budget overall was damp-proofing one of the rooms downstairs in which they’d added a wood effect gas burner.

For the kitchen they shopped around and got inspiration from different suppliers.