Owning your own home

yep we did for about 65k ALL in

Are we talking side return extension? If so, was £65k the all in cost for the side return and kitchen or refurbing the whole place too?

This sort of talk gives me hope - our budget for doing our new place is, er, tight...

We have a young kid and when she destroys things I feel nothing

Nihilism thread >>>>>>>

So my question...

I am in the very early stages of planning our next stage of the renovation, which is converting the old cow shed (16m x 4m) into a useable building, it is currently not water tight, and half the floor is broken concrete, the other half is earth.

Things that will definitely need doing:

1. New Roof, including full structure (will need to be at least semi vaulted to give headroom)
   
2. New floor
   
3. Replace wooden panels on the front with floor to ceiling glass, to let light in, as no windows on the back
   
4. Repoint the whole thing in lime
   
5. Add electrics and plumbing
   
   

The aim is to make this easy to convert to a small bungalow in the future, so will be insulating etc. and all internal walls will be stud, so that is is easier to reconfigure in the future. For now it will be an office, gym and craft room, with a small shower room and kitchenette.

Thankfully the brick pillars give natural partitioning, so office, gym and craft room will all be 2 bays each, and kitchen and shower room will be one bay each. My initial thought was that each room would have its own front door (except kitchen\shower room) and there would also be internal doors to go room to room. I'm keen not to put a corridor in as it would lose space and also block light.

My main question at the moment is how to configure the kitchen and shower room, of the two options below, which do people prefer? Also open to other suggestions...

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http://walthamforestecho.co.uk/secret-ci­nema-set-to-host-walthamstow-events/

Oh FFS, that can fuck right off.

Pretty sure there will be a vigilante group who will sabotage it if its too much of an issue, much like the local "tyre fairy" which puts nails in nuisance vehicles tyres.

How do I sign up? Is it bad that I love the fact there's a local tyre fairy?

We are, £40673 into a refurb of a 160sqm 1850s terrace without extension which has included

Structural wall removed, central heating, rewire, damp proofing, fireplace work, minor roofing, a new set of sash windows in a bay (complete waste of money, should have installed them myself) and installing a kitchen. We have done a lot of the dogs work ourselves, stripping everything, minor plumbing, plastering and electrics, painting, decorating and buying tools etc.

I think there's about 15k of work left, but when we started I had expected it to be in the region of 70k

whats a side return? is that what I have @6pt ?

yep, you just need zone valves and to wires it diffenet.

We have invented upstairs in our house and combi runs downstairs hot water.

I do agree that combis aren’t the best for big baths, even the big whopper ones are the best!

Where you make your kitchen at the back the full width of the house by going out into that narrow pointless bit of outside space you normally find around the back of a Victorian house which is kind of L shaped. Normally involves a roof across to a wall on the boundary and some steels to hold everything up.

Where you make your kitchen at the back

I have this

the full width of the house by going out into that narrow pointless bit of outside space you normally find around the back of a Victorian house which is kind of L shaped.

Dont have this, the width of the extension and house is the same, I have side entrance, its a double fronted(? 1 bay per floor) victorian house.

Probably be cheaper in the end too

That actually doesn't sound as bad as I expected - these quotes are all giving me hope. Will do some more digging, thanks for all the info!

could you pm details to me too?

"that narrow pointless bit of outside space you normally find around the back of a Victorian house which is kind of L shaped." you mean future internal courtyard/garden. I know YOU need one of those.

I'd go with the second option and use your kitchen as a way of combining the two spaces (if possible)? Save some money on some of those doors too? Are you allowed to install glazing in the roof perhaps?

Can the craft room easily become a bedroom for your future bungalow scenario?

What's the orientation of your glazing? You may need to do some summer heat gain calculations?

Does anyone need some LED downlight bulbs? I bought ones which don't play well with our dimmers so I now have 40 of these going spare

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KHILJ5O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_TpybGb0KEPKMG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

It's the 2700k version.

They've been used for one week, I've reboxed them in the boxes for the replacement bulbs.

Happy to sell them for £1 each

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Yes, hoping to put at least one roof light in each room, as there are no windows currently in the back wall, and given it’s a solid stone wall, not easy to cut some in. The open front is west facing, but it’s all pretty sheltered in behind the house.

In terms of future use, I figured I would make sure that all services are in, and if I can plan it smartly try and avoid having sockets etc in the stud partitions, should make reconfiguring easy in the future, even if I have to move stud walls.

Ours is getting a full refurb, but over time. We've given ourselves 5 years to do everything. First thing has been roof and windows, which together are £30k. Which is all the cash we had after buying. Which is part of the reason we've given ourselves 5 years. But, as Dov reiterated to me, start from the outside and work in.

And it was handy, as we were this close to putting that £30k towards the deposit.

In pic2, could you have a layout which allows a door either side from both adjacent rooms (office and gym) ?

If so that would be my choice bc;

1. No views needed for a bathroom
   
2. Access from two rooms, so either could be a bedroom in future or sitting room and bed.
   
3. Imo it's easier to make a kitchen on wall nice with free space behind than a gally kitchen.
   
   
   

Yeah, my thought with pic 2 is that the kitchen would in effect be a corridor as well connecting gym to office, so guess there would be doors either side for that. The question would be how to access the shower room, could do a door from the kitchen (negative being less room for kitchen) or from office (annoying if in gym) or from gym( annoying if in office) or from both gym and office ( would need some fancy locks to stop people walking in on each other...

fancy locks

Pretty sure normal locks will also work.

My only thought was if you have 2 entrances to shower room, you would have to remember to lock both doors when you go to the loo... guess there must be such things as paired locks for this exact reason

Guilt free content

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Yes you can have - the benefits are hot water 'instant' and same pressure as the mains.

Sounds like double bayed (I think that was invented by estate agents). Double fronted would be rooms/bay windows on either side of the front door.

If it were me I'd have the second version with a galley kitchen with the shower room entrance from the gym. Doors either side of the kitchen (into office and gym). If it's an office you don't want to be disturbed by through traffic; gym less so. Jack and Jill bathrooms are a problem that no-one has solved perfectly.

Then if it gets converted to a house you have (from left to right): bedroom with door into lounge (was gym) with doors into shower room and galley kitchen, and then far side of galley kitchen is a door into the second bedroom (was office).

also, been advised to start from the top and work down