Owning your own home

Yeah, the kettle replacement isn't massive for me, as I drink coffee from a machine 95% of the time. But my daughter would happily eat pasta for 2 meals a day, so that bit interests me the most.
Will ponder.

having lived in flats with open plan - i think the concept of cooking something smelly isn't all that bad as it appears - good extraction is all you need

Yeah you should get plenty for that. Our architects did a loft recently and it was around 90k but they openly told me they were not the cheapest because they are quite OCD (basically took half the house down to make sure the loft was perfect) and said they found people who could do very similar for half the price (not the best salesmen).

Built in storage is a game changer IMO, I'm almost more excited about the storage space cutting my bathroom in half is going to create than the bathroom itself (that's the Sauna area which will be converted once the loft is done).
One thing I really want from a loft is a balcony too, not a Juliet one with a big sheet of glass like a weatherspoons pub but a legit balcony, set back, so I can have a coffee/wine watching the sun rise/fall. I think setting it back will prevent issues of over looking and/or having it out the front where we overlook no one... over to you @Sheppz ;-D

Only thing to consider is where the stuff goes. There's quite a lot of it!

The red bit is the kettle so much less if you only want that...

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Yes the damp meter read pretty high up in ours :(
Please tell me you got it sorted, I have nightmares about this being the bane of my life forever (or until we move to Ireland).

Blimey that is a lot! Is the big one for the chilled?

Yup. Big thing on the right is chilled, the bottle hanging off it is the co2 for sparkling. Each require a plug socket, which we took off the dishwasher and put under the base boards.

Ah ok, I don't think we would do chilled or sparkling. I like my water hot with added caffeine.

Our water comes from a natural well, so is actually quite nice to drink as is, and is bloody freezing!

Then it's just the tank with the red top and one plug socket.

A semi-internal balcony can work really well. This is on a bigger scale as it was for the whole flat, but was a lovely space to use exactly for coffee/wine (the sunset through it).

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I assume you are London based? The last side-hustle L-dormer project I worked on was mid-2017. The dormer was near identically sized and planned to the estate agent plans above including rooflight/window quantities. The client ended up choosing a dormer specific company who priced the works at £50k (inc VAT).

Worth noting that the quote excluded:

• Planning and Building Control drawings (my role)
  
• Finishes throughout
  
• Bathroom/Sanitaryware
  
• Making good/Decoration from 1st floor hallway up to new 2nd floor
  
  

You will need to allow for the above and general inflation, so I would allow a decent bit of top of the above to cover everything.

LOVE THAT. Where is it? Looks like an old school near Viccy park but then there are lots of them around London...

Mine without the back part (but with an ensuite), cost about £55k all-in (including decorating, carpets, bathroom suite, party wall, building control, etc) in early 2018. Could have knocked maybe £5k off with some cheaper options.

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Thanks for that. Would that 50k have included the staircase build? (just that it would be unfinished?)

My next biggest unknown is budgeting to re-fit the existing bathroom. It's very small and would get rid of bath and have new sink, toilet, enclosed shower.

The door currently opens inward, which is a huge pain. Would there be any regs preventing it opening outward?

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It's an old library on Battersea High St. It was split into 7 apartments and sold as shells so we all converted them in quite different styles. Here it is (after we sold it - we had a lot more colour)

https://www.douglasandgordon.com/rent/property-details/40253/the-old-library-battersea-high-street-sw11/

Bathroom refit 2-3k.
Sanitary wear - anything you fancy, depends on taste.

not the best salesmen

Maybe it's like purposeful grammatical errors in phishing emails?

If you the sort of person who'd rather pay half and only do what's reasonable they don't want you as client.

water softener

Always curious about these;

Does this work?
Was it easy?
Ballpark cost?

I've stalled part way through this process with Harvey's.

Seemed very easy, ballpark cost was about £1,700 including installation and some salt.

We didn't go through with it partly due to cost but mainly because you'd lose a kitchen cupboard and my girlfriend didn't like the taste of it so we'd have to replace the kitchen tap with a 3 way tap.

Yes it works - the EASE report on ours shows we've had around 12Kg of rock (limescale) removed from the water since install, about 4 months ago.

Install was super easy for our installer. He did a great job.

We went for a large softener with a refiner (carbon filter) installed, which has enough salt in it for roughly 300 days of operation. Install was about £1,600 for that, including installing in the garage and running a waste pipe and water connection for a washing machine (which was being moved to the garage).

The softener we have is huge. You can get ones without a carbon filter etc and a smaller salt reservoir that fit under a kitchen sink.

Softener is the tall blue thing.

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Continuing on the loft conversion chat, we want to get ours done and a side return at the same time, has anyone done both before? Our neighbours had their loft done really well but they only do lofts, are there companies that do both our would or just be a case of getting 2 different ones in and project managing it?

Never done anything like this before so I'm totally clueless. I'm E7/E11 border if anyone knows a local firm.

Yes it works - the EASE report on ours shows we've had around 12Kg of rock (limescale) removed from the water since install, about 4 months ago.

Your water softener removed 12Kg of rock in 4 months?

3kg of rock per month?

1kg of rock every 10 days?

WTF is wrong with your water supply... and a sieve would probably be cheaper.

I'm E17. Our downstairs work didn't include a side return, but did involve two RSJ boxes (knock-through reception rooms and open up rear of kitchen). I'm planning to get the same builder back to quote.

Are you planning to live there through the work?

in conclusion, move to scotland where the tap water is GLORIOUS

Its really hard to make any money on small resi jobs - they are time consuming, especially in competition with surveyors/architectural designers/Resi etc who offer services cheaper. There's not much point in doing a standard dormer / back extension under PD using standard materials and details etc etc for 45-60k or whatever. As an Architect that gets you nowhere.

A client who wants to do something interesting / different that can contribute to your portfolio and develop your business - is what you want. But the reality is that this costs more than the status quo.

You only need an Architect if you want Architecture.