-
Starting to plan a ground floor extension
I am starting to get my ducks in a row in terms of costing up the renovation of our entire ground floor. This will be making open plan and adding 6m extension for new kitchen. Its not for another 18 months however im not new to the renovating rodeo and know there are ALWAYS added costs! Please hit me with all of yours that were unexpected or overlooked
-
8 Replies
-
I love the fact you have given yourself tonnes of planning time, I really believe at least 70% should be spent planning and 30% doing. I think the answer to your question is also maybe too huge for anyone to know where to start. As an overall start, I would say look at the building materials you use, think about indoor air quality as a measure of the type of home you want, ventilation. We assume the materials builders spec are right but are they right for you and even for your builder to be using. I think the trades typically stick with what they know. Use non petrochemical paints like Graphenstone that reduce the CO2 in the air not cause more.
Have visual floor plans ready in each room as a tool for communication so there isnt any doubts in conversation about where things go and what gets put in. Make sure your building regs are done and your drain surveys and party walls done properly by a surveyor to really mitigate risk of where the costly things that will then hold up work could happen.
Hope that helps as a start and our of interest is there anything that feels different in this project to the one you did last.
-
we have a lot to work through and time FLIESSS. Totally agree about the planning. I’m also a control freak and not fond of “surprises”
Some majors that will take time…
– We will be having totally open plan on the ground floor and also already have a loft conversion so will need a building control that is happy to sign off a misting system.
– neighbours are and still need to iron out the finer points of the join between extensions with party wall
– structural engineer will need to attend and draw up plans with builder present to discuss options of steel placement
– entire layout of ground floor to be mapped very specifically including full kitchen spec
– water metre will need to be moved
It feels different as it’s such an enormous space and will be used as living room, dining room and kitchen rather than just a bedroom and en-suite which we have done before.
We are using the same builder as previous (he’s just honestly so great!) so am content that communication is unlikely to be an issue. We got to the same page quite quickly first time round and when we caught up recently for a walk through, was very much like no time had passed
I’m just really trying to head off any commonly missed costs in renovations of ground floors as opposed to a loft
-
great to hear and thanks for sharing your project.
I think the most commonly missed costs are professional services typically that are unpredictable maybe roofer and also garden landscaping is always an after thought.
I always find the fixtures and finishes add up quickly and bespoke joinery if needed.
You sound like you’re planning everything well!
-
Expect all of the costs to be at least 40% more than 2-3 years ago.
Labour and materials
-
Getting the floor level between existing and new, joist end treatments, joist extensions if you are getting rid of chimney breasts
-
May not be relevant as you said you’re doinstairs. But, stairs. I didn’t realise how very limited we’d be with what the builders offer – ie a basic kit (seems obvious now that I’m living the reality but you live and learn!). I wish I’d spent some time beforehand checking what options were available, even without going fully bespoke we’d have had some many more – and in my opinion better – options if I’d started working out a plan and pricing it up way before the build started.
-
Our electrician costs came in quite a lot higher than we had initially planned – we thought we’d been detailed enough with our initial lighting/socket plan but obviously there are moving parts along the way during the build so defo worth trying to be super detailed with this from the outset (exactly how many downlights in each area, exact locations of single/double plug sockets and also accounting for any existing ones that will be lost in the build and have they been factored into the plan/cost to replace if needed).
Sure you have this covered, we thought we did too (), so just sharing in case helpful!
-
We did a double extension, but extra costs were all due to us choosing to extra stuff.
1- all new upstairs windows and render to make everything match.
2- new lead work on chimney as it needed doing when new roof parts went on.
3- new landscaping outside
4- a lot of extra electrics and nice fittings )new consumer unit.
5- a new boiler and moved stop tap.
6- had posh rads rather than basic
7- flooring and fitting is more expensive than I realised!
Tbh our builder was great at keeping in budget and doing things to budget.
Our kitchen came in on budget (DIY kitchens). and bathroom we sourced everything ourselves so saved over 1.3K just on materials than buying from a kitchen place.
Good Luck! I reckon we added easily 20K on top to complete finish.
Log in to reply.