Building living space on the side of your house?

There are probably infinite ways to find new living spaces in and around your house.

Building on the side is one of the easier ones if you have the space.

This particular house was a 1930’s detached bungalow which had a small loft conversion.

The family who bought it wanted to move to a particular area, a leafy suburb with good local facilities and schools, as they had 2 young daughters.

But alone could not afford to live in this location.

The answer for them was to combine money from the sale of their mothers flat and use that to buy the bungalow. They would then convert it with additional space for their mother.

Finding the house wasn’t too difficult. The place they chose had a long slim side garage which was big enough for extending.

A chat with the local planning officer helped in their decision process who said in principal the garage area could be converted.

Taking out a larger loan to cover the shortfall until their mums place was sold got the bungalow and the family moved in.

The owners set about finding a builder [through recommendation] and architect [through recommendation] and set about designing and building their new home.

Whilst this was going on the sale of mums flat was going through so it was a race to complete the build before she wanted to move in.

However the build was not complete so mum, dad, 2 children, dog and granny all had to live together for a while until things were finished.

The design for this house was very simple.

Where the garage was [now demolished] they built a full length 2 roomed extension.

This had a lounge and kitchenette for granny. Two doors connected through the old outside wall of the house one into a ground floor shower room/ toilet and bedroom and the other door lead into the main house kitchen.

This allowed contact with the main house if required.

The first floor was then increased in size with a bedroom and bathroom for the growing family and all in all a very successful project.

I have since returned and seen the family who did this project and they are further extending to create more space.

They all seemed genuinely happy and contended withed the set up they have and would recommend it!

David