Our granny annex top tips – No7 door opening sizes

It wasn’t until a little while after we had finished the main annex building that I realised how good it was to have large door openings, not just the front and back doors but the inside house doors to bedrooms and kitchens etc. Now this might not seem much of an issue to people, you might think there are lots of other more important points but […]

Read Me

Our granny annex top tips – No 4 Sentimental or not sentimental

 – this is a good topic to raise early on between everybody because there tends to be quite a lot of upheaval during alteration works.  Although different people have very different habits, from no sentiment through to people I have known who have filled their loft space, all their cupboards and garage with stuff, it is something worth looking into early to see the size of […]

Read Me

Don’t under estimate the amount of work involved in your project

Now the reason for writing this one is that although I have previously said our project is all completed, I kind of thought it was, but it’s only now sitting and looking around our house realise that although the really big stuff is completed, there are lots of smaller jobs still to be done. These small jobs mean all sorts of things but include the following: There […]

Read Me

Our granny annex top tips – No5 Use suitably qualified people

Use suitably qualified people; sounds obvious when I write it but how many people check the qualifications of those that they use. What would you do if you were looking for a plumber/heating engineer would you ask them for or check that they were gas safe/corgi registered and confirm their number was current. How about using an electrician would you ask them for their certificate card from NICEIC? […]

Read Me

Our granny annex build top tips – No3 you all need to be able to get on!

Now that we have finished our build one of the really big things I have found out and I am sure that my wife and mother would agree is the need to be able to get on with each other, it might sound a bit of a simple tip, but it is critical to the success of the project. There were so many different times […]

Read Me

A granny annex top tip – be prepared for the unexpected

When we first started our annex build we lived in a different house to my mum, we were hoping to rent a place for 6 months while the new building was finished and then to move in but due to various reasons this did not happen! We were trying to sell our house to fund the completion of the build but the sale fell through […]

Read Me

Our granny annex top tips – No1 keep a diary

Keep a diary from the moment you get the first idea about the project, I kept one from early on and it is packed full of information, looking back mine recorded our thoughts and memories and the reasons why we did things. Not only is it interesting to look back, but helpful as it show lots of the things we did and reasons why, its got pictures […]

Read Me

Elderly not talking about their care?

Just read about a poll by ComRes called Conversations About Care that found over 60% of people over 65 had never talked about what would happen if they could no longer live at home. Many were not going to have a conversation about where they would live either. In the United Kingdom this is a figure someone around 7 MILLION people, many of these people have […]

Read Me

House recycling……

Quite a random subject for me for a post but as I sat down tonight to write my latest thoughts [on a different subject I do add] , it struck me that I am sitting in a room that for 35 years was a dining room and a very unused room at that. In fact looking back the only time I remembered it being used by us […]

Read Me

‘Building a granny annex’ – the movie!

Well, I got your attention and unfortunately no the movie has not been made yet [if there were enough requests however I might consider making it] But no on a serious note if you would like to see how an annex is created then I can show you in a variety of ways, either using one or a combination of words, sketches and photos. It might make it […]

Read Me