A few years ago I had a decision to make regarding where I was living, I loved the home that I was in but found the need for some more space after my second child came along. I flirted with the idea of moving home but the property market was not in a good state and I begrudged the idea of moving away from my family, social circle and the last thing I wanted was to take my child to a new school to start again. I opted instead to renovate my existing home and add an extra floor as well as some more space on the side of the house. I always knew that the process wouldn’t be easy but I definitely underestimated just how hard it would be. If you are planning something similar then here is my advice to you.

Get Prices For Everything

I massively underestimated how much the raw materials would cost and didn’t look into this until quite far throughout the process. My advice would be that once you have a solid plan from the architect, start getting prices. For example, the quote which I received from David Montoya Stonemakers was very reasonable for the brick work and I got a little carried away, it turned out to be the only quote that I received which was anywhere near my expectation. This caused a lot of to and fro between myself an the architect and forced me to up my budget. Stick to your budget and make that plans around it rather than the other way around.

Move Out

I would wholeheartedly recommend that, if possible, you move out of the property whilst the work is being undertaken. The level of noise, mess and interruption is not helpful when you are trying to run a family home and if you stay, the work will also take a longer amount of time. Start planning as soon as possible to move out of your home for a while and even if you need to stay in a hotel, the money which you will save on the faster building work will more than pay of your time in the hotel.

Legality

Th most important advice that I can offer you is to check out all of the legality surrounding your proposed extension before you sign any contracts. We had great difficulty in getting planning permission for the extension and I had assumed that it would not be a problem. Thankfully we had great neighbors and an open dialogue with them about what we wanted to do and without them, we would not have been able to get permission. If you want to extend your home then make sure that you have all of the legal issues in place before you even consider signing up to the project or hiring contractors. Make sure also that you have a strong relationship with your neighbors or at the very least that you have informed them of your plans.