No matter what kind of first home you find yourself living in, it likely isn’t big enough. Space is always a rare commodity, no matter how frugally you live or how well-intentioned you are with the space you have – a fact recognised by the statistic that 1 in 5 of us live in cramped conditions. This is justification enough for an extension.
Extensions can be expensive things, though, particularly if you’re worrying about two-storey garden-dominating kitchen extensions that require planning permission, inflated budgets and a brigade of contractors to complete the work. But not all extension projects need be this involved; indeed, smaller extensions are possible, and can still offer you the space you seek. Whether you’re extending for personal comfort or to increase the monetary value of your home, what are the possibilities for your home extension?
Side Return Extension
We’ll start with the side return extension – a long, narrow extension that occupies the narrow strip of land connecting the front and back garden. This might be a snicket between terraced houses, the boundary between semi-detacheds or simply the spare land to the side of a detached home.
These kinds of extensions are typically used to add space to an existing room in the home, as opposed to creating a new room entirely. Many side return extensions utilise pitched glass roofs, in order to bring more light in without having to fuss with staggered skylights.
Rear Kitchen Extension
If you have enough back garden space, then a rear extension might make the most sense – which, for most houses, means using bricks to extend out and create a larger kitchen. Doing this can make for a significant enhancement to both your living space and your property’s value, even if purely for creating opportunities.
Additional kitchen space gives you the opportunity to add a social area, to enable the congregating of family or guests while cooking. Alternatively, it could give you the opportunity to install more worktop space and appliances, such as a dishwasher and a washer-dryer. Whatever the specifics of your own preferences, the result is a more spacious kitchen with an associated hike in property value.
Conservatory
Extending your home doesn’t need to mean knocking through into your existing space – at least, not wholly. Adding a conservatory can be a much less involved process than building a brick-and-mortar extension, and can be cheaper in many cases. A new conservatory could act as a rear porch of sorts, giving you a bright, airy space for relaxation as well as a social ‘airlock’ between outside and in.
Loft Conversion
Finally, we come to the humble loft conversion – an essential, and indeed fantastic, way to add an extra bedroom or home office without altering the footprint of your home. Given that most loft conversions don’t exceed the existing bounds of the property, this means no planning permission for creating a considerable amount of new space in your home.
