Extension plan ideas - help needed

Hello everyone

We have a small 2 bedroom house. We are thinking of extending at some point in the near future.

The details of the house are:
- 2 bedroom semi detached
- utility room side extension (I wouldn't even call it an extension, it used to be two brick sheds that were converted in a make shift extension by the previous owner, it's ok for a pantry/storage but not really habitable even though there is a radiator at least for heating)
- large garden
- shed/cabin in the garden room that we might leave or get rid of at some point

What we want to achieve as high priority
- add 1 bedroom
- add 1 bathroom
- add 1 playroom
- make open plan living room/kitchen/ diner and make it as big as possible while fulfilling the above requirements first
- don't spend more than £100k for the entire project (including kitchen and bathroom)
- don't loose too much of the garden (I'd say 4m ideally, but if it makes more sense we can go to 6m)

Based on what people have done in our neighbourhood we are contemplating the following possibilities:
- single storey rear + single storey side, I think that's called a wraparound? (replace existing utility extension)
- double storey side + single story rear (so a rear wraparound like the first option, but add 2nd floor to the side | replace existing utility extension)
- single storey rear (don't touch utility and turn it into playroom)
- single story rear + 2nd storey rear (don't touch utility and turn it into playroom)

I feel like there are (too) many possibilities, but we have no construction experience and it would be great to get some ideas from the community.
We've had designers come round for quotes before but they usually ask us what we want, and we need advice first!
Is it more cost effective to build single or double storey? Or is it better to go 6m rear than to go 4m rear but add second storey? So many questions...

At the moment I'm thinking about a 5m-6m wraparound single storey extension, add all additional rooms to the ground floor and don't touch the upper floor at all to minimise disruption. But then we've taken a lot of space from the garden...
Also is it a good idea to have a bedroom next to living room/kitchen diner?

Any thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Floorplan is below.

DeniP said:

We've had designers come round for quotes before but they usually ask us what we want

Click to expand...

And that's how it should be done. Plus how much have you got to spend.

You must surely have an idea of what you want or need, and then it's the designers job to translate that into something you can have. And you don't base what you want or need on what others have done.

Yes but designers have asked us - where do you want this room, where do you want that room? The questions have been super specific. And they haven't indicated that they would provide anything other than drawing up my exact requirement. That is not helpful, not to me anyway. I don't know what my exact requirement is (as in best layout that is the most cost effective), I am not a professional.

I want to tell someone - in an ideal world I want rooms X, Y and Z added and I want to spend X amount of £.
Then I would expect them to give me some ideas on what is the most effective way to achieve this and to give me ideas on layout with pros and cons for the different options.

I am therefore looking at what others have done to get ideas of both what might be possible and what has been permitted in the past. And looking at internet forums and asking people for their thoughts... I am not looking for make drawings for me for free, just a helpful "oh have you thought of doing this", "I've done it that way and it was a bad idea" etc

Fingers crossed some helpful thoughts are shared!

Most Architectural Technicians, and common plan monkeys just know how to draw plans and not how to design. So yes I can see that you may get some of those. And it may be difficult to sort out the chaff.

There are quite a few posts on what you should expect when thinking about extending, in this forum and the building regulation forum, and that will give you an idea of what to ask and require of the designer.

The problem with asking other's views on what you should do, is that everyone has their own little ideas based on what they want, or based on them not living there and not paying for it, so you get lots of brilliant ideas which are actually crap.

The common criteria of living space, circulation space, light, buildability, practicality etc wont change, and its those that need to be incorporated into whatever it is you aim to achieve.