Vex's Late 70's Semi - Extension and Remodel thread

[VEX]

So, Finally we start! Late 70's Semi - Extension and Remodel Thread.

Having lived in our house for 13 years and with two growing daughters the time came to move or build. We love where we live and nothing for sale over the past 3 years would give us what we want, let alone cost us £30k just to move! So build it was.

Then we had two years of trying to find a builder, one was lined up but had a site accident, others would come but quotes were high or so woolly I could drive a coach through it. (I work on the edges of the construction industry)

Finally a friend who has been a builder / policeman has left the force and come back to building trade. So we met Saturday, agreed a price and he has started today as his first project! So exciting!!!!

What are we doing?

Single storey extension to the front to create a 12ft sq play / study room for our girls.
Convert garage into office for me and plant / utility room
Knock out cloaks to create a new front door entrance, lobby & porch
Create new cloaks in old utility
Open kitchen dinner into living room, with sliding glass door
Loads of lighting control, hidden cinema system, music and lighting
Funky led lighting outside and in
Garden music and new side fence and gates

Should be about 3months work and will keep this all updated with photos and details as we go.

Here is a photo of the front of the house as is. Mazda going into storage, skip there because we had to panic clear out the garage!!!! Lol.



Will post plans up later as well.

Woohoo, we've started!!!!

V.

Edited by VEX on Monday 16th November 11:55

[VEX]

Flippin' iPhone.

This should be the right way up!

[VEX]

Here are the plans.

The cloak room is moving to the back of the house by the back door, this will allow us to have a far larger Utility and Plant room. But apart from that, plans as whats being build.

[VEX]

Oh Yes.

Not quite Crestron end, my market or the house doesn't warrant it. But normal toys for us will be installed.

Will detail it more as we come to fit it, needless to say lounge ceiling is having to come down!!!!

V.

[VEX]

Rako is going to be our friend. We have the downstairs done already, so it should be simple to add the up stairs as we change the circuits around.

Then I have three different RGB LED Tapes planned, all of which should be easy to wire and design in as they are either in the loft or in the new build.

OOooo, maybe make that 4! You'll have to see where it goes!

V.

[VEX]

We have an option to change all the windows at the front, obviously new ones at the bottom, but the top three could easily be added to the project.

What are peoples thoughts on the Georgian Bars, or even a colour change? Our new front door is a big heavy mid grey one. So one thought it to use that colour.

Or should we just stick with white? Clear or Georgian Bars?

[VEX]

Liking Toxic's grey windows.

There is also a semi in our local town that has gone with grey frames, so I'll grab some photos of that for comment and a show and tell to the wife.

The other side of the coin says don't rock the boat, grey will be out of fashion in a couple of years then how crap with your house look!

Anyone vinyl wrapped window before! now there's an idea.

V.

[VEX]

They area bit darker than ours would be but I do like that quite a lot.

Mmmm, lots to think about.

I might get my virtual paint pots out and play with a photo or two.

V.

[VEX]

So, three days in (rained off yesterday) and footings are being dug today!

Nice and neat toothing out on the bricks as well.

Wardrobe fitter has started on the first of 3 bedrooms, we booked him in thinking we would be post Christmas for the build! Doh!

And Millie has gone into winter storage.

Its all go here at the moment.

[VEX]

[VEX]

From what the builder has said I think we can source LBC with out to much problem, supply has ramped up to meet demand, we are off peak build season and we don't need that many for the single story and garage brick up.

I'll check on Monday and confirm.

Footing half way down and he's hit our natural chalk / clay mix. It's going to be heavy going from now on.

V.

[VEX]

Has it been 3 weeks already!

So footings dug, signed off and poured over the last few weeks.

[VEX]

Then we had the start of walls for the extension.



Last week the footings for the garage were dug, signed off and poured.


Then talking with our builder, we agreed that the front wall between the garage and the extension would be hard to keep when he tries to cut the door in (it will only be a maximum of 2 bricks wide either side) so we agreed that he would take down the outer skin of bricks and then he can get a good clean run of new bricks all across the front.

So this morning we had a window to our cloakroom and an outer wall, tonight we have neither! This is it early afternoon.


Windows priced and being ordered on Thursday, we are going to hold off on rear bi-folds until we know what the front of the house has cost as they are £3k on their own, worth it, but best to be safe with money at this point.

We are also going for a suspended floor in the garage conversion, so the we don't have any steps down into the new rooms. The link through is actually the first step of the stairs, although it reduces our head height a little, we want to keep the same levels and for an office and plant / utility it is fine, we are still almost 2.2m in the office and 2.3 in the utility (dont ask)


So if the weather holds, we could well have the front walls up and finished by the end of the week! Which will make a difference to the view the cctv camera sees!



Will post more as it happens.
V.

[VEX]

So garage is now completely empty ready for the garage door to come out and we have a plan for keeping it secure until the wall and the study window.

The plant room is all planned and laid out , so that services can by run under the floor and up to where we want them. There is going to be quite a bit of storage space in there even with the washing machine, drier, freezer and sink.

Quite pleased.

The temp wall we are putting in the garage is also about where the finished wall will be so it should give me a good idea of space for the office as well.

V.

Edited by VEX on Saturday 12th December 21:02

[VEX]

We're very pleased with him, keeping him topped up with money, tea, Eccles cakes and egg custards seems to work well!

Should have full walls, window spaces and the door in next week if the weather holds.

V.

[VEX]

Tried to update from phone again and pic upside down again, will repost from laptop tonight.

V.

[VEX]

So end of week 5, and we are above waist height all on all walls.

Office all is having its window opening created.


The frame of the front door is in along with our new letterbox. Looking stunning before the builder protected and wrapped it up for us, he has even but a sheet of OSB in between the door frame and the back breeze wall before that comes down from the inside.


And the girls den has got its first course of bricks in to form the window.



So hopefully, before the Christmas break, I think we have a good chance of having all our walls up the full height. Started planning the plant/utility room as well as my office and the den. Will finalize sketches over Christmas and post them up.

V.

Edited by VEX on Saturday 19th December 22:15

[VEX]

Ok, it has been a while.

At the beginning of Christmas we were at this point. Office window formed, Playroom window just starting to come up and gable end ready to go in.

[VEX]

Then we had Christmas / New Year / Wet Weather and a builder with Flu.

So we didn't really re-start until the middle of second week of Jan. During this week the rest of the playroom front wall came up and the gable end was started but because of the rain over christmas and despite the bricks being covered, they were really damp so builder had to take it slowly and chose the driest bricks to use.

This week the survyer came out an measured up for the windows and we agreed the finish and opacity of the landing and new cloakroom window (old utility)

[VEX]

Lol, just spotted youngest daughter in that photo!