To build or to buy, that is the question.

week 1

Let's look at the wishlist of what we'd like to achieve in order to get the family home of our dreams (cue celestial music):

• Open-plan kitchen/dining/living room 'connected' to the garden (i.e. lots of glass and sliding/folding doors)
• Kids playroom
• Re-landscaped garden to include eating area; seating area; play area
• Larger bedroom for child number two

For us to achieve that, it realistically means a 2-storey extension to accommodate the increased footprint both downstairs and up. We'd probably have to go out to the back of the house (see here for existing floorplans) to accommodate the larger kitchen area, and could either increase the upstairs space by building over that or over the garage.

Let's do some rough calculations:

• £1500 per square metre of extension downstairs (assuming average quality fixtures and fittings)
• £750 per square metre of extension upstairs (assumung sunk cost of foundations, roof, etc)
• £200 per square metre of garden landscaping (assuming nothing - complete guess)
• 60m extension downstairs - 4m out (permitted development limits) by 15m across (most of the back of the house)
• 25m extension upstairs - pretty much the size of the current double garage
• 100m landscaping - told you it was a pretty good garden
• 20% contingency budget

((60 x 1500) + (25 x 750) + (100 x 200)) * 1.2 = £154,500

Given that the house is probably currently worth about £375,000 (not bad, we paid £270,000 for it) then we could, feasibly, look at the option of moving if we could find somewhere that ticked our boxes, in the ~£525,000 ballpark (not accounting for stamp-duty; fees; etc).

That looks doable, on paper, until you take into account a few of the things we take for granted in the current dwelling - proximity to children's school and nursery; adjacent nature reserve; double garage; commutability to London; etc. We've looked (and continue to do so) extensively, and the closest we've come to something that ticks all of the boxes was approaching £900,000 (and even then, wed have to tweak a few things to make it perfect internally). Now, we're under no illusion that our renovated house would be worth £900k, or even that we'll add enough value to offset the amount we spend on it, but realistically we're never going to justify a mortgage to support a house of that expense, and we're looking for something that works for us as a first priority rather than it being an investment stratgey.

So, all things considered, extension is the most appropriate option - it should give us the space we need, in exactly the configuration we want and it's more cost-effective than moving (although see below for a word of warning about costs vs value). It'll likely be fraught with challenges and disruption, but we hope these are outweighed by the end result.

What next?

Well, with the decision made that extension and renovation is the best option for us, it's time to start thinking about what that might look like; how much it will really cost; and things like architects and planning. Fun times ahead.