What's first?

Wherever you live in Southwest London, Central London, Sout East London or in a small town, the following points may help you get started with a beautiful new home or house extension. The following are things to consider, however we at Sterling can do this for you! We can advise and design with all of the necessary planning and building regulations in connection with a House and Home extension for you.

 

What kind of room/rooms do you want to create?

Do you want to create an entirely new room? Maybe a dining room, spare lounge, home office, gymnasium or an extra bedroom. Do you want to increase the size of an existing room? A bigger kitchen or dining room? Or do you want to increase the overall size of your house and redesign the whole internal layout? Any could create an entirely different starting point...

 

Consider the external

Do you want the extension on the side or the rear elevations?  It is possible to extend your home on the front elevation, as long as you have sufficient land, however, please consider more stringent planning rules - a representative from Sterling would be more than happy to help you with a free site visit.

 

“Double the size - don’t double the costs”

Consider whether a single storey or double storey extension will better suit your requirements.  A large proportion of costs associated to home extensions are connected with the ground works, and external drainage, so increasing a proposal from single storey to double storey would not double the costs.

 

Blend with the existing

A good home extension should look as if it was always there! The architecture should match as close as possible to the existing building; windows, doors and any other openings within the structure should be sized and designed with this in mind. There are other planning and building regulations to also consider here.

 

Example A

Requirement: You live in a typical three bed semi detached house with a standard roof structure. The approximate dimensions of the house are, width = 5M (16feet) and depth = 7.5M (24 feet). You would like a separate dining room from the present diner/kitchen, and a fourth bedroom possibly with en-suite.

Solution: A double storey side elevation with adjoining roof structure (see above diagrams) the roof structure is probably the most important factor when trying to blend the proposal. An example size (land permitting) could be 5.0M of the whole depth from 7.5M by 3.0M thus increasing your property by over 50%!