14 Tips to Extend Your Home
It’s exciting to plan an extension on your home. You get to add more to your house, which not only gives you an extraordinary amount of space, but it’s going to add some value to your house. If you decide that one day you want to sell your home, you need to invest in it first. You want your house to pull in the buyers and be the project that you always dreamed of holding. You want to be able to add to your home and enjoy all of the luxuries that come with extending the place.
The problem? Figuring out where to start! There are so many ideas and options out there that you can invest in, and you can gain so much value out of your extension when you do decide on it. So, with that in mind, let’s check out fourteen of the best suggestions for a home extension that you should look through and choose from!
Reconfigure Your Layout
You can’t begin to make changes to the house and extend anything without reimagining the layout that you already have. This will allow you to make the absolute most of the privacy, views, and light that you can get when you decide to extend the home. The doorways and walls of your home may not be in the right places to be able to integrate a new extension. You could get some help from FraserCon when it comes to the foundations of the house, and you can consult with the other experts over the construction and windows. You want to be able to use the addition to the home, and you want to get value from it, too. So, think about the relationship of the extension you want to build and the rest of the house, and then choose what you want to do next.
Go Higher
Most people add one storey to their home when they build in an extension. However, think about going higher than that and building a two-storey extension instead. You want to get the maximum value for your money, and you can do that when you invest more in your home. Think about the roof and the foundations, and think about how you can use an extra storey or two!
Pick Your Poison
Well, choose your materials anyway! You will have a range of choices when it comes to materials for building. You get to have a say in these as you’re the one paying for it. It’s going to come down to choosing matching materials or choosing different ones that will look beautiful against the rest of the house. Either copy the same design elements of the roof and materials or be quirky and choose something completely different to make the house look dramatic.
Start With Your Kitchen
Everyone loves a brand new kitchen, and you should consider a contemporary kitchen extension for your house. You may not have a budget for a fully bespoke design that allows you to reinvent the entire room, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot create your own design and buy a contemporary kitchen! Start with the units, then build up with the worktops and the integrated appliances. You may not want a vintage look, so think about a kitchen island and a double sink to really upgrade the space.
Bring In Light With A Sunroom
Most people love the idea of a conservatory for their home, but they don’t consider just where to put it. You need to add your sunroom to the piece of the house that receives the most natural light. The more natural light you have, the better. Your conservatory may not require any planning permission, but it’s best to look into the laws of your district before you go ahead. It can be difficult to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, but if you are prepared and choose a sunroom over a conservatory, you’re going to have a better time of controlling the temperature.
Remember Your Ceilings
Extensions to a home aren’t always about the extra buildings you can slap onto the side of the house. Sometimes, an extension can be the ceilings in the home. Taller ceilings are often those that can transform the room, making it more spacious and far more impressive to look at. The more you consider that a taller ceiling could give you the possibility of a split-level extension, the better!
Extend The Entrance
People see the front of your house before they see anything else. If you think about the type of entrance that you want for your home, you can create an extension that really looks great from the moment that you walk in the door. Extend the front of the house, and you can offer the world a fantastic curb appeal. Make an entrance with the front door and upgraded fixtures, too, and you’ll be able to provide something polished and primed to perfection.
Go Flueless
If you currently have a fireplace in the home, think about how they impact the energy efficiency of the house. Most people are choosing to block up their chimney flues and air vents, but you can still enjoy a fireplace and the cozy feeling of a real flame, and you can still enjoy a fireplace as part of your home extension plans. You could choose to go flueless. A flueless fireplace is one that offers 100% energy efficiency, and you won’t need to worry about the chimney breast at all. There are no harmful gases to consider, and you can choose from a range of flueless designs, too.
Extend Outdoors
Everyone loves the warmer months, even when they moan about the heat. Building in an outdoor living area is going to enhance the value of your home as well as offer an alternative living option. In the winter months, you can enjoy a covered outdoor living space that keeps you dry and warm. In the summer, you are exposed to sunshine and can still remain sheltered from the rain. There are traditional verandas as well as beautiful orangeries and outdoor kitchen spaces that you can really use to enhance your home and the value of it.
Choose A Pocket Door
A lot of people who build an extension to their home choose between leaving the opening to that space as one large open-plan room, or they choose to add pocket doors that slide. You get the best of both worlds when you do this because you can leave the doors open to use the room as a large area, or you can close the doors and give the appearance of a wall there. The choice is yours, and you can upgrade your extension with the right doors.
Think About Obscured Glazing
When you add on a downstairs bathroom, you will want as much natural light flooding in as possible to ensure you haven’t built a dark space onto your house. Instead of worrying about this, use obscured glazing for the windows. Not only will you encourage the further light flooding in, but you can also have that without anyone looking through the window – or out of it, come to that! You can choose glass blocks or stained glass for a quirky addition to your home. The more contemporary you go with sand-blasted glass or coloured glass, the more value you can add. Breathing life into your home starts with breathing LIGHT into it.
Feature Your Lighting
Speaking of lighting, have you considered how you can make it a feature in the home? You can choose fixtures that provide ambient light as well as choosing to have accent lighting throughout the house. This type of extension is a big one because you may need to add or reroute your electrics to your house. Extra lighting to the new kitchen and even adding some to the outdoor living space you’ve created can enhance your home, too!
Overcome Acoustic Issues
An exciting extension that you can make to your home is within the acoustics. All of those brand new obscured glass windows and the new flooring and walls? You need to worry about the echo. You know when you view a brand new house, and there’s no furniture or rugs? Usually, there is an echo when you talk to people, and it’s because of the lack of furniture. This happens again when you add a new room or a new wall into the house. When you fit a new kitchen, you won’t fit a carpet, so why not add in acoustic panels instead? You can install these to the walls and dull the sound, ensuring you don’t have a considerable echo through the house.
Realign Your Windows
When you build an extension either on the top of or at the side of your house, think about making sure that the windows are realigned to improve privacy and improve the view. Oriel windows that are set at an angle are going to be the best options for a better look. Windows are the eyes of the home, and the bigger they are, the more light is let in. They set the tone for the house, and the narrow and elongated window style can offer breathtaking panoramic views. To set them off, add in window seats or bay windows to really enhance the way that they look.
