Double Your House For Half The Money! Series 1 Episode 6 - FULL EPISODE

[Music] do you want a dream home but can't afford to buy one well you can have your dream and save cash by transforming a smaller cheaper house and that's exactly what our two families are planning they want to massively increase their space for a fraction of what it would cost to buy their unaffordable dream home it has been a bit of a nightmare you know how am I going to get this done in the timescale that I've allowed [Music] I'm with the Turner's in Christchurch Dorset who went hunting for a house and found a location we first came and viewed this property we didn't actually come into the house we went straight down the garden and as soon as we got to the bottom of the garden that was it we were buying the house they need to dramatically extend their small 1930s house it was always our intentions to if we could double the size of the property and make a family home but first I'm after Whitstable on the Kent coast where Maureen Shaw wants to transform her bungalow more important 18 months ago and now aims to create a home by the sea for her extended family to enjoy you can scroll up and they move on and what happier but I still like the idea and it's perhaps around Christmas that they'll come home I love having lots of people around Maureen has only fifty thousand pounds to spend but her carpenter son RB has agreed to run the whole build by himself it's a huge undertaking for him this is for mom this is this is for the greater good you know this is for the family really I'm meeting Maureen and RV down the road from her bungalow to see the type of properties she dreams of owning is this the style of house that you like yeah definitely architectural II I think it's less cluttered I see the inside space as being less cluttered and I just like that I think it's where I'm at this house would cost about half million pounds to buy and you bought your house four hundred and ninety thousand you wouldn't really be able to afford to buy this done you want to know there's no way I could afford to buy this right there's no way so here are the suns Maureen would need to find 360 thousand pounds to move to her dream house but she has a budget of fifty thousand pounds since she wants to increase the size of her bungalow by a hundred and fifty percent this is a very tight budget and you're going to build it for her it looks that way yeah what a good son mauriz house is small but bungalows can be great properties to expand dramatically when you've got a good size plot but with only a single-story house an entire bungalow and it's not surprising that people think about going up and converting the loft like this house over here hasn't done and indeed this house over here is two stories so when I look at this bungalow what I see is potential right now Maury's bungalow can't accommodate family visits on the ground floor the cramped kitchen and tiny dining room aren't big enough for Maureen to entertain in the rundown conservatory is a large waste of space and she'll definitely need more than the current two bedrooms when they all come to stay compared to a lot of houses especially considering this a single-story I'm not a very big house there's a lot of space it's a big hallway and I know this was built later but come out here this is really big room out here well to have this and that amazing garden transforming this space is a major part of a dream a big family get-togethers I'd expect that my daughter and husband to be here my younger daughter should be here perhaps with work work work with a boyfriend RB and his girlfriend will be here her son Alfie and whoever else might be around so the more the merrier Pro definitely the plan is to extend her bungalow upwards and outwards and more than double her living space the conservatory will be rebuilt as a garden room next to an open-plan kitchen and dining room with a modern carport outside in the new upstairs they'll gain more bedrooms and bathrooms ideal for the visiting family it's a huge amount of work for 50 grand and when you look at the plans some things just don't make sense tell me what this bit this is where the garage is now yeah yeah that's going to be a carpet as you can see what we want to do is cantilever some big steel work to create a floating corner giving a little bit of an enclosed feeling to that car area there creating a carport is a little bizarre it'll eat into their incredibly tight budget plus it'll take space from the living room why cantilever so expensive in terms of engineering I believe a better idea would be to extend her lounge and lose the carport if they do this they'll need to reapply to the planning department I found serious feedback valuable the carport thing that's what we've got permission for that's what the council have granted so our hands may be tied more in rbr certainly not making life easy for themselves with a huge self-build in a tiny budget whilst it's admirable that RB wants to do all of the work himself it's easy to get overwhelmed and let the schedule and the budget slip and that could spell disaster and the end of this family seaside dream over in Dorset the Turner's couldn't afford to buy a big enough house in their dream area a four-bedroom house here could cost between the five hundred thousand and six hundred thousand pounds and with all Christchurch has to offer it's not difficult to see why it's close to the beaches close to the new forest it doesn't get much better than Christchurch but set on their dream they bought a 1930s detached house for two hundred and seventy thousand pounds and are building a two-story rear extension they couldn't afford the 280,000 pounds it would cost them to buy a bigger house so instead they have 60,000 pounds to extend this one for the lovely plot the views the river the garden and the next stage is a really crucial stage for us the Turner's are storming ahead with making their detached house bigger they're extending the living room to the rear of their property and upstairs they have added two bedrooms and an ensuite but whilst building twice the amount of space in only 10 weeks they seemed to have made a rather basic mistake not something that that occurred to us until we were actually stood in it with much of the building work complete the Turner's discover they have missed something out most of us would want in Windows I mean the cave poor with his dog the main problems that we have now that the build is nearly complete is lighting primarily no windows means no natural light in the dining area or the new study but they've nearly spent their sixty thousand pound budget why would we build a house with no windows in but it seems that's exactly what we've done we need to Sara Paul and Judith have hit a brick wall with our extension they've already spent forty five thousand of their sixty thousand pound budget on structural work alone and they still got to put a kitchen bathroom and make the space actually work for them thanks very much [Music] hello hi hi nice to meet you I'm Sarah I'm Tara what an amazing garden of that peaceful beautiful river how would your dream home be when it's finished my dream home would reflect the outside that's what we're attempting to do with this house is to bring the garden inside so light airy open spacious the cave-like interior of the Turner's extension couldn't be further from the light-filled dream house they hoped they were building Paul and Judith two-story rear extension means they've been able to move the living room to the back of the house and the kitchen to the front they've also created a new study in the old kitchen space next to the dining area upstairs they've moved two of the three existing bedrooms into the new extension to make room for a new family bathroom and ensuite for the master bedroom what has gone wrong here is not actually as uncommon as you might think the problem is the original house stopped here he had lights in the front into the front room and then light from the back into the back room but effectively you've kind of created a tunnel by making what was a a small house with windows either end a much much longer house with windows at either end so in the middle of the tunnel it's a tunnel in some ways I can understand why you'd have taken your eye off the ball it's cuz you're concentrating on that we do we concentrate on that completely and yeah we didn't really pay much attention to this part of the house I think Paul and Judith may have dismissed obvious places to put windows but there's often a clever way around it here you've got a chimney breast in the middle we have on the outside so you can't put a window right in the middle but you could put two taller windows to either side of that it's always more expensive to retrofit windows but if you do you may need to send amended plans to the council for approval get a compliance certificate from a registered supplier and ensure you meet all the environmental standards as well as creating a tunnel like dining room with no windows the Turner's are also struggling a bit with the old kitchen which is being turned into a study this is temporarily the kitchen we did have a vision in our heads of a little snug area with the leather chairs and the library and that was all well and good until we actually built everything they've blocked up the old kitchen window as it looks into their new living room I think they may have been a bit too hasty I would be tempted put a window in because I think the sight line down to the end of the garden would be fantastic and I think if you can get light from as many different directions as possible in a small room like this it does make it feel bigger so I think this could be a great living room while the Turner's new extension has given them far more living space it's created huge issues with lighting now is the moment to tackle the problem or they'll bitterly regret it I'm with two families aiming to save lots of cash by creating far more space for a fraction of the cost of buying and we're showing you that you need less than you might think to afford your dream home in Kent the shore family is building their seaside dream Sun RB has a relaxed managing style got a concrete schedule set in stone but he's also got a small budget and in Dorset Paul and Judith are getting twice their living space with a 60 thousand pound rear extension but whilst they've nearly finished the build windows are few and far between effectively you've kind of created a tunnel by making a small house with windows either end and that's much longer house with windows either end the problem for Paul and Judith is how to stretch the 15,000 pounds left of their sixty thousand pound budget to finish the build and get lighten so I'm taking them to check out this light Phil Victorian Terrace which should give them some ideas that won't burn their finances this house of theme designed specifically with light in mind it's actually got the same sort of problems that your house has some of it might be quite inspiring future to bring light in natural light is that far more important as opposed to flicking a switch that's why it is much better if you can get it for lots and lots of reasons it's a much nicer light anyway to live with how light or dark your house is depends on which way it's facing if you aren't lucky enough to have a son trapped south-facing property then you need to think big when it comes to glass the reason they put so much glass on this side is because this is west facing because if it was south facing it would be incredibly hot if you look here there's a window that's against a wall and then you look further up at the window that's against the the sky and it brings a lot more light in you can also boost the effect of daylight at one end of the room by installing clever recessed artificial light throughout the rest of the space it tricks the eye really into thinking that those lights in the middle house when actually there isn't the architect has gone one step further and solved the problem of a gloomy hallway with a stroke of glassy genius absolutely spectacular the upticks managed to get the light from the top of the house all the way down through this stairwell now clearly this might be a bit too much in your house but it's incredible to see what you can achieve with glass if you put your mind to it speechless the glass roof panels and staircase here cost around twenty five thousand pounds but there's a more affordable alternative that I'd like the Turner's to consider sun tunnels pull in natural light to a specially designed reflective tube installed between your roof and ceiling they're great for lighting gloomy spaces such as hallways and bathrooms and they can be adapted to fit most roof types whether yours is flat or pitched with installation costs starting from around a thousand pounds some tunnels are a really good way of creating this effect it's amazing really how similar this hallway in staircase and layout is to our own and over sometime all at the top of the stairs we will create exactly the same effect here but in a slightly different way it would be a great way to bring the hallway to life if you can bring daylight into it there's lots of inspiring things here but I think the important thing for Paul and Julie to take away is that they need to buy the right size windows and they need to put them in the right positions Sun Tunnel might be a really good handy hint for more information about this show or extending a house check out my scrapbook at channel Ford comm forward slash Sara [Music] over in Whitstable Arby's in charge of totally transforming his mum's bungalow two weeks in he has started on the Block work but I'm wondering whether he's decided to extend the family lounge or splash out on the carport what if you decided to do we have decided to go with your suggestions on losing the carport right cool the council haven't given us the approval yet I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone getting retrospective planning permission is risky you may be forced to take down what you've done bit of a palette but yes you could say that we are little bit concerned but all of the informal advice that we've been given points us in the direction to just go ahead and be proactive and take a bit of a risk and we should get the approval that we're hoping for so their plans for the ground-floor now extend to a bigger lounge and the links between the kitchen and the Garden Room will be great when the family visits but with a whole new upper floor to build Maureen and RB have really got their work cut out yet progress on site seems to be slow as RB is tied up doing work for other clients it was always going to be a juggling act so this I can maintain an income as if I can't work I can't pay the bills I can understand why RB wants to do as much as he can himself to save cash but two months into the six-month build I'm a bit worried that things are already starting to slip and if that happens Maureen 50,000 pound budget is likely to be the first casualty problem at the site this big is that it can easily run away with you so just want to go and have a chat with them and make sure everything's okay how are you how are you you're seven weeks in and I'm gonna be really honest you've got the slab blaze that's sort of it do you have a schedule as to how long this projects going to take we're hoping September to October we should get everything wrapped up initially you were saying that you were hoping August so now you're thinking September October you think your mom cares how long it takes if it's a month or two over she's not that bothered if it's January then she will be a bit bothered hi worry the focus on this huge project is drastically drifting I mean have you talked about a center with RB we we haven't actually sat down and said we want this to be finished by this time and this to be finished by that time I'm a little bit concerned by the fact that there isn't a schedule in place it was I think the danger is that Bobby's working to his schedule and you're in working to your schedule and the reality is this isn't going to take 25 weeks if you carry on kind of making it slightly up as you go along it'll take a year or two there's no way absolutely no way I wouldn't have to happen a project at this scale with no schedule is a recipe for disaster RB can't think like a one-man band he needs to start planning for his mum's build and budgets golden rule number one is to create a weekly schedule for the duration of the build so next week we've got scaffolding going up okay rule number two is to block out each week so it's clear when each trade starts and finishes this will help you to put trades and deliveries at the right point saving time and money and then we're talking about the the Timbers go on the roof timbers this way you'll know pretty quickly you won't gets a week 21 and I think okay we seem to be totally totally behind right be helpful for us to have a schedule that at least we kind of think okay just to help us in our planning and thinking ahead we don't want it set in stone because then we're tying ourselves to something we might slip form or not meet the goalposts may change but this you know they're changing rather than it all been a great big surprise RB took quite a lot of convincing that the settle was a good idea but writing it down certainly convinced me that was incredibly tight for schedule what if we said loud and clear was that the big challenge now is trying to stick to it [Music] I'm with two households aiming to massively increase their space without breaking the bank in the process in dorset Paul and Judith are building twice their living space with a two-story rear extension I'm in the cave but in elongating the house they unfortunately forgot to put it enough windows plunging the dining room and the study in the middle section into darkness why would we build a house with no windows in but it seems that's exactly what we've done we need Sarah do I've attempted to sue I I would be tend to put a window in they've started to remedy the situation by thinking cleverly about where to position their windows and we've been able to start shedding some light on their problem I can see right the way down to the garden and it's letting twice the amount of light Paul's also installing another window in the studies outside wall I've been looking out there Wow look at that look at all the light that's coming into this room already you couldn't see each other in this room this time yesterday nextdoor in the tunnel light dining room two more windows are going in all are being fitted as high as possible to catch the most daylight and inspired by the house we saw in London they're also installing two Sun tunnels to light up the gloomy landing and hallway but in Kent things aren't looking so bright on Maureen and Sun are bees ambitious self-build halfway through this six-month build and still planning permission isn't in place to extend the lounge into the garage but work is going on regardless there's an awful lot of pressure sitting on our bee shoulders to complete this build single-handedly on a budget of fifty thousand pounds for Maureen one of the most important parts of the build is turning the rundown conservatory into a garden room for the family so I'm taking them to a house that's integrated the living space with the garden with stunning results now this is what I want to show you the things I really wanted to show you with some of the details that they've used here the floorboards are laid in the same direction inside as the decking is laid outside what it does that as it pulls your eye down the floor out onto the decking and down into the garden so everything is forcing you to look down the garden another trick to bring the garden into the living space is to reflects it wherever you can avoid dark matte finishes instead go for light glossy err services that bounce reflections around the room a lot of the surfaces reflect the gardens so you'll see the green reflected in the unit yeah yeah how do you feel about the reflective surfaces everywhere yeah I just love the idea of being so close to the garden I love that it really illustrates what I've had in my mind for a long time it is very inspiring actually so this is inspiring it's the difference between carrying things around in your head and seeing something in the way that you kind of envisaging it's gonna be so saying something like this really kind of thing yeah yeah that's it's doable that's awesome that just speaks volumes yeah [Music] it's great to see RB and Maureen excited and positive especially Maureen because this is all about her dream vision so while RB focuses on the outside of the build I'm hoping to catch up with Maureen about her plans for the family kitchen do you have a strong vision in your mind as to how it's going to be mm-hmm yeah you do exactly yeah so with some technical wizardry I can show Maureen what her plans will really look like Wow yeah that's just about it but seeing it like this reveals a possible problem tucked away in the corner is the family dining table a bit of a waste of those gorgeous garden views I think the danger with your design as it is is that you'll cook and you'll eat in this hole in the middle of the house and actually you'll be like a little Mole inside in the middle of this lovely beautiful house with amazing views over a garden but instead of being me the views into the garden you're going to be hidden away in the middle of the house in a room with no windows another solution would be to move the table to the Garden Room to make the most of the views and free up the kitchen wall for lots more storage if you did it like this you'd have a load more storage all the way down that wall mm-hmm and then you could have the table and chairs in there and you have the sofas in there you will spend 99% of your waking day in the conservatory overlooking that beautiful garden I do like the idea of looking over the garden I think it would make a really nice dining room yeah I mean it's growing on me by the minute yeah I think it's cool Arby is determined to help Maureen create her perfect family home they were six before blocks weren't they however balancing her projects and his work elsewhere is stretching him to the limits right this moment in time I'm really stressed with it hi it's obvious one of those it's been an extremely difficult last month trying to juggle my private finances and my private work with enough time on this I've been a bit of a nightmare you know how am I gonna get this done in the timescale that I've allowed still despite all his hard work the build is behind and there's another problem looming 1.7 tons of support sales for the first floor need to be hoisted carefully into position we've got the crane for the whole morning but we've only got two components to move so hopefully I've done all the prep work it should be pretty straightforward fingers crossed but as the crane operator checks the site a potentially life-threatening problem becomes apparent with over 11,000 volts being carried by the overhead powerlines that crane can't do anything you're not allowed to go across powerlines and if you do if you touch them then it has catastrophic consequences sadly our we didn't see this coming this oversight means the next stage can't progress pushing the build even further off schedule so we were already a week behind looks like it's gonna be another five days on top of that because we can't get him back until next Thursday so yeah a bit knocked off but what can you do one of those things just gotta suck it up I [Music] really feel for our beam there's pressure on all sides to stick to the 50,000 pound budget to stick to the schedule and to hold down his job I know from experience what it's like to juggle too much and sometimes something's got to give [Music] we're just not going to get it weatherproof and you know ready for the winter at the current rate and I think what I need to do is actually whine back all the all the paying work maybe get a bit of help in as well obviously I am thinking about the budget but it does make sense and I can see exactly where you know where you're coming from so we've just got to do it well that's a relief I was a bit worried about this conversation but I'm glad you agree and I think really it's the only way to do it anyway to go yeah it makes sense to me with our be now able to concentrate full-time on the project and pay for extra labour the build finally swings back into life [Music] there are a lot more people out now and it's gone from being a fairly quiet sight suddenly yeah there's but this Rufus this bricklayers so yeah things are moving a pace with the first floor and roof going up and the internal walls coming down this bungalows transformation is well underway wait what we're going to be doing the next sort of day or two really marks the end of the bungalow and the birth of mum's house and then the architect arrives with something arby's been waiting for Barbie hello I've got some news I've got the planning approval formal written approval thank you very much yeah yeah oh I'm gonna have to frame that oh that's great that's a little cherry on top that's great I'm really happy about that yeah so it's a positive another positive please please with that it's a great relief to get approval for the plans to replace the costly carport if it hadn't come through though they could have been forced to take down one side of the house and part of the roof RB has learnt a lot on this project and I'm getting more and more excited to see the results over in Dorset Paul and Judas eight-month project is almost finished [Music] this has been a bit of a rescue job but I'm hoping they've managed to turn their cave like interior into the amazing space they've always wanted good to see you by adding a rear extension they tend their 1930s house into a long dark tunnel but by adding more windows in the dining room the gloomy tunnel has been turned into a bright light filled space now fantastic what a difference that's amazing to think this is that long thin dark tunnel and now this central part of my house has really come to life having natural daylight in here has made all the difference in the world I wouldn't have thought that two smallish windows would have had quite the effect that it has in this room it's it's made a dramatic difference we've put them as high up as possible to try and get as much daylight in as possible and that's a south facing wall as well so we do get an awful lot of light in here now now this space you've got light coming in from the back light coming from the front and light coming from the side which means that the whole of this space now works and the flow to it is this what you imagined you're going to end up with in here this is far better than I imagined I mean we've got you know 25% extra space downstairs now because it's a room we now use words we just walk through before so it's all of that and more and it's a lovely room I'm really impress it really works well the next door they've turned the old kitchen into a study whilst initially they blocked up the window as it looked into their new living room they decided to replace it with a smaller window and added another to the sidewall and the study is now flooded with natural light amazing to think that this was once that absolutely tiny dark little kitchen my little cave amazing the difference that this window makes because you now have sight lines going right the way down the garden it's transformed the house with the depth that it now gives with this window going into the lounge and looking down the garden the house that we visited with you where you got the idea of bringing daylight in from both ends and sort of channeling it through the house that helped us to see that it really does work and we're really pleased with it now it's got like that stolen from the sitting room like that stolen from the front door and it's so nice even though it's not facing because it's high up and a big wide window really pulls the light in it's such a nice swim upstairs the landing used to be little more than a dingy cut through to the bedrooms [Music] but they've even managed to bring lights in here to brilliant the Sun panels didn't they they've made a dramatic difference to the light up here I was quite surprised how much light they do actually bring in and not only do they bring natural daylight in which is what you want rather than having fuse artificial lights but also there's no electricity custom running them that's free natural daylight it's another area we avoided we just walk through this it was just access to the bedrooms but it's more than access to upstairs now it's a place that is functional but pleasing as well and it's a place that we use the house we went to look at they'd obviously done something very magnificent we're moving all the stairs and landings but this is a rather more affordable and practical solution for this space and a really good interpretation of what they've done I think what you've done really really well here is you've links the house together with daylight so this space here would have been quite a dark landing instead you've got the Sun tunnels which pulls your eye down towards the window here and then down to the front door so you're pulling light around and stealing it from every direction it's really good [Music] I have to hand it to Paul and Judith they've done a brilliant job but have they managed to do all this for a fraction of the cost of buying that dream house Paul and Judith couldn't afford the 280,000 pounds they needed to buy their dream house but by spending a total of sixty five thousand pounds they've now got twice their living space for less than half the cost of moving this is a story about lights whether you beg borrow or steal it it is the key to creating the perfect home the salvage operation has really shown Paul and Judith how just a few thoughtfully placed windows and clever light solutions can have a massive impact on both the value of your home and your life 18 months ago Maureen sure bought a neglected 1960s bungalow and Whitstable she wanted to more than double its size and create a seaside getaway that would be the heart of her family you can't grow up and they move on and what happier but I still like the idea and it's perhaps around Christmas that they'll come home I love having lots of people around her carpenter's son RB was keen to help her construct this dream with a budget of fifty thousand pounds the plan was for him to do as much of the work as possible to save her cash but as the bill progressed he realized he'd taken on too much if we want to get this wrapped up before the winter I'm gonna need to get a bit of help in as well I can see exactly where you're coming from so we've just got to do it with more help and our be freed up to manage the projects the build steps up again this was a hugely ambitious project for our be he had no experience of running a project of this scale and there are times when I thought it would all spiral out of control but he's finished and I'm dying to see what it looks like before this was a typical 1960s bungalow in a great location but perhaps not that beautiful to look at [Music] now it's a stunning seaside retreat with crisp render set off again striking vertical cladding and modern aluminium windows this house will give the family pleasure for years to come [Music] ah hello oh you wanted to see you could see hello hi how are you very well look at what an amazing transformation what did you do with the bungalow disappeared are you proud of what you've achieved here not yet I don't know I'm jolly well should be I'm are you proud of him I think it's amazing I cannot get over what RB and the guys that worked with him have done I think it's amazing I look at it and I think if I was him standing here I would be swollen with pride it's flippin beautiful I've got to say that it's completely gorgeous I'm dying to see inside the rear of the property was a rickety lean-to a dead space used mainly for storage now it's a stunning light filled garden room with modern bi-fold doors that seamlessly brings the garden into the house ideal for sitting back relaxing and enjoying the view and inspired by the trip we made together they lay the decking and floorboards running the same way and here you've got the Infinity decking going into the flooring in here which is fabulous because the outside decking and the inside flooring all run in the same direction it pulls the eye from the garden always through the house so this fantastic sight line is so effective yeah bearing in mind it was quite a lot based around the garden and pulling outside inside inside outside you have as much as you could rub the line between inside and outside out you have done that before the kitchen and dining room didn't work for Maureen's entertaining [Music] now the space is cleverly designed to lead you naturally towards the hub of the home morons kitchen she has a large dining area combined with a contemporary kitchen that's perfect for big family gatherings this here is what you wanted is the heart of the home isn't it it was really important to you that you should be able to have a home where your family could concrete and all three of your children will be able to feel that they could come back to I want for my kids to still be able to come home as it were I still kind of think I want to do Christmas and having a kitchen like this to do it it fantastic I'll be starting next week we don't actually have a home that any of us have got that could really seat or house all of us well now we've got that you know it's not crammed to me not uncomfortable and we've just got more room here to be the people in the family that we are and to function normally and there's another idea from the house we visited they put to brilliant use you've done a really great job because you've got reflective surfaces you see the garden mmm bounced back all over the place I'm really pleased with with even there's the gloss units in the kitchen and the mirrors here and there and it just adds dimension and had sight it tricks the ions I'm into into making it feel even bigger Maureen decided not to move the main dining area into the light-filled garden room but she's found a compromise that works well for her so you decided to not put cabinets along here but also put a table over in the window so the table there will be a lovely place to sit and really appreciate the girl yeah yeah I felt putting cabinets down that wall it might end up looking like an industrial kitchen I think what we've done really is kind of combine some of your suggestions with some of my I can be stubborn when I first met RB he was planning to build a carport out of cantilevered Steel's at the front of the house sensibly he ditched it in favor of a larger lounge I can't wait to see how it turned out so look at this was an enormous it's pretty big isn't it yeah well how do you feel it would be if you had kept the carport and haven't made the room bigger the proportions were never attractive it we was that there's a rectangle so now that we've got this space it's kind of made it it's much better proportion than it was before it would have looked good and from a design point of view with the cantilevered first floor it could have been an interesting feature albeit a little bit of an expensive folly but really this this makes more sense a bigger lounge and a more straightforward structural process of building it this is a beautiful room though RB did take a risk starting work on it before they got Planning Commission the extra space is worth it we had to proceed if we'd waited it would have held us up four to five weeks so we just went ahead and built it and hope for the best and it was a big day when the architect chopped off the the the actual formal notice it was an educated gamble and it paid off thank you fortunately yeah upstairs by adding a whole new floor they've created a large master bedroom with ensuite in addition maureen has two attractive guest rooms and a new bathroom plenty of room for her family to be comfortable when they come to visit it can be tricky mixing family with business but RB and Maureen have worked well together the question is did keeping it in the family to pay off so the initial budget was fifty thousand and and how much did you end up spending one hundred and thirty five eighty five thousand pounds is a lot of extra money to find how did you find that family friends and the bank a lot of the money towards the end of the project actually went on additional resources because we just had to call that shed your back the outset we weren't quite so fixed on an end date your input with the schedule really clarified what extra resources we'd need to bring in to meet things if you had got a main contractor to do this job it would have been likely to cost you two hundred thousand pounds so whilst it's a lot more than you originally hoping to spend 135 thousand pounds is a lot less than I think it would have cost ultimately it's been a steep learning curve we've learned a lot along the way haven't you the fundamental thing that's come out of this for me and the best advice I could ever offer anyone else is professional services at the outset get a good architect quantity surveyor you you know you you can't cost a job like this as a layman you need a professional looking at the figures in this the bungalow is worth about a hundred and ninety thousand pounds when you started out and you could have gone down the road and bought your dream house but that would have cost you about five hundred and fifty thousand so you didn't need to find another three hundred and sixty thousand pounds 135 thousand is less than half but it would have cost you to go and buy a house of this spec would you have been able to find 306 no way not a chance in hell nope that's why for me it's worth every penny do the sums add Maureen couldn't afford the 360,000 pounds she needed to move to a larger dream house instead she spent 135 thousand pounds on increasing the size of her bungalow by a hundred and fifty percent just over a third of the price of buying her dream house that's not all I reckon it would be quite reasonable to suppose that you would be able to sell it now for four hundred and twenty thousand pounds so you've actually created a hundred thousand pounds out of equity in this house that is exactly what I set out to do when I said to RB how about doing this project and he said well what will you make and the figure I said was 100,000 pounds wasn't it if one of my sons goes out to be this useful really please fingers crossed I really love what's happened here there's something deeply heartwarming about the fact that RB has created this fabulous home for his mother and the fact that this home will be the new focal point for the whole family it's an amazing home they've turned a humdrum bungalow into an incredible property and added a load of value to it along the way it just goes to show what you can achieve when you think outside the box with a property [Music]

Channel: HomeStyle

Views: 213,392

Rating: 4.8225179 out of 5

Keywords: home style, homestyle, daytime, daytime tv, british tv, fashion, building a house, house transformation, styling guide, bargain hunt, redesign, restoration home, restoration, home flipping, lifestyle tv, Sarah Beeny, double your home, double your house, double your house for half the money, double your house episode, crafts, diy projects, DIY room decor, double your house full episodes, before and after, sarah beeny renovate, sarah beeny tv, home projects

Id: -1M2i5Am0QE

Length: 45min 32sec (2732 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020