Loft conversion – nearly finished!

Joined
30 May 2008
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Location
Hampshire
Country
United Kingdom
We moved to this house about a year ago and we decided we needed a further bedroom. It had four (decent sized) bedrooms but we had moved from a five bed place - albeit smaller.
We’ve got four kids. The loft room will be for our eldest (15yr old) daughter. I would add that we’ve employed builders to do the work – I don’t have the time or the skills! Also, we had about half a dozen companies bidding for the design/build but none of them came up with a design that really worked.

With our property it was VERY hard to get a design that worked, especially the stairs In the end we designed it ourself using ‘Google Sketch’, which a simple (and free) CAD program – it was amazingly helpful in helping us to visualise the thing and mess around with designs before knocking half the house down!

So much so, that builder who we are using now uses the software himself to do his own design work and to secure new clients.

Pictures as follows, in some sort of date order!!!

Before from the front:

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In the loft (before):

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Steels going in:

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From the back:

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Timbers start to be removed / altered:

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Windows start to go in. The room is a ‘T” shape so it’s tricky to photograph:

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We had nine windows in total, 6 at the back and three at the front:

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The plastering took a week and a half:

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We needed to replace every door on the hall, stairs and landing (14 in all) to half hour fire doors (building regs). We opted for some oak ones in the end and we ended up replacing every door in the house (20) because we wanted them all to match.

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First floor landing before the stairs went in:

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We found some nice oak stairs from some Swedish manufacturer my missus found on the web. We wanted to keep a feeling of ‘space’ in the landing:

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From the (new) upper landing:

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The door in the background is a large (20ft X 20ft) storage cupboard for storing all the crap we had in our loft!

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One side of the bedroom (it;s an ‘L’ shape remember)

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And the other side (radiators now in):

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The (half complete) ensuite. It will have a toilet, shower, sink etc... all fitted and tiled by the end of June:

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Her view from a rear window:

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And from a front window:

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The project is due for completion at the end of June, following which we will be painting & decorating the walls / skirting boards ceilings, carpeting throughout, putting blinds on the windows and putting in new guttering/fascias/soffits. Then we will be going on a well earned holiday!

The next project (by Christmas) will be putting in a home cinema in a downstairs room which is hardly ever used.
 
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Very pleasant viewing and looks a superb job.

Look forward to your completion pics. :D
 
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Nice house! Looks like a good job too.
 
I use Google Sketch up too for my decking projects, it is a great program to use for designing anything and easy as well. My customers really like to see how various styles will go with their house and garden and this shows the designs off well I find!

Nice job and house by the way ;)
 
hi looks great and the stairs are very nice and open just what we wanted in ours but budget wise impossible to have..good job
 
Looks lovely and really bright and airy. Those stairs really make it. you must be really chuffed.
 
i am planning a DIY loft conversion. thanks for the tip on google sketch.

we may replace our doors as well. how much did you pay for each new oak door? and do you know the cost of the staircase?

thanks
 
i am planning a DIY loft conversion. thanks for the tip on google sketch.

we may replace our doors as well. how much did you pay for each new oak door? and do you know the cost of the staircase?

thanks

Can’t remember exactly what the price for the doors was but I seem to recall about £200 each (somewhere in that ballpark). The staircase cost about £6000 to but and about £800 to have it fitted (again, in that ballpark). So far, we’ve spent about £100,000 in the last on all our home improvements (decorating, carpets, guttering, etc..)

In the next couple of weeks we need to replace the upstairs balustrading, put down a new carpet for the hall, stairs and landing finalise some of the painting of the skirting board throughout the whole house. My missus is also putting a particular wood treatment on all the oak doors. Then we need to decorate another bedroom, following which I’m gonna make a start on a home cinema / second lounge in a large spare room we’ve got downstairs!
All things being equal (which they seldom are) you can see all the current pics here:

http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb303/srebbe64/Loft Conversion 2008/?start=0
 
Well we finally finished the thing (well, virtually) and we’re now actually using the space to live in.

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We’re gonna get her a bigger desk for her birthday, cos this one looks too small in the loft room:

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The only thing we’re waiting for is the shower door which we’ve had to have made because it’s an odd shape:

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Bathroom flooring went down last week:

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Mirror on the wall and ‘voila’ – finished!

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The downstairs is now completely redecorated, the only thing left is to change the balustrading on the first floor and to put a new carpet on the hall stairs and landing. Realistically this won't be done for a couple of months because the balustrading comes from Sweden and there's a six week lead time - and we can't carpet until that's sorted. But it's perfectly okay to live in.

One additional benefit is that my 17yr old son is making a few quid. When I showed the MD of the loft conversion company the 3D graphics on my PC and he said "that is brilliant, I should do that". My lad gave him the website address and thought no more of it. A few days however later the chap phoned my son up asking him a few technical questions, which he duly answered. Then again the next day, and the next day.... In the end my lad asked "what's your conversion rate of enquiry to order?" and he replied "20%". My lad then asked "what's the average price?" and the chap said "£40k". Then my kid said "I'll do all your drawings for you if you give me 1% of the contract on the orders you receive (one in five). As such, my lad's been doing drawings for him (which takes him about three hours per drawing) and about every fifth drawing he earns about £400 pocket money - which ain't bad for 15 hours work for a 17 yr old with no overheads). And he enjoys it so it's a labour of love and it's something to put on his CV.
 
That looks wonderful, I bet it's really helped with the value of your home too.

I think I'll get & use Google Sketchup too.
 
Well my daughter's been in her new bedroom for about 24 hours and this morning I found a note on my study desk which read: “Dearest darling father, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve taken the decorating to the next stage X X X”. So I wander on up there and this is what I see:

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Honestly, teenagers, they drive you nuts at times!
 
Welllll, it was a bit plain & boring :D

Got yo have a splash of colour every now & again even if it is McFly posters :D

Just look at it like this, its personalised & at least she has not painted the room black like my kids keep wanting to do.
 

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