Extension Options

Compare different extension types from single-storey to loft conversions, understanding each option's benefits, costs, and suitability for your home and needs.

Brick Built Extensions

Many home extensions these days are conservatories or other buildings with a lot of glazing, but brick built (or stone) is still popular, for a number of goo...

Building Conservatories

The explosion in popularity of the conservatory as a house extension since the 1990s has come about as a result of three factors. The first is that double-gl...

Building Onto a Side Return for Extra Space

If you own a Victorian or Edwardian property it is more than likely that there is a side return running along the side of your kitchen or dining room. Renova...

Creating a Self Contained Annex

Many a new home extension is built to create a self-contained annex for someone to live in. But care needs to be taken to make sure that the extension is cle...

Extending for a Home Office

With increasing numbers of people working from home, whether it's full time or just catching up in the evenings, the need for a separate space for the comput...

Extending to Provide a Swimming Pool

Building an extension to provide a swimming pool is probably one for more well off house holders. But if you really need a pool, perhaps for a disabled relat...

Fitting a Gym in an Extension

Putting a home gym in an extension is a good way of using extra space. The whole family can use it as and when they want to without having to pay fees to a l...

Garages and Outbuilding Options When Extending

Garages are often popular targets for extension builders, either adding them if they don’t have one or perhaps converting them for a different use, accordi...

Knocking Two Houses Into One

This extension option, knocking two houses into one, is one that’s very close to my heart, as I live in a house that was created that way. Not with any lev...

Linking Extensions With Other Buildings

In our article "Connecting an Extension to the House" we touched briefly on ways of linking an extension to other, separate buildings. In this article we'll...

Moving the Kitchen to the Front of the House

One of the most popular extension options is to take some of the garden space at the back of a house and create a new family space. It's usually a combinatio...

Multi-Storey Extensions

Most people immediately think of a box on the back of the house when you mention a house extension; a single storey, usually giving more space in the kitchen...

Putting a New Kitchen in an Extension

Building an extension to make a larger kitchen is a popular option. Period houses in particular don’t have the space that modern living dictates for combin...

Putting the Roof on Your Extension

Once the walls have reached the relevant height it's time to top off with the roof and begin to get the build watertight, so that work can go on inside the e...

Roof Extensions

A roof extension is a big job as it will involve scaffolding and disruption throughout the house. But the advantage, adding a bedroom and perhaps another bat...

Structural Glazing for Extensions

Technological advances in glass making now allow large and strong glass extensions to be built, as anyone who watches property and design television programm...

Transparent Conservatory Roofs: Glass or Plastic?

Unless you are considering a tiled roof or a flat roof there will only be two choices for a conservatory roof, it's between glass and plastic. Both have thei...

Two Storey Extensions

A two-storey extension used to be quite rare but in the last decade or so, when the extension has become a way of making money as much as improving quality o...

Types of Roof for Your Extension

Roofs form a large proportion of the cost of an extension, particularly if it is a pitched roof, which is why a lot of people go for the cheaper option of a...

Using Wood Structurally in an Extension

One of the most dramatic developments in extension building over recent years has been the use of wood structurally. Taking inspiration from medieval barns a...

Which Flooring for My Extension?

The choice of flooring for an extension is just as wide as that for any other part of the house. If you're extension is literally an extension, giving you mo...