During the internal renovation I put in a cheap kitchen from http://www.diy-kitchens.com which was excellent. I would use them again when remodelling and reuse the carcasses. The biggest problem was the cooker hood. I shopped around to get a rated one with low decibels, but they must have got the extraction rate and decibel figures the wrong way around.
Good points on the glazing and thermal gain. The thermal calcs for cold weather must account for wet loop UFH. You are right on the problems of bi-folds, and I was cosidering just one large solid pane for the main view onto the garden, with sliding - or now french (as suggested) in the other half. That means we need to nail our furniture layout ahead of time just to be sure.
Howard wrote:This made me reflect on the project. Instead we had a new kitchen. And paying the £20k bill for this made me realise that to achieve the quality of extension I was planning would probably have ended up costing me north of 80k!bSo I decided to accept Mrs H’s view and instead of building, invested the 80k in shares (which have now grown to more than 240k!)
@Howard, this is a very astute contribution. As you may have sensed, I'm approaching the project with some trepidation given what is at stake. I mentioned workload and bereavement as reasons for a delay, add to that kids (9 and 13), a new dog, an elderly mother with failing health and an uncertain economic and business outlook. As such, the prospect of such a large undertaking right now is unsettling.
Option 1- Extension. Our 9 year-old is outgrowing a box-room and it would make a big difference to a crucial time of family life, plus offer a home office. The costs of moving to a larger property would mean moving from an area that is hard to beat. The kids have friends here and even the fixer-upper properties fetch a premium. I'm young enough (late 40s) to still have the borrowing power and it would be transferring from 'cash' to 'asset' columns on my spreadsheet.
Option 2 - Invest. We could pay off our mortgage tomorrow, make further investments and have liquidity and security. Our 50s would be a case of low stress work-life balance achieving a suitable threshold for FIRE balanced with the kids University and housing expenses (inheritances that would be ringfenced for the kids). That is a more tempting option as I'm not materialistic, but we'll have a teenage son caged in a small box-room.
Option 3 - Small Extension. We build a smaller single-storey wrap-around for 2/3rd of the cost, same mess, less appeal for future buyers, but we sleep at night. Change our house name to 'halfway house'.
Congratulations to those who got a house in the right area that was big enough for your needs first time around. Lesson learned!
N.