Background - the house and its history
The house was built in 1906 by Thomas Kingerlee, Master Builder and Lord Mayor of Oxford who established his Oxford building company in 1868. It's still going strong! You can read more about the history of the company by clicking here.
It's a typical late Victorian/early Edwardian mid-terraced house, built in brick with stone dressings under a slate roof, which still has many of its traditional features including fireplaces, picture rails, panelled doors, double hung timber sash windows and coloured glass panels in the front door.
The house has a typical L-shaped footprint, two rooms deep and two stories high fronting the street, with a smaller rear wing housing the kitchen on the ground floor and bathroom, plus a small bedroom above. There's a smallish rear garden facing south west, and even smaller front garden.
Although all the houses on my side of the street were the same when built, they have changed over time in subtly different ways. No gas or electricity supplies were installed at the time my house was constructed. These utilities came later, as did the internal bathroom and WC on the first floor. The original toilet was on the ground floor, but accessed via an external door in the narrow side return.
It looks like there was a major update to the house in the 1930s...Mr Barret, painter and decorator, kindly penciled his name and date of work on one of the walls downstairs and we found the 1936 "Abdication" newspapers under the linoleum in the hall when we did some renovation work. Nothing much appears to have happened to the house after that, until we arrived in late 1975. However, it has changed significantly over the last 40 years or so since then, as the family has grown (and shrunk again) and our needs have changed....
The old external WC and scullery with its stone sink and single cold water tap were knocked into what was described in the Estate Agent's particulars as a "breakfast room" to form one large kitchen with doors to the main garden; lighting and power circuits were replaced; a new boiler installed to heat the house and supply hot water throughout; the bathroom enlarged to fit in a wash basin, all fittings replaced and a shower installed; the loft was converted in 1989 when our second child was born to provide an extra room with its own toilet and wash basin. The whole house has been redecorated and floor coverings replaced many times over the years. Even the garden is now on its third redesign.
Why?
So why am I making more changes now?
This is all about future-proofing....I have been living here on my own since my husband Steve died in 2016, but family and friends visit regularly. I also work from home so still need space to accommodate both visitors and an office. In recent years a long term back problem has worsened, and now that I live on my own with no one else around to help out when needed, I need to make the house as user friendly as possible for someone in my position right now - minimising bending and lifting in the kitchen and crawling to retrieve items stored the under eaves cupboard space in the loft.
In the future, I may find it more difficult to get upstairs so a toilet on the ground floor would be useful, as well as a layout that could be adapted to living on one level, if needs be. Installing a shower in the loft will make a small self contained en-suite bedroom, perfect for visiting family and friends as well as possible long term live-in care in the future....and maybe a few Airbnb guests to generate a bit of income in an emergency!
What?
So...the plan is to build a single storey side return extension (about 2m wide and 4.5 m long) and open up the current kitchen, most of the dining room and new extension to provide a large kitchen/dining/living room with big doors to the garden. The oven and fridge in the new kitchen will be at worktop height so I don't have to bend over/kneel on the floor to get at things. The rest of what is currently a dining room will be sectioned off to provide a downstairs toilet/utility room and storage for outdoor gear accessed off the hall. This area could be made into a shower room in the future, if necessary. The snug front living room room will remain - a possible bedroom for me if stairs become difficult in the future.
Upstairs in the loft, the under eaves storage cupboards will be knocked out and the space integrated into the room so I can access storage without having to crawl on my hands and knees, as happens at the moment. The layout of the room will be reconfigured to fit in a shower where the headroom is at its highest - this involves moving a door. The small area of flat roof on the dormer which is well past its sell-by date will be replaced, as will the rotting timber windows with something that's easier to maintain and clean.
So there you have it....my very own "Grand Design" in which I'm playing a very active role in design and project managing.
How?
This has been a long time coming. We started discussing the idea while Steve was still alive, but undertaking a major building project is not a good idea when someone has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so the idea was put on ice while we focussed on treatment and making the most of life. After he died, I thought very hard about whether to stay here or move on.
In the end, I decided to deal with the problems presented in this house rather than go through the upheaval of moving and probably have to deal with more problems in a new house. Anyway, my neighbours are wonderful (and that's priceless), Oxford has much to offer, especially living where I do within walking distance of the city centre, railway station, River Thames and wonderful green open spaces....and its reachable for both my grown up children, one living in London, the other in Bristol. Having made that decision, it was time to put my grand design into action.
When?
2017
Early in the year I discussed my ideas initially with a friend who is an architect to see if they were feasible. Once assured that it could be done, I engaged an architect in May and started refining the scheme and talking to my neighbours.
By July, the drawings were far enough advanced to sort out statutory planning requirements. Although the extension was permitted development, I had to go through a "prior approval" process as the new build would extend more than 3m from the dining room external wall in the main part of the house (albeit not beyond the end of the existing kitchen in the rear wing).
By the summer, we were ready to submit for Building Regs approval via the "Building Notice" route, anticipating (naively) starting work shortly thereafter. However, before that could happen, I needed to find a structural engineer to specify sizes for structural steelwork and provide the calculations for Building Control. That search turned out to be a long and difficult process. It wasn't until November that I managed to get a structural engineer on board, by which time I had resigned myself to stating the project in spring 2018.
2018
Early in the New Year, we received the Structural Engineer's specifications (but not the calculations). However, that was enough to tweak the scheme a little and look for builders who would be interested in tendering for the job. In the meantime, rather than go down the Building Notice route, we asked Building Control to treat the application as a "Full Plans Approval" so I would have a bit of paper saying the works has been approved to put into my tender documents.
I wanted to find a reputable builder based on personal recommendations (I no longer trust websites like "Checkatrade" after my daughter's disastrous experience using a builder with glowing reports on that site who turned out to be a rogue!)
However, many of the firms I approached were already booked up with jobs until September/October time or were put off (I think) by the logistical challenges of building an extension on a mid-terraced house with no rear access located on a narrow cut-de-sac, with very limited on-street parking and no turning area at the end. I can see why!
However, three tenders were retuned, I selected one and we pencilled in a start date after the early May Bank Holiday. In the interim, the architect and structural engineers sorted out the conditions on the Building Regs Full Plans Approval. I kept my neighbours in the loop and served formal notices under the Party Wall Act to be ready to go in May.
As it happened (doesn't it always happen?) the building firm asked to put back the start date to later in the month so they could finish other jobs, which I was happy to agree as I'd has an unexpected stay in hospital and wasn't really in a position to start on the date originally planned.
Family came to help finish packing up items from the loft, dining room and living room and put everything into storage off site in mid-May, so that we would be ready for the builders to arrive on 21 May. Then followed another delay while the builders finished other jobs. We finally settled on 4 June as the new start date.
If you want to know what happened then, read the next post!
The house was built in 1906 by Thomas Kingerlee, Master Builder and Lord Mayor of Oxford who established his Oxford building company in 1868. It's still going strong! You can read more about the history of the company by clicking here.
It's a typical late Victorian/early Edwardian mid-terraced house, built in brick with stone dressings under a slate roof, which still has many of its traditional features including fireplaces, picture rails, panelled doors, double hung timber sash windows and coloured glass panels in the front door.
The house has a typical L-shaped footprint, two rooms deep and two stories high fronting the street, with a smaller rear wing housing the kitchen on the ground floor and bathroom, plus a small bedroom above. There's a smallish rear garden facing south west, and even smaller front garden.
Although all the houses on my side of the street were the same when built, they have changed over time in subtly different ways. No gas or electricity supplies were installed at the time my house was constructed. These utilities came later, as did the internal bathroom and WC on the first floor. The original toilet was on the ground floor, but accessed via an external door in the narrow side return.
It looks like there was a major update to the house in the 1930s...Mr Barret, painter and decorator, kindly penciled his name and date of work on one of the walls downstairs and we found the 1936 "Abdication" newspapers under the linoleum in the hall when we did some renovation work. Nothing much appears to have happened to the house after that, until we arrived in late 1975. However, it has changed significantly over the last 40 years or so since then, as the family has grown (and shrunk again) and our needs have changed....
The old external WC and scullery with its stone sink and single cold water tap were knocked into what was described in the Estate Agent's particulars as a "breakfast room" to form one large kitchen with doors to the main garden; lighting and power circuits were replaced; a new boiler installed to heat the house and supply hot water throughout; the bathroom enlarged to fit in a wash basin, all fittings replaced and a shower installed; the loft was converted in 1989 when our second child was born to provide an extra room with its own toilet and wash basin. The whole house has been redecorated and floor coverings replaced many times over the years. Even the garden is now on its third redesign.
Why?
So why am I making more changes now?
This is all about future-proofing....I have been living here on my own since my husband Steve died in 2016, but family and friends visit regularly. I also work from home so still need space to accommodate both visitors and an office. In recent years a long term back problem has worsened, and now that I live on my own with no one else around to help out when needed, I need to make the house as user friendly as possible for someone in my position right now - minimising bending and lifting in the kitchen and crawling to retrieve items stored the under eaves cupboard space in the loft.
In the future, I may find it more difficult to get upstairs so a toilet on the ground floor would be useful, as well as a layout that could be adapted to living on one level, if needs be. Installing a shower in the loft will make a small self contained en-suite bedroom, perfect for visiting family and friends as well as possible long term live-in care in the future....and maybe a few Airbnb guests to generate a bit of income in an emergency!
What?
So...the plan is to build a single storey side return extension (about 2m wide and 4.5 m long) and open up the current kitchen, most of the dining room and new extension to provide a large kitchen/dining/living room with big doors to the garden. The oven and fridge in the new kitchen will be at worktop height so I don't have to bend over/kneel on the floor to get at things. The rest of what is currently a dining room will be sectioned off to provide a downstairs toilet/utility room and storage for outdoor gear accessed off the hall. This area could be made into a shower room in the future, if necessary. The snug front living room room will remain - a possible bedroom for me if stairs become difficult in the future.
Upstairs in the loft, the under eaves storage cupboards will be knocked out and the space integrated into the room so I can access storage without having to crawl on my hands and knees, as happens at the moment. The layout of the room will be reconfigured to fit in a shower where the headroom is at its highest - this involves moving a door. The small area of flat roof on the dormer which is well past its sell-by date will be replaced, as will the rotting timber windows with something that's easier to maintain and clean.
So there you have it....my very own "Grand Design" in which I'm playing a very active role in design and project managing.
How?
This has been a long time coming. We started discussing the idea while Steve was still alive, but undertaking a major building project is not a good idea when someone has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so the idea was put on ice while we focussed on treatment and making the most of life. After he died, I thought very hard about whether to stay here or move on.
In the end, I decided to deal with the problems presented in this house rather than go through the upheaval of moving and probably have to deal with more problems in a new house. Anyway, my neighbours are wonderful (and that's priceless), Oxford has much to offer, especially living where I do within walking distance of the city centre, railway station, River Thames and wonderful green open spaces....and its reachable for both my grown up children, one living in London, the other in Bristol. Having made that decision, it was time to put my grand design into action.
When?
2017
Early in the year I discussed my ideas initially with a friend who is an architect to see if they were feasible. Once assured that it could be done, I engaged an architect in May and started refining the scheme and talking to my neighbours.
By July, the drawings were far enough advanced to sort out statutory planning requirements. Although the extension was permitted development, I had to go through a "prior approval" process as the new build would extend more than 3m from the dining room external wall in the main part of the house (albeit not beyond the end of the existing kitchen in the rear wing).
By the summer, we were ready to submit for Building Regs approval via the "Building Notice" route, anticipating (naively) starting work shortly thereafter. However, before that could happen, I needed to find a structural engineer to specify sizes for structural steelwork and provide the calculations for Building Control. That search turned out to be a long and difficult process. It wasn't until November that I managed to get a structural engineer on board, by which time I had resigned myself to stating the project in spring 2018.
2018
Early in the New Year, we received the Structural Engineer's specifications (but not the calculations). However, that was enough to tweak the scheme a little and look for builders who would be interested in tendering for the job. In the meantime, rather than go down the Building Notice route, we asked Building Control to treat the application as a "Full Plans Approval" so I would have a bit of paper saying the works has been approved to put into my tender documents.
I wanted to find a reputable builder based on personal recommendations (I no longer trust websites like "Checkatrade" after my daughter's disastrous experience using a builder with glowing reports on that site who turned out to be a rogue!)
However, many of the firms I approached were already booked up with jobs until September/October time or were put off (I think) by the logistical challenges of building an extension on a mid-terraced house with no rear access located on a narrow cut-de-sac, with very limited on-street parking and no turning area at the end. I can see why!
However, three tenders were retuned, I selected one and we pencilled in a start date after the early May Bank Holiday. In the interim, the architect and structural engineers sorted out the conditions on the Building Regs Full Plans Approval. I kept my neighbours in the loop and served formal notices under the Party Wall Act to be ready to go in May.
As it happened (doesn't it always happen?) the building firm asked to put back the start date to later in the month so they could finish other jobs, which I was happy to agree as I'd has an unexpected stay in hospital and wasn't really in a position to start on the date originally planned.
Family came to help finish packing up items from the loft, dining room and living room and put everything into storage off site in mid-May, so that we would be ready for the builders to arrive on 21 May. Then followed another delay while the builders finished other jobs. We finally settled on 4 June as the new start date.
If you want to know what happened then, read the next post!
Comments
Post a Comment