Design the ideal layout for your loft conversion

Are you looking to add more floor area within your property but just don’t know where to start? At Home Tales, we can help you with creating your dream house extension in London, a city where housing prices are growing exponentially. Our clients are homeowners that have discovered the potential and design flexibility that a renovation such as a ground floor extension or dormer extension in London can provide.

Installing a loft conversion is an amazing way to add much needed room to your property. Having this elevated space allows for a quiet retreat from the noise of the ground floor level, whether it is a busy street or a house full of energetic children. It is a popular choice to put bedrooms, a home office or an extra bathroom here, specifically for the privacy it can offer.

Storage/ walk-in wardrobe

Following your house survey, you are given a clear plan of what can be done to your loft. Sometimes you can be left with a lot of extra floor area that can, surprisingly, make it difficult to fill the space. This is the perfect time to communicate to your architectural designer how much storage you require, especially to house the items that you had previously kept in the existing loft. We tend to place these built-in storage areas under low eaves or sections of the room that are below the 2.2m head height requirement. Without placing the storage here, this would become dead space.

A room that you may have not considered is a dressing room or a walk-in wardrobe. Have you ever tried on several outfits in search of the perfect outfit, just to turn around and find a pile of your whole wardrobe sitting across your floor? Having a walk-in wardrobe is a luxury, as you can keep the messy process of dressing in a separate space and close the door. Clutter can unknowingly cause background stress, so it would be amazing if you can accommodate one of these options.

Access/ Staircase

We have addressed this in previous blog posts, but we want to reiterate that the placement of the staircase to your loft conversion impacts the rest of the layout. If your access opens up next to an outside wall, there is generally not much impact on your dream layout. However, your access may lead to an awkward point in your loft, for example, the middle of the room or where you wanted to put your bathroom. Your architectural designer can work around these obstacles, but you must keep in mind how this can heavily influence your loft conversion.

The best place to start is to identify where your staircase will be positioned. Typically, they can continue from your house’s existing staircase as the basic structure would already be in place. Houses can have a small amount of space on their top floor to accommodate a new staircase. Figuring the stairs out will directly impact whether you can have a loft conversion, and influences the prospective layout of it.

Window placement

Putting the time in to carefully consider your window placement is a must, as a loft tends to be dark and poorly ventilated. There are a few options available, including fixed skylights, Velux windows or dormer windows. Fixed skylights are roof windows that you cannot open for ventilation, but allow for an abundance of natural light into your home. This is popular for flat roofed extensions, and most likely to be allowed without planning permission. A Velux window would offer the same set up as a skylight, but you would be able to open it to let some fresh air into the room. It contributes to a loft design with a luxurious feel.

If none of the previous solutions mentioned are appropriate, you can also opt for dormer windows, which not only offer natural light but can add extra space to a loft conversion. They are most effective on areas with a high pitch angle, but dormer windows would require external construction therefore planning permission is required. In all cases, we would usually refrain from altering the front elevation of the house, though it is possible to propose a small front facing rooflight. Apart from the discussed options, there are plenty of other window types available to you on the market that will suit your needs.

Bathroom

When clients ask us to include extra bedrooms in their proposals, they also tend to ask for a bathroom to create a nicely tucked away living space. Adding a bathroom is great because it saves you the trip to the bathroom downstairs, especially if you are a proposing a new children’s bedroom.

When choosing where you want to place the bathroom in your loft conversion, you must consider your whole property. To create a streamlined connection, it would be a great and practical idea to stack your bathroom and kitchen above each other. This ensures that you do not rack up astronomical expenses for complicated plumbing installations, as your plumber could continue from the existing plumbing below.

Project example 1

In this loft conversion, we installed a dormer extension to the rear elevation. This meant that our client was able to get all the rooms that they needed, which includes a bedroom, office and shower room. The dormer extension is the perfect place for the bedroom, as it faces the rear garden, therefore it boasts the best possible privacy in the house. The large home office is great if you need to work from home often and need silence. Our client also wanted a shared shower room in the loft, adding better access to such services, adding substantial value to this property overall.

Project example 2

We installed this spacious loft conversion for our client in South West London. Our brief was to accommodate a children’s bedroom and a large en-suite master bedroom with enough space for a dressing area. Similar to example 1, our clients have taken advantage of the peace and quiet of this loft conversion and chose to house a lovely living space, perfect for a growing household.

In this layout, the children’s bedroom could also be used as a guest bedroom, home gym or office, making that extra room versatile for your needs. If you have a ton of social zones throughout your house, allocating the new loft space for extra bedrooms can help balance out the function of your property.

We hope you now have a better understanding of how to configure a loft conversion and we would love to discuss any other prospective home improvement projects you may be considering. Please contact us on 02070432378, or you can email us at hello@hometales.co.uk. You can also book a free telephone consultation via our online booking form here.


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