Small extention costs?

[toryroo (Tory Abney)]

This is probably a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question but I was wondering if anyone has done similar and could give me a ball park. We have struggled a bit with how to make our barn house work best and our kitchen living is currently a long room with one end under ground (we are on a hill) facing the front of the house / road. We didn’t realise really how much height difference between the house and the old porcherie (stone lean to extension) on the garden side so our original plans for breaking through to have access can’t work. We’ve recently realised that there is one place we can get a door through (once we redo the stairs!) which would give us much more diret access to the garden and bring more light through and give me the chance to get the kitchen out of the living / dining. I can get a long galley kitchen (it is around 5m) in but I’d LOVE to extend it out to make a big square kitchen so say 2m or 3m along the 5m wall. We wouldn’t need anyone to do the kitchen fitting etc just the extension (we could do it ourselves but we have SO much to do I think it would be worth exploring how much this would cost.). If anyone has done a similar size extension I’d love to hear. The walls are solid stone and there is a terrace outside around where we’d put the wall out to so already flat.

Any thoughts much appreciated! On the upside, I can add the galley kitchen and extend later so it isn’t a one or another situation.

[Graham_Lees]

What about building a wooden framed building extension on suitable footings? There are companies in France who construct wood frames and some in the UK (we used a UK company to construct the frame for our wood frame new build).
We were surprised at just how little the frame actually cost - even shipping it out to France!
IIRC the wood used was Douglas Fir with glulam beams for large span areas. The outside elevations are clad in a pressure board (OSB) with a waterproof membrane on the outside of that. We then used Marley eternit cedral weatherboard cladding for the final outside finish. We specified the window opening sizes which were incorporated and bought the windows from France. The inside walls were clad in plaque (plasterboard) and skimmed using French plaster - same with the ceilings.
This picture is useful as it shows the outside and through a window to the inside opposite…

4 Types of Wood Used for Timber Frames

The panels come in manageable sections which are butted and nailed together to provide integrity as well as secured by air hammer to the concrete block base. You can either have a raft type concrete base or I beams bridging the gap giving an air pocket below the floor (for such things as services) dependant on site conditions.

Basically, taking this approach as we did, allows you to keep your finger on the button and have more control over costs - doing things as you go and funds become available.

The finished product:

[Mat_Davies]

How much would it cost for extension? Way more than you imagine, and quite a bit more than the devis from my experience!

[letstryagain (damian john)]

As ever it depends on how much of the work you can do yourself. If 100% then usually quite affordable…if 0% then about four times the price.

[toryroo (Tory Abney)]

Thanks everyone! A pipe dream I think to get it done by someone else!

@Graham_Lees

What about building a wooden framed building extension on suitable footings?

Looks mighty like an Aussie new build!!! I think it would spoil our gorgeous 50cm thick stone walls - I’d like to keep them and have lots of windows! Funny one of the reasons we never bought during our 8 years back in Oz was that we just couldn’ bear buying a house without thick stone walls! I’m sure when we are older we’ll have other thoughts on that!

@letstryagain

As ever it depends on how much of the work you can do yourself. If 100% then usually quite affordable…if 0% then about four times the price.

This is the issue - we CAN do everything, hence still living on a building site 5 years on - between a baby / family / illness it all takes time! I just thought that a ‘little’ job might not be too bad - silly me

[Graham_Lees]

@toryroo

I think it would spoil our gorgeous 50cm thick stone walls

You need an open mind on that @toryroo
The external walls of our build are 200mm stuffed with rockwool insulation. You probably need something like that for new building regs. If you are going to do an extension, you are going to have to pierce the outer skin anyway
On the outside, there would be nothing to stop you cladding the extension with stone (as opposed to the Marley cladding) giving an impression of continuity. It will be fairly simple to tie the wood frame into the existing stone structure and the stone cladding will disguise what lies underneath.
It would then remain something you could self-build and control directly.
I designed our place from scratch. We employed a local company to get the plans approved and let contracts to jobbing builders to perform specific tasks to a price (such as erecting the frame and ground works etc).
You can do it and the finished result can be terrific! I’ve heard of others who have taken a similar approach and constructed a wood frame building inside a barn so as not to alter the kerb view and maintain the local appearance. The opportunities are there with a little forethought and flexibility. You could even make the wood panels yourself… it’s not rocket science.

[toryroo (Tory Abney)]

Some really good points there Graham, I was kind of picturing taking out the wall and moving the whole thing forward 3 metres but of course it would make the stone go much further if clad (I can still reuse the old stones / door frames etc) framework, in fact would probably mean I had enough original stone to do the new side walls as well

We also have our old tobacco barn to turn into a gite at some point and you are right this would be an awesome and quick way to do it while maintaining the exterior (except windows of course!)!

Hubby certainly has the wood working skills! He’s going to hate me!

[letstryagain (damian john)]

I appreciate how you feel Tory. I can do all the work myself likewise barring a few things that I employ artisans for like roofing set up and zinc work, plastering larger areas etc. It works out at a fraction of the cost as you well know, not only because you save on labour but because you can shop around for materials in arrivages, Leboncoin etc rather than paying the contractor who has bought at somewhere like ‘Point P’ where he has his account and then added a bit.

As far as style goes we added a modest wood frame extension to accommodate a downstairs WC, buanderie and air pump controls in our previous house and it looked good against the traditional stone house. I did ‘blend it in’ with traditional ardoise roof and guttering etc.