tell me about extensions ...

we have a nice house, but it's not big enough ... our land is steep, so a lot of excavation would need to be done, which I assume would be expensive ...

so we're thinking of extending UP!

what sort of costs would we be looking at?

for the works - council permits (if required?), the plans, the work itself ...

and how long does it take?

in an ideal world, we'd have four walls knocked out to make the back of the house all open, and then a spiral staircase out there ('cause it takes less spack, and I'm guessing they're lots cheaper than a "normal" staircase!) and then some bedrooms upstairs ...

we'd also want a bathroom upstairs, but directly over the existing bathroom, to minimise the amount of plumbing required!

any ideas? tips?

TIA!

Spiral staircases are not cheaper, they are about double the price.
For adding a second floor, I would think 100 grand ish.
Just a guess though.
My bestest piece of advice is, pack the house up, move you and your furniture somewhere else. You dont want to live in house that is being reno-ed LOL

For extending just out, and adding a a lounge/games type room, and a bedroom with an ensuite we were quoted 98k. That wasn't including light fittings, floor coverings, bathroom fittings or paint. just basically the shell of the extension. Up may be a bit more seeing as there would be reenforcing etc to be done.
Reno sucks!

EEP!
This has freaked me out! Everyone said I was over-estimating when I said it would cost us over $100k to extend (we want to build forward on a sloped block, with garage underneath, two bedrooms and a bathroom)... but I'm now thinking that I was being modest and there would be some excavation involved also...

My parents extended 17 years ago - cost $30k for lounge/dining room, bedroom, walk in robe and ensuite.

Another thing to consider - would you want everything to match, or would that not matter? Extra costs could involve painting, flooring, curtains/blinds for the existing part of the house on top of new for the extension ifkwim

For sure you would be looking at $100k in the very least to go up, maybe double that depending on the finishes you choose. A big cost in 2nd storey extensions is the fall protection hire - at least $10k alone....

I'm really interested in this too. We are talking about turning half of our patio into a toy room and a patio roof (we will do the deck ourselves). The room would be 4m x 2m and the patio roof. How much would be looking at roughly?

wow ... :o

We had two thoughts:-

1. just enlosing our patio in a queensland room type thing, with a power point or two, so we can have the exercise bike and the cross trainer and a little telly in there, so we can exercise, DS can play, and we're inside!

2. entending up, taking down some walls downstairs to open it up a bit, and having two bedrooms, a bathroom and a landing upstairs - and the back room and two bedrooms downstairs would just be an open family/meals area, with fresh lino or boards down, and the staircase.

I should find one of those building companies that come and do free quotes, so we can figure out whether it's feasible ...

we don't have much money, but since property prices have gone up really well in our area since we bought, we do have equity, so we could consider refinancing adn extending the time of our mortgage to free up the funds without increasing our repayments - but we really wouldn't be looking at doing it if it would cost too much... it would be cheaper just to buy a new larger place!

Building up costs a whole lot more than extending out. Even for a modest extension you would be looking at around $2000 per square metre. Your best bet is to get some plans drawn up and quotes from builders. The average builder charges between $50-$80 per hour also :o

We are looking at extending out the back- around 40sm and moving our existing kitchen (keeping all the same cupboards and set up - i just will need new benchtops as i'm adding extra on). Our quotes are around $75k and thats with alot of the interior work being done ourselves like the plumbing and kitchen removal and instilation and decorating. I'm upping that to $100k so i'm not shocked when it actually come to that amount!

The first rule about extending is to make sure you dont over capitalise - in most cases you can re-coup your costs after 5-7 years but sometimes it is better to sell up and buy a bigger house somewhere else.

We looked at going up about 18 months ago. 4 builders all quoted $200K PLUS the cost of what we wanted built upstairs (3 BR's, bathroom and landing area). One of the reasons it was so expensive was because we also wanted to knock out a couple of walls downstairs to open up the back of the house and this would have meant we needed a massive beam across the back of the house to support building upstairs. You can't just remove load bearing walls, especially if you then want to put more weight on top! We also wanted the kitchen and main bathroom reno'd. The cheapest quote (quoted to plans which were professionally drawn) was $298K total. The most expensive was just over $400K.

Needless to say, we devised Plan B and we now have plans drawn up to add a couple of bedrooms out the back! We have done some other stuff - new kitchen, new bathroom, polished the floorboards - and have discovered that it is much cheaper to do things in an 'owner builder' manner than to employ a builder to come in and do the lot.

our neighbours did this last year. they extended up, put in a new kitchen downstairs. the upstairs included 2 bedrooms, the staircase and an ensuite size bathroom. it took 5 months (good going i reckon!) and cost all up $203,000. this was with a builder (not an architect) and the big money drain they reckon were the dodgy draughtsman drawings as the guy didnt take into account the specs on the stairs and when inspection came for the sign off, the council found that it wasnt compliant (by like a few mm!).

they had to move out, so shacked up with their mum and dad. but if you dont have that option it's worth budgeting in a rental.

i have been horrified by how much it costs to get building works done here. but also i think we have added costs inner city as the blocks are really tricky and there are all these restrictions on access and heritage etc etc.

we'd be happy extending out rather than up, as we have loads of land, but it wouldn't be practical, as we're on a steep hill, and so would have to excavate quite a bit first, which is also pretty pricey ...

I'm thinking the kids can just cope with having small bedrooms, or sharing the big one, unless and until we move!

WOW:o
I have been dreaming about extended out: first stage putting three new bedrooms on and a new loo, on totally flat ground. I was hoping we could do that for under 60K.

Then we want to extend out another side a fit a brand new laundry and upgrade the kitchen (keeping some of the fittings and getting new bench & appliances). We need all new windows (seven in total), would like french doors x 2 sets and a new deck out the back. I was thinking 150K tops... Now I am not so sure...

Guess I should get the drawings done and start getting quotes, then I will know for sure I guess.

or find a good company who will come out to physically look at your house, your land, access etc and give you an estimate maybe?

good luck :)

I know friends who have just gone out and up and they spent the best part of $400K - they had initially thought $250K

We got quotes last year, it was going to be $250k to go up and about $200k to go out and we would have lost all our land. In the end because of the value of our land going up we moved from a 3br to a 5br and only increased our mortgage buy $150k. We got quotes from two bigger companies for free and payed a smaller guy to draught plans before making a decision to move.

We are in the process of doing a big reno, although it hasnt started due to... wait for it.... council permits!!!
Our draftsman cost around $6ooo to do all the drawings. We are going up out and back... so from around 11 squars to around 26 squares. We are knocking down walls so we need loads of steel.
Fortunately my brother is a builder so we are getting it cheaper due to favours and also my dh is an electrician so hes doing all that and some trade offs with work.
We are estimating it will cost around $170k... we have a buffer of $220k. And hopefully it will only take around 6 months.
I put in the permit application 3 weeks ago... hoping to get it back this coming week... apparently it shouldnt take too long!
Our surveyer is costing around $2000 plus any extra inspection.

I'll let you know how it all goes and the final costs. It works out better finacially for us to renovate than to move elsewhere....

thanks :)

Ok it took 6 weeks to get our plans through the council and even then they changed things on us..... but thats another story! However we have just done excuvating, concrete slab and footings and its close to $10k....

check out archicentre for price guides.

Our reno (going out) cost $120K and that was about 13 years ago. I think we were quoted about $250K minimum to go up about two years ago (one of the reasons we moved instead).