House into house plus...

Coverting your house - Extending your house

If you share, or intend to share, your home with a relative, tenant or independently minded teenager, how can you make the arrangement work? One way would be to divide off part of your home to provide anything from a full

size self-contained flat to a small bedsitter. Be sensitive to people's need for privacy. The mastery of a few planning and furnishing techniques and some bright ideas will give you a head start in making the conversion a success.

Above. In this small bedsitter space is saved by the fitted day bed which, by using a detachable back rest, doubles as a couch.
Nearly all houses-old or new-are suitable for dividing up. How you decide to divide your home will depend on two main considerationsthe size of your home and the kind of person you intend to share it with.

A smaller house may only be able to take the loss of one room from the main living area. A student or teenager may be able to live in one room but an elderly relative will need more space. A fairly sizable house might well provide two, or sometimes more, quite adequate flats.

Teenager's bedsitter

For a teenager it's best to choose a room in a secluded part of the house-as far away fromthe rest of the family as possible. Your best thought out design scheme will be ruined if you or your neighbours cannot get to sleep for the noise of pop music, or the sound of the television makes it impossible for your teenage child to study.
It's important to get the priorities right at the outset. Room for a bed, study area and the storage of clothes are essential as is some sort of bookcase or bookshelves. Most teenagers enjoy entertaining their friends and listening to records so allow as much space as possible for these and similar activities.
Clothes storage
You will find that built-in cupboards offer the best solution to the problem of clothes storage. Built-in units tend to be expensive to buy. An easy and economical alternative is to build a hanging rail and shelves in an alcove or chimney recess, and cover with a curtain. You could make the curtain in a material matching the window curtains. However, a plain fabric, chosen to match the walls, would be less conspicuous and would help give the room the uncluttered look you will need to encourage.
If the room you are converting is very small it
may be best to banish clothes to a chest on the landing or a cupboard in the hall.

The bed
The most bulky item of furniture in the bedsitter is the bed. Because of this it will either have to double as sitting accommodation or disappear altogether during the day. Folding beds may, on the face of it, appear a good solution. This, in fact, is not true-folding beds tend to be expensive and are rather cumbersome. Also, they do not save as much space as you may think as a fair amount of floor space

Study area

You will need to provide a study area of some kind in a teenager's bedsitter, but this needn't be lavish or expensive. Simply build a horizontal board, with a paint or plastic laminate surface, into an alcove. Plastic laminate is better than paint as it retains its good looks much longer than paint does and requires less maintenance.
Teenagers usually require a lot of space so you would be wise to keep furniture to a minimum in the bedsitter. Most teenagers have a lot of books and records which take up a great deal of room by themselves. For this reason decorations should encourage an uncluttered atmosphere. A wall full of posters will be colourful enough without competing with a background of patterned wallpaper.
Cork is excellent for use as a pinboard and is attractive when used as a wall covering. You may find the dark brown colour of the cork rather overpowering. If this is the case use it on a short wall, in an alcove or as a panel behind the bed, where it could double as a headboard. Cork is also valuable for heat and sound insulation.
Dancing is a popular hobby with teenagersanother reason for providing as much floor space as possible. For this reason choose a hard wearing floor covering. You may find the steady thud of dancing feet less disturbing if you cover the bedsitter floor with a good quality cord carpet with a thick underlay. This will also withstand the harsh treatment of dancing better than ordinary carpeting materials like wool and nylon. It is also less expensive.
P
ick a decoration scheme that contrasts with the hall outside and the rest of your house to emphasise the room's separate identity. More than likely your teenage child will have firm ideas about what he or she wants and should abe consulted at every step of the conversion. Unless your teenager's schemes are very expensive or impractical try to give him or her the final say.

Students' room for letting

Try to pick a downstairs room by the front door, or one with French windows, so that the student can come and go without disturbing anyone. Ideally there should be a downstairs lavatory and washbasin that they can use while you and your family use an upstairs bathroom. Otherwise it would be worth installing a washbasin in the room-particularly if the letting is to be long term. If the room is to have cooking facilities install a sink that can double as a wash basin.

Some kind of cooker will be necessary unless the student is to eat with the family-an arrangement which doesn't suit most students and one which is often inconvenient for you. Surprisingly, an ordinary cooker is often a better choice than a mini one specially designed for bedsitters as they cost very little more in terms of either space or money. Also they offer more facilities for cooking full scale meals than do the small cookers.

A good place to put the cooker would be in an alcove on one side of the chimney breastpossibly with clothes storage in the alcove on the other side. The area of the chimney breast between the two alcoves could be bridged by shelves and, perhaps, a lift-up flap to serve as a table for dining and studying. You may need to remove the fireplace-a messy but fairly simple. Your fireplace is probably obsolete, and there are much more convenient forms of heating available.

It is best to knock out the whole flue except the side supporting piers to gain space unless the chimney houses a fireplace which is in use on the floor above. This way you will gain more space than by simply plastering up the hole.
There should be enough space in large rooms to create a combined kitchen area and lobby by building a partition jutting out into the room about 2ft (600mm) from and at right angles to the door. Make this about 6ft (2m) rather than ceiling height so that the room is only partly divided and does not loose its ventilation and sense of spaciousness. Range the cooker and shelf unit along the partition, facing the door.

This will screen them from the rest of the room. If you are lucky enough to have space for a sink unit it can serve as a washbasin as well-always supposing that the student is diligent at washing up and clearing dishes out of the way.
If you have an older house and have chosen an upstairs room to let to a student, the landing outside may offer scope for conversion into a kitchen area. Here an extractor hood would be desirable to prevent cooking smells drifting around the house.

If the room is not being designed for a particular individual, pick furnishings with general appeal. Neutral coloured walls and floors, and walls combined with bright curtains and bedcover, would be ideal. If the room looks rather bare after conversion remember that the student's personal possessions will add colour. Remember too, that this is a multi-purpose room, which means that the decor will need to be nondescript to form a background rather than a blaze of colour which would be tiring to live with permanently.

Room/flat for an elderly relative

Whether lack of money, ill health or loneliness are the reason for sharing, old people's independence should be respected and fostered if the arrangement is to work smoothly and without everyone getting on each others' nerves.
Spare as much space as possible-even if it means sacrificing convenience elsewhere. An elderly person needs more than one room to live in permanently. A lifetime's possessions will have to be fitted in and, unlike a student or a teenager, an old person is likely to be at home

for most of the day. Also, many of the space saving ideas that are ideal for the young don't suit old people-cushions on the floor, beds that double as settees and the like.
As well as a living room try to provide an entrance hall, a bedroom and a kitchen and bathroom-however small. Apart from convenience, any one of these would help enlarge the space and overcome the claustrophobic effect of living in one room.
Aim to make the area as self-contained as possible, even if this involves nothing more complicated than erecting a door across the hall to turn a section into an end room. The psychological benefit of having a proper entrance to the room will be enormous. It will also act as a sound barrier.
A ground floor room is an advantage, but not always essential. You shouldn't underestimate most old people's ability to climb stairs, if taken slowly and not too often. Peace and quiet and bathroom accessibility are far more important. An upstairs room with a balcony for growing flowers and watching the outside world would be preferable to a downstairs room with no outlook.
You will need to install some facilities for
Above. Small corners can be made very cosy indeed by suitably placed lighting, and careful -indeed of fabrics. The use of open shelved room dividers provides ample storage space.

cooking, because old people like to be able to brew a pot of tea or cook light meals to preserve a degree of independence. Try to provide a proper kitchen even if it is fairly modest. It need only be a glorified cupboard without daylight. Often space can be found by slightly reducing the size of an adjoining room and rebuilding the partition walls to incorporate the new kitchen.
Installing a bathroom presents slightly more of a problem because of the plumbing. Any drainage alterations need approval from the local authority and you may need planning permission where major alterations are involved. This is not as off-putting as it may sound as sensible proposals should get permission without trouble, although you may experience some delay. The closer your new bathroom is to existing plumbing installations the less expensive the job will be.
Let the old person choose their own decor and furnishings even if their tastes are radically different from your own-remember you don't
7
have to live in the room. Should they ask for guidance try to discourage deep colours and bold patterns which, although practical, would enclose the room. Pale colours in easy-tomaintain finishes and materials are the answer. Try to make the room look like a living room rather than a bedroom. This will make it easier for the old person to entertain friends.
Be conscious of safety factors. Fit cupboards at a sensible height to avoid too much bending or reaching. All movable furniture should be fitted with castors. Do not leave trailing wires lying around or put any loose mats in the room. The bath should have handgrips to enable the old person to get in and out without difficulty. Electric points should be installed at waist height and not at skirting board level to save the old person from too much bending. These small details make the elderly feel wanted and welcome when living with the family-instead of an encumbrance.

Self-contained flat

Discretionary grants are available in Britain for dividing houses into self-contained flats. Apply to your local authority at an early stage of the planning as requirements vary from area to area and approval must be given before work commences. Almost certainly structural and drainage alterations will have to be made, and permission will have to be obtained for these.

Weigh up the financial pros and cons of adding an extension against the extra letting or selling price for a flat with additional space.
A two storey bathroom extension built on the back of the house is a good idea which has become popular. Plumbing costs are saved because the bathrooms are literally on top of each other.

If you want to divide your house up, the easiest way to do it is by storeys. In a two storey house where the existing front door serves a ground and first floor flat, divide the downstairs hall to provide entrances to both flats. This will avoid the stairs becoming a kind of no-man's land. This arrangement will add the stairs to the upstairs flat.
With some houses it may be possible to build a side or back entrance to the ground floor, leaving the original front door as the entrance to the upstairs flat. This is cheaper than building an outside staircase to the first storey.

Removing and repositioning non-structural internal walls is not the major project it may seem. Don't be inhibited by preconceived ideas and when planning your conversion. Mentally remove and resite these walls until you arrive at a satisfactory scheme. If you do this you will often discover ingenious space solutions that were not immediately apparent.

You will find this approach particularly rewarding in older houses where the rooms are often unnecessarily large. These can be split into two or reduced in size to add space to an adjoining area.
Peoples' ideas on decor differ widely so it's probably best to play safe by painting all walls white. A gaily patterned vinyl wall covering could be used to add colour to the bathroom, kitchen and toilet. The flat will look bright and spacious and a future occupant can always alter the decor to suit his tastes without too much difficulty.

Converting your house