Extending your home - types of improvement

If you own a property or are thinking of buying one, there are many ways you can improve it to either create your dream home or satisfy your current space needs for a number of years. If the work is carried out to a good standard, it will also add substantial value to your home.

This part of our site looks at the various methods of increasing the floor area of a property (repairs and maintenance are covered separately on our site).

As you may only be interested in a particular type of improvement, we have provided separate information for each of the six main categories shown on the left hand menu. There is inevitably some duplication of information between categories but our intention is to be thorough and to introduce you to the most important aspects of all types of home extensions, assuming that you have little or no knowledge of the subject.

Under each category we consider the advantages and disadvantages of the type, permissions required, the cost of the work, how long the project should take, how the design and building stages are carried out and provide you with our own tips to ensure that your project runs smoothly. We have also included case studies for each type of improvement.

If you are considering carrying out a major property improvement, it is essential to consider all of your options before proceeding with a final design. You may, for example, have thought about extending over an existing ground floor structure to create a bedroom without realizing you have fantastic potential to convert your loft at a lower cost.

You must be clear about why you want to extend your home and what the room or rooms will be used for. You will need to consider furniture arrangements at an early stage which may well impact on the overall room sizes you require. Many designers use computer 3D software technology to help you visualize the space at an early stage.

At My Home My Garden, we are not trying to sell you a specific product or service so we have tried to provide the information to you in an unbiased way. There is, of course, some overlap between the various types of improvement but we have presented it this way for the benefit of users who may be interested in a particular type of work.

If you require further information on any specific project, try our ask our experts facility or if you would like a quotation from one of our approved tradesmen then go to our comprehensive find a trade section at the top of this page.