{"id":585,"date":"2012-06-26T13:14:27","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T13:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/?p=585"},"modified":"2012-06-26T17:24:13","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T17:24:13","slug":"extend-don%e2%80%99t-move-home-insurance-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/extend-don%e2%80%99t-move-home-insurance-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Extend, don\u2019t move"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does it ever feel as if your house has shrunk? Mine has definitely got smaller in recent years. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that my babies aren\u2019t babies anymore, and that our puppy Max is now a fully-grown black Labrador.<\/p>\n

We moved into our three-bed semi in south-west London five years ago. Back then, it was airy and spacious. Now, it\u2019s chock-a-bloc! Trouble is, with the economy still in the doldrums, we just can\u2019t afford to upsize and move to the area we really want to be in. So we\u2019ve decided to stay put, and use some of our savings to add some space instead.<\/p>\n

Fingers crossed, not only will our plans give us all some room for manoeuvre \u2013 very literally, for the children \u2013 but hopefully we\u2019ll boost our property\u2019s value when things do pick up a bit, and we can finally move out of the area and to somewhere with a bigger garden.<\/p>\n

Moving on up<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been saving hard and we\u2019re lucky to be able to afford to extend upwards and outwards. Our first job is going to be a loft conversion. We\u2019ve read that this could even add \u00a320,000 to our property\u2019s value<\/a>. Apparently, it\u2019s a good way to extend and it\u2019s generally the cheapest, as most of the structure is already there \u2013walls, roof and so on.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t want to take any chances with our hard-earned savings so before we started any work we checked with our home insurance provider to make sure it wouldn\u2019t affect our insurance and that we wouldn\u2019t need to amend our policy. Remarkably, despite the fact that UK home insurance policies<\/a> cover the building itself, renovations to structure, and fixtures and fittings in the event of an accident such as fire, as standard, almost two million people in the UK don\u2019t have home insurance. This means that even if damage is caused by someone else they could lose everything.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been big fans of all the Channel 4 property programmes for years, and we\u2019ve found the channel4.com\/4homes site a great source of advice. For instance, the section on loft conversions warns not to forget headroom, and says that any ceiling less than 7ft high will feel cramped. Seeing as my husband is 6ft 4 inches, we\u2019ve really had to think about the layout of the bedroom we\u2019re hoping to create up there: we\u2019ve made sure there\u2019ll still be enough room to stand around the bed, and we\u2019ll put the shower of the en-suite under the highest part of the ceiling.<\/p>\n

Outward extension<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at ground level, we\u2019ve also decided to extend the kitchen out into the garden. Again, I did a bit of research online, and Phil Spencer of Channel 4\u2019s Location, Location, Location<\/em> says if you\u2019re only going to improve one room in your house, make it the kitchen. We\u2019re going to take his advice<\/a> and ensure easy access between the three points of the kitchen triangle \u2013 the sink, fridge and cooker. So as well as adding to the square footage and installing a skylight to make the space light and airy, we\u2019re hoping that our work will add the 4.6 per cent to our home\u2019s value Phil says is about the norm \u2013 if we get it right, that is!<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ve set ourselves a budget for all the work and hopefully we\u2019ll successfully improve our home by adding space and value. I look forward to the day the kids\u2019 toys all have homes, and we all have a little more space to ourselves.<\/p>\n

This is a Sponsored post by Guest Blogger Lizzie Buckley, on behalf of Sainsbury\u2019s Bank. Lizzie is a busy mum of two and a part-time graphic designer.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does it ever feel as if your house has shrunk? Mine has definitely got smaller in recent years. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that my babies aren\u2019t babies anymore, and that our puppy Max is now a fully-grown black Labrador. We moved into our three-bed semi in south-west London five years ago. Back then, it was airy and spacious. Now, it\u2019s chock-a-bloc! Trouble is, with the economy still in the doldrums, we just can\u2019t afford to upsize and move to the area we really want to be in. So we\u2019ve decided to stay put, and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,12,77],"tags":[122,124,123,699],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improvement","category-remodeling","category-restoration","tag-home-insurance-policies","tag-house-extensions","tag-remodel-advice","tag-remodeling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeimprovementblogs.com\/hg-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}