Deciding to build a granny flat is simple, designing and building the extension can be a lot harder. You'll have a lot of questions to answer along the way. Can you use a general contractor or is is better to use one who has built a lot of granny flats before? Is a template design better than a customised one? Should you let the person who'll live in the flat have a say in what it looks like? Luckily, I'm here to help. My name is Maria. We moved my Mum into a purpose-built granny flat last year, so I've had to answer all these questions and more. I thought it'd be useful for other people to see how we managed the process, so here we are — get reading!
The Different Ways You Can Extend Your Home
If you want to extend your home but haven't figured out which approach is right for you, continue reading to acquaint yourself with the various options available to you.
Rear Extension
Most residential properties have a lot of space at the back of the house. This makes a rear extension a practical option for most homes. Since most kitchens are located in the rear of the house, rear house extensions are great for expanding kitchen spaces.
The only limitation to how much you can extend out the back is ensuring your extension doesn't interfere with your neighbour's right to privacy and natural lighting.
Side Extension
While a rear extension limits you to extend the floor space that extends out to the back of the house, a side home extension allows you to extend over more floor space, as you can extend to the right, left, or both sides of the house.
Side extensions are great for extending centrally located rooms of the house. They are also ideal for adding a garage.
A new type of side extension that is quickly gaining traction among modern homeowners is a side return extension. This variation of a side extension stretches your home into the alleyway that runs to the side of the property to provide the extra living space needed.
Wrap-Around Extension
This type of extension is a hybrid of the above two types of extensions. It is typically seen on period properties with an alleyway space that extends to the rear of the property, allowing you to extend to both the side and rear of the property while creating an L-shaped extension.
It combines the features and benefits of both rear and side extensions, with the alleyway serving as a link to the two.
First- and Second-Storey Additions
Depending on the structural design of your house, you can create more space by adding one or two floors to the home. Both single-storey and two-storey home extensions maintain the original footprint of your home, but they can block sunlight streaming into neighbouring properties.
Second-storey additions can be quite costly but the cost of the extension may reduce after the addition of the first storey.
Most homes typically don't have enough space for a front-house extension. That's why front home extensions are not so popular. Plus, extending to the front of the house can significantly alter the architectural character of the building, something that is often not desirable. That said, there are many home extension possibilities beyond the ones highlighted above.
Talk to your home extension contractor to find out what will work best for you and your home.