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Loft conversions are an excellent way to add value to your home and also give an extra room or two in your house. However, maximising the space when there is usually restricted headroom takes careful planning and design. Attic conversions can be done to give a play room for children, a luxurious master bedroom suite or just used as additional closet and storage space. While planning permission is not usually needed for a loft conversion, any changes must abide by current building regulations. It might be wise to take the advice of an architect and have proper plans drawn up or you may prefer to engage the services of a bespoke furniture fitter to work along side you and be actively involved in your plans to ensure you make use of all the available space. Loft conversions usually have the same floor space as the rest of the house but as they are in the eaves, there is restricted head room around the sides. However, this does not mean this space cannot be utilised. A recent TV show on Channel 4 featuring self styled property expert Sarah Beeny, followed a family converting their loft space into a sumptuous master bedroom. The family lived in a 1930's semi-detached, 3 bedroom, one bathroom house in Wembley. They moved in 13 years ago, but three children later and with up to 40 relatives to regularly entertain, the property was now too small for their needs. Their dream home, just down the road, consisted of a large 2000 square foot house, twice the size of their own house. However, the cost of buying such a house and moving was way out of their budget and so instead they had decided to undertake a huge 3 part extension project, costing around £165,000 and involving a large extension to the rear, knocking down the garage and rebuilding as a two storey extension and converting the loft space into a master bedroom with en-suite. The ambitious project was to be fitted into a 6 month time frame and began with demolishing the garage, while the internal layout was being altered. The builders then moved onto the loft area. The rule of thumb is that a loft conversion should allow for 2.3 metres of head room and on average will set you back between £30,000 and £40,000. One of the main issues when doing a loft conversion how much storage space you are going to lose. Usually our lofts are packed full of boxes of junk we no longer need but can't bare to throw away, old sports equipment that might come out once a year if you are lucky and any other bits and pieces that there is no room for in the rest of the house. Therefore when you are designing a loft conversion you need to consider how you can best make use of the areas with low head room. It is vital to work with planners and bespoke furniture designers from the outset. One of the bespoke furniture fitters featured in the Channel 4 programme used the alcove spaces around the edge of the loft to create pull-out shoe racks at around waist height and deep drawers were built into the rafters to use this otherwise useless space. As the space narrows in depth as the height increases, the drawers are altered so that at floor level you have the largest, deepest drawers, while the higher drawers are smaller for keeping accessories. One ingenious way of saving space is to use two back to back wardrobes to section off a part of the loft area to turn into an en-suite if the main part is to be a bedroom. This saves the need for a stud wall and gives additional storage space. Other wardrobes can be cleverly fitted with slanting doors to make the most of space. By using bespoke fitted bedroom furniture, a loft conversion can be both stylish and practical.
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