How will the proposed relaxed planning regulations affect your build?

How will the proposed relaxed planning regulations affect your build?

Have you read the recent news stating that the Government has announced various ways in which it intends speeding up the planning process? This could be great news for homeowners like you who want to embark on building projects at home but want to do so in a more streamlined and hassle-free way!

At the moment, the measures are only proposals, but one idea is to relax the current planning regulations around building large extensions. As it stands, you can only extend by 3 metres without needing to seek planning permission. The suggestion is that this could be relaxed, with the new area extending to around 6 metres for home extensions. This is obviously good news for those of you wishing to add a rear or side single or double storey extension to your house in the next few years. The rules governing extensions to detached properties may be relaxed even further – keep an eye out for news on that.

More information will be announced soon and we’ll be keeping an eye on the news so we can tell our clients about how the regulatory changes affecting house extensions will affect them. Part of our service as a local builder is advice, best practice and guidance through the entire planning and build process. Some of our clients will no doubt hear it from us first, so we’ll be sure to have all the details to hand.

What are the current regulations governing house extensions?

– double storey extensions can be built up to a length of 3 metres (but can’t be within 7 metres of the rear garden boundary or 2 metres of any other boundary, and mustn’t cover more than 50% of the garden)
– for exact details of the planning regulations governing extensions (as well as porches, conservatories, outbuildings and other building works), you can download the General Permitted Development Order here.
– another handy tool is the interactive house gadget on the Planning Portal website which does its best to make planning law easier to understand!

Don’t forget that, no matter how far the planning regulations are changed and relaxed, you will still need good advice and planning permission for building projects at home. So choose your builder wisely. A good builder will do so much more than simply get the building work done: they will advise, guide, project manage and put you in touch with the very best people for the planning, design and build process. That’s certainly what we do for our clients. Get in touch if you think we can help you.

Don’t forget you can also contact us, chat, ask questions and stay in touch on Twitter – expert builders K Design and Build Twitter.

How will the proposed relaxed planning regulations affect your build? is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Local builder’s top tips for Autumn Winter house projects

Local builder’s top tips for Autumn Winter house projects

The nights are drawing in and the weather is getting cold and wet. Not the time to be starting an extension or commissioning a builder to work on your roof (you might not mind, but he probably would!)

Wet, cold weather affects the ground, laying bricks in bad weather is not advisable and then we have the issue of ever-decreasing daylight hours.

However, there is plenty you can get done at this time of year, with a range of building projects, renovations and internal works being ideal for October, November and December. Here’s my best advice as a local builder who’s been advising domestic customers in the Wokingham area for a long time.

Think about internal work that needs doing at your home, including redesigns and internal modifications. Focus on the inside of the house:

– is it time for a new kitchen?
– have you been thinking about a new bathroom?
– could you get some work done to floor coverings?
– how about changing your internal doors?

Work to the inside of your house can range from small touch-ups and minor jobs which make the world of difference, to major building projects which totally transform your home (new bathrooms, knocking through walls to open up space, even moving stairs and walls to alter the internal dimensions of the house). You can update a room or even create an entirely new one!

As you can see, bad weather and short daylight hours don’t have to put the brakes on building work at home. One last thing to add is that now is actually a great time to get the ball rolling on those larger external jobs such as extensions and conversions. Get in touch with us here at K Design and Build, we can talk you through the process and get you through the planning to building point, so you can progress a lot more quickly when the weather does pick up. We can put you in touch with the architect, the planners and even help you get a budget and timeframe together.

Local builder’s top tips for Autumn Winter house projects is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Loft conversion Crowthorne case study from local builder Wokingham

Loft conversion Crowthorne case study from local builder Wokingham

Here’s another customer case study for you – this was a large project and a very enjoyable one.

The customer came to us asking if we could transform their two-storey home into a three-storey, to create more space for their growing family. Of course, we said!

The customers are couple in their early 30s with two young children. They love their home and don’t want to move, but they could definitely do with more living space and this need will only increase as those kids grow up! They approached us in March 2012 and we began the structural work in July. I estimate that we’ll be completely finished by the middle of September.

This loft conversion has given the family one extra bedroom, an extra toilet and a really useful box room for storage.

As a leading firm of local builders here in the Wokingham area, we were able to put the client in touch with a trusted architect and help them through the planning regulation stages. When those initial important stages were complete, it was time to commence the build. Here are some of the key elements of this build:

– inserted steels to support the original roof
– put in crank steels supporting a large flat roof dormer with pitched edges
– built all the supporting dwarf walls
– knocked two windows through into the end gables
– levelled out existing joist work
– converted first-floor bathroom wall into a sliding pocket door system
– made sure all new and existing doors were in line with half-hour fire ratings
– prepped the exterior ready for tiling
– insulation and plasterboard work

The pocket door system is a great idea if space is an issue. Rather than opening on hinges, the door actually slides into the wall, minimising the need for dead space and making a really clever use of the space you’ve got. Definitely something I’d recommend if your internal redesign calls for a nifty door design!

Loft conversion Crowthorne case study from local builder Wokingham is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Case study from local builder Wokingham – my mother in law’s kitchen!

Case study from local builder Wokingham – my mother in law’s kitchen!

Just a quick heads up about a job we’re about to start work on here at K Design and Build. Depending on your experiences with your in-laws, you could think this is perhaps the most fool-hardy job I’ve ever taken on! Yes, I’m going to be doing an extension for… my mother-in-law!

She’s a lovely lady and I know the job will be absolutely fine, but I have been on the receiving end of a just a few jokes since telling everyone I’m going to be knocking through a wall and making a mess of my mother-in-law’s house. Luckily my own Mum brought me up well and taught me to always wipe my feet and tidy up after myself! So I’m sure it will all go smoothly. (Here’s a pic of me, my lovely wife and both Mums at our wedding)

My mother-in-law owns a house in Wokingham (where our firm of builders is based) and wants to extend out to the side of the property to give her more space for cooking and entertaining. She’s Spanish, and meal-times, family gatherings and socialising with food are important parts of her culture. Our design for a side extension will allow her to open her home up to more guests and enjoy the company of more people as she cooks and prepares food for them all to enjoy!

The extension will include a vaulted roof design to flood the new room with light and give the illusion of even more space. The new extension will create a spacious kitchen/diner. Here’s what we’ll be doing:

– knocking through the wall to the existing kitchen
– removing the kitchen, redesigning it and refitting it
– tiling the floors
– fitting new Velux windows to the extension for extra light
– including a few extras such as a TV on the wall in the kitchen
– adding some really lovely doors out onto the garden

Keep an eye on our Twitter feed for updates about this project (and the inevitable mother-in-law jokes!)

Any guesses as to what she was saying to me here? Caption competition time perhaps…. “you ever do anything to upset my daughter… or to mess up my kitchen!… and I’ll turn you into chorizo, buddy!”

Case study from local builder Wokingham – my mother in law’s kitchen! is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Kitchen design and refit case study from local builder Wokingham

Here’s another case study for you. We are proud of our work and love to share it with you so, when the client gives us the green light to share photos and details of their domestic project, we’re delighted to pop them on the blog!

Today’s case study is a brand new kitchen redesign and refit to a home in Wokingham. The client had been a top-end chef and still carried this passion over into his everyday home family cooking. So, he wanted a kitchen to suit his “cheffy” needs.

We took the original kitchen, which was dated and looking rather tired, and gutted the room. As part of the project, we redid all the electrics (running back to the fuse board) and had to put a lot of new wiring in. We redid all the lights, retacked, skinned, plastered and finally refitted a brand new kitchen.

As you can see from the photos, it’s now a lovely clean look in white, with black worktops and a tiled floor. The existing appliances were fine, so we simply reinstalled those. Our friends at Daton Electrical connected everything back up to the fuse board (as an aside, you can “like” Daton on Facebook here – a great firm of local electrical engineers who are available 7 days a week).

“We are so happy with the new kitchen. Having been a professional chef, I needed my kitchen to have a very specific design and functionality. I knew exactly what I wanted, and it was very important that these needs were met. Having met Karl of K Design and Build, seen some of his other building and kitchen projects, and heard glowing reports from other Wokingham residents, I felt confident that he was the man for the job.

“The flow of our kitchen is now perfect and I am in my element prepping, cooking and serving up in the new space. Karl listened to our ideas and fulfilled our brief fantastically. He makes every little detail count: even taking the time to build us a spice rack in what would have been a false cupboard. The work was carried out to the highest of standards and I would recommend K Design and Build to anyone who wishes to have the kitchen of their dreams. Karl always puts the customer first, which is all too rare these days.”

Kitchen design and refit case study from local builder Wokingham is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

House extension case study from local builder Wokingham

It’s been a while since we featured a case study of one of our building projects here on the Expert Builders blog. So, today I thought I’d post about this major domestic project in Wokingham. I hope you enjoy the pictures, showing the before and after, and lots of details along the way.

The property was a bungalow in a leafy area of Wokingham in Berkshire and the client was a young couple who had bought the house as a “project”. The got great value for money when they purchased, due to the condition of the bungalow. They decided on an extension to increase the property’s value and size. The client approached us, as a recommended firm of local builders, and asked us to advise and quote on a rear extension to the property.

We won the project, and got to work! This extension project involved taking off the majority of the main roof and extending it out into a new pitched roof – this can be used for a loft conversion at a later date, giving the client even more scope to add space and value to the house.

We re-felted, battened and tiled the entire roof and used our team of groundworkers for the foundation and brickwork of the extension. I did all the carpentry and roofing work, leaving the client with the bare shell. The extension itself was to be used as a kitchen diner (which the client fitted himself).

I hope you enjoy the photos as much as the client is enjoying their new home!

completed house extension pictures builder advice

House extension case study from local builder Wokingham is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Building projects for a rainy summer

Building projects for a rainy summer

Here we are in June and we’ve had more rainy days than sunny ones. With the forecast for Summer 2012 looking unpredictable at best, we thought it would be helpful to give you some practical ideas of how to approach domestic building projects during a prolonged wet season. After all, you don’t want to be building loft conversions or taking the roof off your house when it’s pouring down! Here are some tips from an experienced local builder about how to plan building projects in a rainy summer.

Start planning now
If a loft conversion is what you need to do, there’s no need to abandon the project. Just use the time wisely: start planning the project in now and set everything in place so your timeline leads you to the work being done in better weather. We find the best domestic projects are always ones where clients have left enough time for all the planning, design and building processes to tick along without being rushed. Talk to us if you want to understand more about what needs to be done (and in what order). We’re in touch with architects, planning officers and building specialists.

Internal redesign
Internal works are always a great thing to do in poor weather. Moving walls, changing doors and other such aspects of internal modification or redesign can absolutely transform your home, in some cases making into a new property in terms of how many rooms you have, how large they are and how you can use them. Internal redesign is a favourite for making better use of your space. And, of course, it doesn’t matter if it’s raining outside! (We always wipe our feet and clean up after ourselves!)

Extension to side of your property
Whilst you might think an extension is a no-no in rainy weather, a side or rear extension is actually very doable. The trick here is to knock through to the existing property only in the very latter stages of the build. This means your home and living conditions aren’t disrupted at all.

Renovating a new home
Maybe you’ve bought a home to renovate but haven’t yet moved in. Perfect! This means we can really get our teeth into the project and get everything done for you – regardless of the weather – before you start living there. This is a fantastic way to approach a project and gives us as builders so much scope to create you the perfect new home.

These are all great ideas for domestic building projects you can consider commissioning even during unpredictable weather. Our aim (in rain or shine) is always to keep clients’ living conditions as comfortable as possible. After all, it’s your home and we never lose sight of that.

If you spot any of the above tell-tale signs, give us a call here at K Design and Build. We’ll get it sorted for you.

Building projects for a rainy summer is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builder is Karl Nicholson, owner of K Design and Build, a building, kitchen and bathroom company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Our main website is here.

Bathroom redesign on a budget

Bathroom redesign on a budget

A new bathroom design and installation is one of the best things you can do in your home, whether you’re selling (it really adds to the value) or staying put (it makes such a difference to your day to day life). However, a new bathroom can be very expensive, often well outside people’s budgets. This doesn’t mean you can’t ever have a new bathroom. You are not destined to live with that bathroom which you inherited from the previous owners of your property!

As local builders and designers, we have found over the years that there are plenty of cost-effective ways to overhaul bathrooms without the cost (and timescales) of an entire refit. Here’s how you could have a new-look bathroom in no time at all.

1) We’ll come to your home and look at the bathroom, to see how it can be redesigned to suit your needs and wants without the cost and timescales of a large redesign and refit. At this stage, we’ll give you a free and no-obligation design assessment, and leave you with ideas, brochures, contacts and suppliers for great bathroom ranges, items and finishes.
2) You then have the exciting job of choosing what you want to do! Use our ideas, incorporate your own (we’ll happily advise) and come up with your dream bathroom. Go through the resources we gave you to choose materials, finishes, tiles, suites, mirrors, lighting and more.
3) We come back in, agree the design with you and source the items before returning to fit them.
4) You’ll be let with a brand new design to your bathroom but without a major refit. Enjoy!

Typical areas we recommend for this kind of bathroom design are:

– A wider bath (great if kids are growing into teenagers and you need a shower over the bath)
– Tiling
– Mirrors
– Lighting
– A different shower
– Cabinet space (can be installed wherever you can see the floor and there are square corners)
– A towel rad instead of normal panel radiator
– New taps and other fittings

Hopefully this lets you see how it’s perfectly possible to give your bathroom a facelift without ripping up floors, replacing entire suites and knocking down walls. It’s so exciting to have a new, fresh bathroom! Give us a call to talk about what we can do for you.

Bathroom redesign on a budget is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a small building firm based in Wokingham, Berkshire. See their main website here.

Maintain your home in rainy weather

Maintain your home in rainy weather


As the rain keeps pouring throughout May here in Berkshire, we thought you might like some top tips about how to keep on top of home maintenance. As an established firm of local builders, we’ve seen it all, from ancient guttering coming away from the wall (and nearly falling on someone!) to mysterious pools of water appearing where they’re really not wanted…

Look out for leaks, drips, water pouring from gutters, drainage problems and pooling water.

WATER
If you spot a big puddle of water in a particular area inside the house, there’s a problem. Get on to it straight away – give us a call and we’ll come round. Don’t wait, thinking it will drain away and dry up once the rain stops. Leaks and pooling water inside the home are an indication that something is up, and it will cause longterm damage. Please don’t ignore it.

GUTTERS
A constant drip or stream of water from gutter joints (either straight joints or downpipe areas) are a sign that all is not well with your gutters. Again, don’t leave them. Call us in. Damage to gutters is an important thing to sort out. We can either repair your guttering or replace old guttering (like the cast iron stuff) as this can be downright dangerous.

FENCING
In bad weather, fencing can take a real battering. Constant rain and wind leave it damp, bowed and unable to cope. Is it time to get your fencing replaced? Again, we can help, so just give us a call and we’ll pop round and tell you what we can do.

Of course, when the weather’s like this, the ideal things to be doing around the house are internal jobs like internal redesign, internal modification, carpentry and all those little odd jobs you’ve been meaning to get around to. Can we help? Give us a call, we’ll be happy to pop round and take a look for you. We’re based in Finchampstead Wokingham and travel around the local area, including Reading, Warfield, Bracknell, Crowthorne and Camberley.

Maintain your home in rainy weather is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.

Just moved house? How to make the most of builders & architects

Just moved house? How to make the most of builders & architects

Have you just moved house? Perhaps to a place which needs a lot of work, or maybe to somewhere with lots of scope, yet you’re not too sure what to do. As a local building firm, we often get called in by domestic clients who have just bought a house and need to understand what they can do with the property and how the process works. We can definitely help, and not just with actually doing the building work for them. Here’s how the process typically works:

– You move house (or purchase an investment property) and start to think about how the space could be used or improved.
– You contact a local building firm to visit the property, give advice and make suggestions – these could include side or rear extensions, internal modifications, loft conversions, restructuring or kitchen/bathroom refits.
– You then need to approach an architect to begin the planning process.
– Once any necessary planning permission has been obtained, you can call the builders back in (as well as services like electricians, plumbers and roofers) to carry out the work.

As experienced and trusted local builders in the Wokingham area, we will happily advise on building work but will also put home owners in touch with good local architects so the process runs smoothly. This in fact then gives us a lead time of around 4-6 months, during which time the client will be talking to the architect and moving the project along, before we can come back and put it all into action.

Are you looking to add an extension to your home, carry out a loft conversion, do internal modifications or restructuring? Talk to us; not only can we help with the building work but we can put you in touch with other professionals, including architects, to help make things much quicker and easier for you.

Just moved house? How to make the most of builders & architects is a post from the Expert Builders blog.

The Expert Builders are K Design and Build, a building and carpentry company based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Their main website is here.