canalsiderenovation

I think aluclad pvc will be better for us rather than aluclad timber due to moisture but this seems to lower the amount of companies that actually do Aluclad PVC, bad sign perhaps...

Thanks, some great advice. We will go to the Internorm Rohas showroom and go from there, but also look at the other companies recommended. If anyone has any recommendations for installers in the North West/Shropshire area that would be great.

We want to start looking at windows and I've seen two companies pop up a bit, Internorm and Rationel. We have also read arguments on alu clad timer and alu clad pvc so are going to look into this, particularly with us being next to the canal, moisture and maintenance we are thinking the pvc may be better but need to check internally the look. There is an Internorm Rohaus showroom in Stafford so that can at least be a starting point. Is there any other considerations or companies we should look into that are recommended? We have two windows around 8ft x 6ft but 6 others far smaller. The other biggie is we have 10 roof lights as they are our upstairs windows so that's a separate issue I guess, though I noticed there is another forum page for that!

We are looking at ideas for wood cladding. We are looking to have Tata metal cladding and then wooden cladding underneath the balcony as per the pic (we will also have skylights in the balcony which aren't shown on our plans), and also wood cladding on the underneath of our porch which will be partly flat roof. We are next to the canal and we want a wood that will be hard wearing given the damp conditions in winter close to the canal and Accoya has cropped up twice. Has anyone had any experience of using it, good, bad, alternatives? It won't be a particularly large area and won't have direct exposure as will be undercover but still want something fairly maintenance free.

Or I clearly don't know my North... Strange as we have the sun in the day where the extension and balcony will be. I'm rubbish!

I can't see the drafts can you direct me to it please?

Looking out from the balcony it will be west facing not north, yes that view will look towards the canal bridge and be of the longest part of the garden..

Good tip, I currently stay away every week with work in different hotels, Airbnbs etc and I've come across this set up a few times with living room accessible from the kitchen (our last house of 10 years had this set up too). I think I'd rather keep the big kitchen worktop instead and it'd only round the corner... Staying in lots of hotel rooms and bedrooms does give you lots of ideas and you come away with some real bugbears!

Ah OK I'll make sure they are pdfs. Definitely going to look into making the balcony into the bedroom, reworking the internal layouts upstairs and then creating the balcony so it provides some downstairs patio space as an extension of the dining area. I think we initially said 2metres ish would be fine as a balcony and we would rather the space in the dressing room/ensuite....

Thanks JamieL The Airbnbers won't have access to the main house as there is a door we will lock so they will enter through the sliding door and just have bedroom/ensuite and outdoor space, but something to consider re extending the space. We want more than a small Juliette balcony upstairs, and we did initially have a downstairs covered bit on the first plans but decided it would make the kitchen and dining very shaded, although we still like the concept.... Perhaps look at this again, thank you as we do still really like it. Its a great idea to put the bedroom where the balcony is though as this would mean we could then have a smaller balcony and the covered bit over the dining area. It also means a bigger ensuite and dressing room so we are definitely going to look into this more. Obviously need to rejig the bedroom door etc but we like your thinking. Take the comments about door from kitchen to living room, but decided against it, I'd rather keep them separate and it would into my long worktop space which I'm desperate for baking and cooking. The idea re two doors in the bathroom is that it can be accessed from the utility or the hall. We have a large garden and are always gardening so this will be a 'mucky' kind of entrance/access to bathroom without traipsing through the nice main entrance and hall, but if we are in another room access is also possible not via the utility. It's really useful reading other peoples views. It helps us a lot, sometimes just to reinforce why we have done things or makes us think again about what to change. Much appreciated.

Thanks so much for your feedback, you echoed some of our thoughts re balcony. 1 and 2 - if we are honest, yes it's a bit too big but it mirrors the extension downstairs so it's 3525mm. If we made the bedroom/bathroom/dressing room bigger and balcony smaller it would mean having an extra lintel put in upstairs after the original existing external walls and so it would seem to divide the bedroom up (I'm really not explaining this well) so the architects advised against it. I think we may backtrack on this though as it's eating into space which we would value elsewhere and if we do this use the division as a seating area in the bedroom perhaps. Without this we could make the bedroom smaller and bathroom/dressing room bigger as realistically we only want a bed but it would only highlight the huge balcony and small bedroom. 3. I think this goes back to how we were both brought up, the kitchen and dining area is pretty much where we lived and the living room was 'best'. We should have space for a couple of comfortable chairs in the dining bit we think, but we'd rather keep it separate. I've got some measurements now so we need to see if the sizes work for us. See pic. First one is downstairs, second one upstairs.

Err, no I don't think we do. In terms of the size, the only extension to the ground floor is out 3.5 metres where the current dining/kitchen area is which will end up being an open plan kitchen and dining area. The rest of the actual plot is as currently is as the rest of the extension is upstairs. We have an half acre plot, probably not easy to see from the pics.

https://pin.it/cvadb7wokacxnn https://pin.it/heux3hd5s6eowc

That was our initial question to our architects re rebuilding and as we actually liked so much of the existing building it didnt work out financially. That said we still need it replastwred, rewired, new heating system etc..... It does seem quite big, but I work from home mainly so need some kind of office space and the Airbnb bit is some potential extra income too in the long term.

Here is our property and our inspiration we hope it will look a bit like.

So, after some views on our remodel. Yes the bungalow is odd in its design but as you can see it works well in the layout as we have views of the canal and whilst most people would like to knock it down we are trying to keep as much of it as we can as we like it's weird shape and it works well with views, sunlight etc. There are just the two of us, no kids etc. The bedroom downstairs with ensuite will be used as Airbnb hence the door to keep it separate to the main house. As we get older it could be a room for us and also parents etc. The other bedroom could also have multi use as a study too. I'm attaching our initial house and floor plan and proposed. The proposed looks yellow but will be euroclad/metal cladding and a light render and wood underneath the balcony (see example pic). What do people think?

Rk doors seem very similar to those we have seen at http://www.spitfiredoors.co.uk/s-400-timber-doors/ but they do the wood effect too. Definitely will look into these thank you. I don't think we want glass in the door itself and @Bitpipe your idea I think sounds closest to what we are visualising, would you mind posting a pic?

Here is currently what we have.... And we don't want a door letterbox on our new door either.

Thanks everyone for your advice. It's hard to visualise things, but you can see attached one of our provisional elevation plans. It will be render with a dark grey steel type cladding, Vieo/Euroclad is our hope to match the grey windows/doors. Underneath the balcony we want a wood or certainly wood effect similar to this pic below. I think we are now considering a timber front door matched up with whatever wood effect we have on the balcony . Our entrance is currently like this and we like this set up to leave parcels, wellies etc, aside from the naff bricks so could replace that with a steel structure. Sticky wicket is that due to the location of our peioery the canal and river trust are suggesting the design is ran past them before pre planning advice with the local authority anyway so we will see. As it's quite modern I don't think a stained glass look will work. I'm trying to look at timber doors now. I did see some nice modern ones at a company called Spitfire in Macclesfield. I'll try and find a pic.

Thanks so much for updating. We are considering Euroclad and Tata for our roof and cladding, same colour as you too. It will all depend on pre-planning advice though and whether whether the LA and Canal and River Trust like it - they may insist in conventional slate tikes.

As an update to this, very interesting visit with the Nuenta rep, the sticking point is the depth which is minimal in the bywash. I'd definitely be keen to use the blades but they would have to be just after the bywash into the canal but we really need to get advice from the Canal and River Trust but trying to get anyone to respond to emails or phone calls is impossible. It would be easier to context Santa Claus! The technology and concept is however really good and we are most certainly going to try and pursue this.

Our architects are working on a design statement for preplanning advice. Strangely we had clear ideas on the metal cladding, render, sliding doors, slim window design etc but when it comes to front doors we are stuck. The house wil be quite modern in appearance but I don't like the modern doors or designs that seem to be associated with more modern designs that have been suggested like th epic below. Does anyone have any inspiration?

The bywash depth is definitely more than 600mm having stuck a pole into it it went deeper than that, but how deep I don't know and will need to check (more pics attached for clarity from different angles). From our time and our neighbours the bywash has always had continuous flow, there are three locks the other side of that bridge and 5 mins walk the staircase locks too. I guess once the Nuenta guy visits I'll have more info on if such a system is even viable where we want to put it, and then it'd looking into the figures and comparing it to an ashp.