Release Your Inner Garage

Seeing loads of adverts urging people to release the equity tied up in their home - equity they've slaved over for 25 years or more in order to own the damned thing; equity their kids are hoping to benefit from some day; equity that these loan companies are itching to get their grubby hands on. The best way to release equity in your house is to downsize, rather than hand a large chunk of it to loan companies.

Talking of equity, I'm at the early planning stage for the garage extension. 

The garage extension is the asymmetric bit on the left. I was going to have the workshop at the rear of the garage and the AirBnB kitchen to the rear of that, but it would have meant the AirBnB bedroom being right next to the workshop. Better to have the split at 90 degrees and have the AirBnB kitchen as a bit of soundproofing.

The workshop and kitchen would be blockwork clad in oak with a stud wall between them, whereas the garage area would be constructed of wood on a brick plinth and clad in oak. That reduces the overall cost. Probably won't have a traditional garage door, but either an open aspect with baulks of timber (oak or pine) or large, double doors with glass insets in the upper half, like you get in 1950s garages.

The AirBnB has exposed, oak toof trusses right to the top, but the extension would have a flat ceiling in way of the AirBnB kitchen and workshop, meaning I can use ordinary pine trusses to reduce the cost.

Heating in the kitchen would have to be electric, as there's no way we can extend the wet, underfloor heating to it. Domestic water heating would be with a small, 5kW geyser-type boiler, like we have in the cabins.

You might notice that all our external doors open outward, whereas the standard in UK house construction is for them to open inward. This is to save space inside the house, as inward opening doors create dead space. I've noticed most Scandinavian houses use the same outward opening design.

Going to be next year anyway, so there's plenty of time for modifications and to price the build.